The afternoon heat of Lagos pressed down like a living thing, but Chinedu barely noticed it. The heavy manila folder in his hand felt hotter than the sun outside — inside were the governor's sketched routes for the Imperial Expressway, a project that could redefine Enugu's roads and put Imperial Holdings in the center of Nigerian infrastructure history.
But history was never built on paper alone. It demanded blood, sweat, and deals carved out in rooms where no cameras were allowed.
He had just left one of those rooms. The governor's handshake was warm, but his eyes had the edge of a man fighting multiple wars at once. "We'll do it," he had said quietly, "but you'll have to survive the noise.
Chinedu knew what that meant
The First Wall
The glass facade of Zenith's Lagos headquarters reflected the city's skyline, sharp and ambitious. Inside, in a conference room cold enough to fog the edges of his thoughts, the lead credit officer leaned forward, fingers steepled. In
"This expressway project," the man said, voice calm but laced with skepticism, "is too politically exposed. What happens when the next administration cancels it? We're not interested in being left with a billion-naira corpse."
Chinedu didn't blink. "You'll have state guarantees. And Imperial Holdings will stand for the rest."
The banker's eyebrow rose. "State guarantees can be overturned. What will you guarantee?"
"Twenty percent of the total," Chinedu said evenly, "from Imperial Holdings capital."
It was a dangerous promise — one that could shake his liquidity for years — but the silence that followed told him it had at least earned him the right to stay in the room.
The Pressure Mounts
By the time he left the bank, his phone was full of notifications. Opposition party spokesmen were already on air calling the project "a toll tax on the people" and "Chinedu's private money-printing machine."
Online threads buzzed with doctored images of him swimming in piles of cash while ordinary drivers handed over crumpled naira at toll booths. It was crude propaganda, but propaganda had toppled bigger men than him.
He needed a counterstrike.
Strategic Counter
That night, in the Imperial Holdings temporary Lagos office, he drew the battle map.
Tunde would meet discreetly with foreign investor representatives from Singapore and the UAE — not for immediate funding, but to float the idea that Imperial could bring in foreign capital if local politics turned ugly.
Ireti would quietly launch an agricultural PR push in Enugu, positioning him not as a toll baron but as the man keeping food prices low through Imperial Farms' school programs.
Temilade would use her growing legal network to comb through the infrastructure laws for hidden clauses — ones that could lock Imperial into the project even if a hostile administration took over.
Pieces moved. The board was set.
The Break Point
Two nights later, the governor, Chinedu, and the lead bank's board gathered in a narrow, wood-paneled meeting room above a Marina restaurant. Outside, Lagos honked and breathed, oblivious. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of grilled fish and suspicion.
The governor leaned forward. "I'll sign a state guarantee for your loan package. But the banks need to see your own money on the table."
Chinedu didn't hesitate. "They'll have it. Twenty percent. Personally backed."
The board murmured among themselves. One man scribbled something on a notepad, another tapped his pen. Finally, the chair looked up.
"We'll reconvene in two days," he said. "This is… not a small decision.
The Twist
They stood, handshakes exchanged, polite farewells traded. Chinedu stepped outside into the humid Lagos night, where the city's neon bled into puddles on the pavement
His driver opened the car door, but before he could step in, a man in a faded security uniform emerged from the shadows near the restaurant's side alley.
He held out a small brown envelope. "For you, sir. No name."
Chinedu took it, the paper warm from the man's hands. By the time he looked up, the figure had vanished into the crowd.
Inside the envelope was a single photograph — grainy, taken from a distance — of Chinedu leaving the governor's private residence two weeks ago. Scrawled across the bottom in block letters were four words that made his pulse quicken:
WE KNOW YOUR PRICE.