“He must be hiding something,” she said. “He has to be.”
The bitterness only grew.
A few days later, Chika and Obinna went into town for wedding preparations. At a boutique, Kemi found them.
“So even village wives shop here now?” she sneered.
Chika stayed quiet at first.
Then Kemi, unable to stop herself, accused Obinna of theft, deception, and pretending. She mocked his money, his work, his world, his right to stand beside Chika.
That was when Chika finally stopped swallowing every insult.
“You should stop talking,” she said.
Kemi laughed. “Or what?”
Chika stepped closer.
“You have taken and taken all your life, Kemi. And still you act like the world owes you more.”
The boutique went still.
“You took the marriage you wanted. You took attention. You used my pain like it meant nothing. Even what I lost because of you, you still turned into an insult.”
Kemi hissed, “You are nothing without pity.”
That was when Chika slapped her.
The sound cracked through the room like years of silence finally breaking.
Tunde lunged forward, but Obinna stepped between them so fast and so calmly that the movement looked almost easy.
“If either of you harasses my wife again,” he said, “there will be consequences.”
Kemi stormed out burning with rage, and that same evening she ran to their father, crying and twisting the story.
But the real cruelty still had one more act.
Mr. Obiora called Chika to attend Kemi’s formal marriage ceremony and used the occasion to pressure her into signing away her inheritance rights. Property that rightfully belonged to Chika through their late mother was suddenly being presented as something Kemi “needed more.”
“Why?” Chika asked when the papers were placed before her. “Because I live in the village now? Because in your mind I need less?”
Mr. Obiora looked tired, but not tired enough to stop.
“Kemi needs protection.”
“She always needed protection,” Chika replied quietly. “Even when the cost was me.”
Obinna stepped in. “What belongs to her remains hers.”
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