Chapter 1: PROLOGUE
Rain hammered against the windows of the private study, drowning out the sound of everything else - the hum of the city, the ticking of the clock, even the breath of the two elders facing each other across the table.
Alhaji Kareem - tall, silver-haired, and still intimidating despite age - sat with his prayer beads moving slowly through his fingers. He had built an empire with his bare hands, and he had survived wars over it. But tonight, the tremor in his eyes had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with desperation.
Across from him sat Zuleihat Al-Muhtari - the woman Abuja tabloids called "The Iron Widow." Sharp-jawed, elegant, wrapped in a deep emerald abaya that screamed silent power. She had lost her husband once and nearly lost her life with him. She built her throne in blood and sweat, and she built it alone.
They were not here as business rivals.
They were here as guardians.
"He has no one," Kareem said finally, voice heavy. "No mother. No siblings. Only me. When I am gone, he will bury himself in work and die young."
Zuleihat's hand tightened on her teacup. She knew that kind of man - because she was raising a mirror of him in female form.
"And my daughter?" she replied, tone restrained. "She built walls even I cannot cross. She lives as if love is a disease and attachment is a trap."
Silence stretched.
Two powerful people. Two children destroyed differently by love.
Kareem leaned forward, lowering his voice.
"What if they become each other's cure... before they destroy themselves?"
Zuleihat did not answer immediately.
Instead her lips curved into something that was not quite a smile... and not quite hope.
Fate - or manipulation - was about to begin.
And neither Zayn nor Fridous had any idea their lives were about to collide.
Not gently.
Not willingly.
But violently - like two storms meeting in the middle of a city that never asked for rain.
