Chapter 1 THE GIRL WITH TOO MANY JOBS
Christopher Rosemary Stella was tired. Not the normal kind of tired — the kind that sat in your bones and whispered, "You need a break you can't afford."Three jobs a day, waking up before sunrise and returning home when the streets were already quiet again. She cleaned offices, served in a small buka, and washed clothes for people who barely remembered her name.
All she wanted was simple:
Food on her table.
Rent paid.
Peace.
But that morning, everything felt too heavy. As she walked down the busy Lagos street, clutching her worn bag, she muttered under her breath:
"God, abeg... I'm tired. I'm broke. I haven't even eaten today."
She didn't know someone was watching.
A black SUV rolled to a slow stop beside her.
The tinted window lowered, revealing a man with cold grey eyes that seemed to look straight through a person. Handsome, sharply dressed, calm like someone who never had to worry about anything.
Yet there was something dangerous about him
something people could sense even before knowing his name.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
Stella blinked. "Sir... I'm fine."
"You don't look fine," he replied, voice smooth and strangely gentle. "Do you need help?"
She stepped back slightly. "I don't talk to strangers."
He smiled faintly. "Then let me fix that. My name is Maxwell Donald."
Her breath caught.
THE Maxwell Donald? The billionaire philanthropist? The man who built hospitals, funded schools, and donated money like it was water?
The whole country loved him.
Or so they thought.
Because behind the charming public image, Maxwell held another title: leader of the Donald Mafia syndicate, feared across borders. Calm in daylight, merciless at night. A man whose name made rivals disappear and whose eyes never softened -
Except now, looking at her.
"Well, Stella?" he said, somehow already knowing her name from the ID sticking out of her bag. "Can I give you a ride?"
She hesitated... then nodded.
And just like that, her world shifted.
