Ada da Silva did not attack loudly.
She attacked strategically.
The first sign was subtle.
Ivie noticed it in the way the staff began to look at her—longer glances, hushed whispers that stopped when she entered a room. The warmth that had slowly begun to grow around her cooled into something cautious.
Unfriendly.
She told herself she was imagining it.
Until the lawyer arrived.
Femi was in his study when Ivie was summoned. The atmosphere shifted the moment she stepped inside—heavy, tense, wrong. A man in a gray suit stood beside Femi's desk, documents spread neatly before him.
"What's going on?" Ivie asked.
Femi didn't answer immediately.
"Sit," he said instead.
Her stomach dropped.
The lawyer cleared his throat. "There's been a concern raised regarding the IVF procedure."
Ivie stiffened. "What concern?"
"A discrepancy," the man continued. "The clinic received an anonymous report suggesting potential DNA manipulation."
The room spun.
"That's insane," Ivie said sharply. "I didn't—"
"The report alleges," the lawyer interrupted carefully, "that the embryo implanted may not be biologically linked to Mr. da Silva."
Silence slammed down like a guillotine.
Ivie turned to Femi. "You don't believe this."
His expression was unreadable.
"I believe in verification," he said slowly.
Her chest burned. "You think I would do that? After everything?"
"This is business," he replied, voice tight. "I need certainty."
The word certainty sliced deeper than any accusation.
Ada's shadow loomed everywhere after that.
The staff avoided Ivie. Her access to certain rooms was quietly restricted. Even the guards outside her wing changed.
She felt it most in Femi's distance.
He no longer joined her for meals. No longer asked about her appointments. His presence—once steady, protective—vanished behind closed doors and unanswered questions.
One evening, she confronted him.
"You're punishing me," she said quietly. "For something I didn't do."
"I'm protecting myself," he replied.
"And what about me?"
He didn't answer.
That night, Ivie cried for the first time since the contract began—soft, silent tears pressed into her pillow, one hand resting instinctively over her stomach.
She wasn't just carrying his child anymore.
She was carrying his doubt.
The final blow came swiftly.
A private investigator's report landed on Femi's desk. Altered documents. A forged email trail. Financial records linking Ivie—falsely—to an illegal fertility broker.
Ada stood beside him when he read it.
"She's desperate," Ada murmured gently. "You always did attract women who wanted more than they deserved."
Femi's jaw clenched.
"She fooled you," Ada continued. "But I never would."
The words slid into him like poison.
Ivie didn't wait to be thrown out.
She packed at dawn.
No confrontation. No goodbye.
Just quiet determination and heartbreak stitched tightly into her chest.
Vanny met her at the gate, eyes wide. "What happened?"
"I can't stay," Ivie whispered. "Not like this."
"But Femi—"
"He doesn't trust me," Ivie said. "And I won't beg."
They drove for hours, Lagos fading behind them, replaced by long roads and memories Ivie had tried to bury.
Benin City welcomed her with silence.
Her grandmother's abandoned house stood exactly as she remembered—cracked walls, overgrown weeds, ghosts of a childhood she thought she'd escaped.
She stepped inside and exhaled shakily.
"I'll raise them myself," she whispered to her unborn children. "I promise."
Back in Lagos, the truth arrived too late.
A second investigation. A deeper trace.
The forged documents unraveled.
The anonymous report traced back to a shell company—one Ada da Silva quietly controlled.
When Femi saw the proof, something inside him broke.
"She lied," he said hoarsely.
The lawyer nodded. "Yes. Completely."
Femi stared out at the city, chest tight, breath shallow.
He had doubted the one person who had never asked him for anything.
And now she was gone.
That night, Femi smashed his phone against the wall.
Then he called Vanny.
"Where is she?" he demanded.
Vanny hesitated. Then sighed. "Benin City."
Femi closed his eyes.
"I'm coming," he said.
Because if the world stood between him and Ivie now—
He would burn it.