Chapter Four #2
‘Did you ever bother to look into the origins of this so-called legacy you’re determined to claim?’
Something sharp and hot lances me. ‘What are you talking about?’
Her lips firm and she shakes her head with something close to pity. ‘You were right. That night in your study, I saw the blueprints for your precious studio. And the land it’s being built on. Land that far exceeds what your studio needs.’
‘So?’
A fire burns in her eyes, fierce and pure. ‘So did you know my family owned a quarter of it? Before your grandfather swooped in and claimed it for expansion?’
The words land like a slap. My pulse stutters. ‘So you were creeping around for evidence to do what, exactly? To pull some sort of revenge heist? Humiliate the Bineys in the press? Dismantle my inheritance one damning press story at a time?’
My voice is low, sharp-edged with disbelief, but underneath it, something brittle splinters. Because perhaps I’d held onto some misguided notion that I’d guarded myself against history repeating itself. That I was infallible to such antics.
Bitterness curls through me as I watch her, a part of me abstractedly impressed when she doesn’t even flinch.
When the fire in her eyes grows, holier, purer. As if she’s the wronged one in this.
She lifts her chin, voice steady but trembling at the edges.
‘You think this is about headlines? I was chasing justice…reparations for a family stripped of their future so yours could hoard power dressed up as legacy.’ Her fingers curl into fists, small but mighty.
‘If greed built your empire, I had every right to go looking for what was stolen.’
I open my mouth, no doubt to deliver something scathing but she beats me to it.
‘It was a cocoa farm. Small, but thriving. My mother’s pride.
My grandfather’s and father’s livelihood.
My childhood.’ Her voice is steady, but I can hear the cracks beneath it.
‘When the Biney name started stretching into the Western Region, your grandfather offered to buy the land. My family refused. So he used pressure. Influence. Quiet threats. And eventually he got it.’ She delivers a scathing laugh filled with judgement.
‘On paper it was clean. But only because the family was bleeding by then. Drowning in debt.’
I try to swallow but my throat’s dry. ‘And why didn’t anyone fight it?’
She laughs softly. Bitter. ‘Are you serious? You don’t think we tried?
But what does a common farmer have against the might of Nana Biney?
And you know the worst of it? He let the land rot.
Left it fallow like it meant nothing. While my father drank his shame and my mother got sick trying to keep us afloat.
If not for my uncle who helped me secure a scholarship and gave my mother a roof of her head, I don’t know—’ She stops for a moment, but I don’t need a clearer picture drawn.
A silence stretches between us like a wound.
Then she goes on, full of rancour and jagged pride. ‘To your grandfather, it…we were a footnote. One line on his endless balance sheet to be passed onto…you, it seems. A piece of leverage. But to us, it was the difference between survival and ruin.’
And shit, I remember…because haven’t I spend far too much time perusing every scrap of paper I can find on what is mine?
A forgotten corner of a document years ago.
An inherited parcel no one bothered to inspect too closely.
A cocoa farm turned red earth. Now prime real estate. The coincidence is too wild to dismiss.
And yet, resist I do. Because the alternative is…is… ‘You think this changes things?’ I ask coldly. ‘You think this little revelation shifts the power dynamic?’
‘You think you can sign my life away in marriage and I’d blithely agree without ensuring I fight harder for something for my family and the child I’m carrying? Something that already belongs to me?’
Cold blades slice into my ribs. ‘You’d leverage our child?’
She laughs again. ‘You dare to condemn me with that tone when you literally did the same? You’re leveraging our child to ensure your grandfather plays ball and hands over your precious studio land!
And you did it without so much as a by your leave to me.
I told you in LA to be careful that you don’t make me a pawn.
That we’re partners. You want marriage? Well, this is me levelling the field you Bineys seem to think belongs only to you,’ she says, her beautiful eyes defiant.
My chest burns. Fury and disbelief war with something deeper, darker, more dangerous.
‘You’ve had this up your sleeve all this time,’ I say, low and lethal, ‘and yet you expect me to believe our every interaction wasn’t premeditated? That you didn’t step into that housekeeper job with your eyes on my name, my wealth, my land?’
Her eyes flash. ‘Keep your name and your wealth. I’ll sign whatever paper you want to that effect if you want. But yes, I want what’s mine. What’s always been mine.’
My laugh is hollow. Bitter. I didn’t think she was different…
Dammit. Letting my guard down once was bad enough, but twice?
‘And what? Now you think you have me between a rock and a hard place?’ I step closer, letting the full weight of my glare meet hers.
‘Think again, sweetheart. Winning is in my blood. Forget that at your peril.’
Cilla
The wedding is a spectacle.
A far cry from the quiet registry office ceremony I’d imagined or hoped for.
Nana Biney insists on tradition and optics and spectacle. A royal wedding for a Hollywood heir. An heir with a bride born of muted scandal and servitude.
I am draped in handwoven Kente, dyed in hues of gold and royal purple—colors once reserved for queens.
My gele is tied into a towering crown by an expert brought in from the top Accra designer house, and my skin gleams under layers of shea butter and gold dust. I am regal.
Immaculate. Every inch a Biney bride. And yet, beneath it all, I feel like a puppet in someone else’s theatre.
The palace gates of the Biney ancestral home are thrown open.
Thousands gather in the courtyard. Some press against barricades. Others wave miniature Ghana flags and fans to battle the oppressive heat.
Drones hum overhead, capturing every radiant angle of me and Ashon—the prince of Hollywood and his mysterious bride.
‘Dondoo! Ahuonfe Cilla!’ they chant. Beautiful Cilla.
If only.
My name on their lips feels foreign. Unreal.
I’m battling more than nausea. I’m battling deep apprehension and sensation of a silken trap slowly closing in on me.
It’s been two long weeks since that bitter exchange the night I agreed to marry him. Since Ashon questioned my motivation and integrity, straining the already thin thread between us.
Two weeks of clipped conversations behind closed doors and choreographed affection in front of Nana. Of strained smiles and calculated touches, rehearsed chemistry for the sake of a legacy we’re both wrestling for.
My mother has stopped asking questions. At first, she cried quietly into the phone, disbelief turning to resignation as I explained why I had to do this.
How this marriage, this performance, wasn’t about revenge any more.
It was about reclaiming what was stolen. About giving our name back its dignity.
Now, she understands. Or tries to.
She doesn’t know about the baby. Not yet. I’m not ready for that conversation.
But I know.
And knowing has changed me.
I feel it already—this tiny life growing inside me. Unplanned but utterly, irrevocably mine. I talk to it in my head and out loud when no one is listening. I rest my hand on my belly when I sleep. I’ve stopped hoping it’s not real. Because it is.
I love this baby.
I will protect this baby.
And if I have to walk through fire, marry a man I don’t trust, and stand alone in a palace full of vultures to secure its future, I will.
Ashon stands beside me, devastating in his agbada, black silk trimmed with gold. A lion embroidered across his chest like the family crest. He is every inch the heir.
His hand slips into mine as we step under the ancestral arch. As expensive liquor wets the ground in honour of the ancestors and pleas for a long happy marriage in this life and the next.
His fingers are warm. Steady and searingly familiar. But there’s steel in his grip and distance in his eyes. And I quietly admit to myself that he’s learned a thing or two from producing and directing. He’s learned to play his part, perhaps a little too well.
Because as we say the words and the vows and we’re blessed by chiefs and elders, by clergy and ancestors, it all feels too real.
When rice rains like confetti and the drums roll and the gold-tasselled umbrellas follow us everywhere, it’s harder not to dip into that make-believe. To wonder what it would be like were this truly the wedding I’d dreamed of as a girl, marrying the man of my dreams.
But thankfully, the moment…moments pass.
By the time we arrive at the reception pavilion, I am smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.
I spot my mother first. Her face is pinched into something between pride and concern. My uncle beside her, regal in his own right, eyes unreadable, replacing the dear father who drank himself to death courtesy of the careless suffering the Bineys inflicted on us.
They do not like being the centre of attention and I quietly admit to myself that no, this isn’t the kind of justice we imagined. I’ve dragged them into the limelight with me and regret trawls through me.
We greet guests. Dignitaries. Old women with mischievous eyes and thinly veiled curiosity.
‘Ei, soooo beautiful. May the baby be strong like his father.’
‘So when is that happening, madam? Don’t wait too long, will you?’
My belly clenches. Ashon’s hand tightens on my lower back, his thumb brushing low. Almost too low.
Heat floods my cheeks. He leans in, murmuring for my ears only. ‘You’re going to have to get used to that.’
I glare at him. ‘You’re enjoying this too much.’