“Welcome, madam.”
Nia thought perhaps he was mocking her, but his face held no joke.
Timba gestured gently. “Please.”
She entered the car in stunned silence. The door closed softly. Cool air surrounded her. Outside, Uncle Gideon’s compound began to shrink behind them.
Nia turned slowly to face her husband.
“Who are you?”
Timba held her gaze.
“A man who keeps his word.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No,” he admitted. “It is only the beginning of one.”
The car moved through busy streets, then quieter roads, then toward an area Nia had only seen from bus windows. Wide avenues. Trimmed hedges. Guarded gates. Houses set far back from the road.
“This is not where poor machine traders live,” she said.
“No.”
“And your driver called you sir.”
“Yes.”
“You do not truly limp, do you?”
At that, he almost smiled.
“I injured my leg years ago. The pain comes and goes. The limp is real enough. I only let people notice it more than necessary.”
Nia stared.
Nothing in her life had prepared her for this kind of confusion.
The car passed through black iron gates and rolled into a compound so large it seemed to carry its own silence. Trees lined the driveway. Warm lights glowed along the path. A fountain whispered at the center of a circular garden.
The house ahead was not merely big.
It was deliberate. Strong. Elegant. Restrained.
Staff stood by the entrance.
“Welcome home, sir. Welcome home, madam.”
Home.
That word struck Nia harder than the gates, the car, the house, or the staff.
Nobody had ever said it to her like they meant it.
Timba did not press her for questions that night. He led her through the entrance hall, past polished floors and quiet lights, into a peaceful wing of the house.
“This room is yours,” he said.
“Not ours?”
“Yours.”
