(Mina's POV)
The courtyard was unusually, unnervingly quiet that evening. The usual sounds of children playing next door and radios chattering from open windows were absent, leaving a void filled only by the rhythmic scrape of her auntie's wooden spoon against the bottom of the iron pot. Mina could feel their eyes on her—her mother's sharp, assessing gaze and her auntie's sidelong, worried glances—as she pinned the last of the laundry to the sagging line. The damp wrapper was heavy in her hands, its weight feeling symbolic of the conversation she knew was coming.
Finally, her mother spoke, her voice low but clear, the words slicing through the humid, still air. "Mina, we need to talk about that man."
Mina's heart gave a single, hard skip against her ribs. She didn't need to ask which man. She knew. His presence had become a specter in their home, a topic of hushed discussion whenever she left the room.
"He comes here too often," her mother continued, her arms folded tightly across her chest, her lips pressed into a hard, disapproving line. "Always arriving with bags of food we did not ask for, always with gifts wrapped in shiny paper. Men like him, from worlds like his, they do not give so freely without a reason. Without an expectation."
Auntie grunted in agreement, not looking up from the pot of simmering egusi soup she stirred with slow, deliberate motions. "True love is patient, yes. It is steady. But this? This flashy kindness? It often hides a weakness. Or a pride that will not last."
Mina swallowed hard, the familiar defensiveness rising in her throat. She kept her voice low, measured, trying to pour reason into their fear. "Mama, Aunty, this man… Adams… he helped Mariam when no one else would. The doctors had given up. He saved her life. That is not weakness—that's… that's mercy. That's grace."
Her mother's eyes narrowed, seeing right through her daughter's idealism to the cold, hard pragmatism beneath. "And mercy can so easily turn into chains, my daughter. What happens when the newness of this… this project… wears off? When he grows tired of playing the savior? When he remembers he has his own people, his own class, his own name to uphold? What then? Will he still choose you? Or will you be left here, with a heart broken and a reputation tangled with his?"
Mina's hands tightened on the damp cloth, water trickling down her wrists. She wanted to argue, to shout his promises from the rooftops, but her mother's words, honed by a lifetime of hardship and observation, hit far too close to her own deepest, most secret fears. They gave voice to the question that haunted her in the quietest hours of the night: Will he still choose me when the cost becomes real?
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(Adams's POV)
At the Dared residence, the atmosphere across the city was no kinder, merely colder and more polished. Adams sat at the long, gleaming mahogany dining table, a plate of expertly prepared food growing cold before him. The clink of silverware against fine china was the only sound, until his elder cousin, Kabir, leaned back in his chair with a smug, knowing expression, his voice carrying across the vast, polished marble floor with calculated ease.
"So this Mina girl," Kabir drawled, swirling the wine in his glass without taking a sip. "She is… what, exactly? A nurse? A charity case? Or just someone who knows how to cry in the right place at the right time to catch a wealthy man's eye?"
Adams's fork clattered against his plate, the sound shockingly loud in the stifling room. "You will watch your words when you speak about her, Kabir." The warning in his voice was low and deadly.
But Kabir only smirked, enjoying the reaction he'd provoked. "I'm just saying what everyone here is thinking but is too polite to say. You disappear from important society dinners, you cancel meetings Father arranged with key stakeholders, and now we hear—through the very efficient grapevine, I might add—that you're spending your nights in a public hospital ward with a girl whose family can barely pay their rent. Is that the future you're building for yourself, cousin? Is that the legacy of a Dared?"
Their mother, Hajiya Zainab, sat at the head of the table, a silent statue of disapproval. She didn't lift her eyes from her untouched bowl of soup, but her silence was heavier than any shouted accusation. It was the silence of withheld approval, of deep, profound disappointment.
Adams forced himself to take a slow, even breath, the air feeling thin and insufficient. "Mina is stronger, and has more integrity, than anyone in this room will ever give her credit for. She stands by her family with a loyalty and courage that you, with all your connections and bank accounts, will never understand. That is what matters to me. That is who she is."
His words hung in the air, a defiant challenge to the oppressive weight of their judgment. But inside, a cold doubt began to creep in like a shadow. His family wielded power, wealth, and influence like weapons. They could make life incredibly difficult. Could Mina's gentle strength truly survive their relentless, icy disdain? And more terrifyingly, could he, with all his resources, truly build a fortress strong enough to protect her from it?
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(Mina's POV – Later that night)
The phone buzzed in her hand like a trapped insect, its screen glowing in the dark of her small room. She answered it quickly, pressing it to her ear, her voice hushed. "Adams."
"Mina," he said, and his voice was rough, tired, as though he too had been fighting battles in gilded rooms all day. "How are you holding up?"
She hesitated. The truth—her mother's warnings, the seed of doubt now firmly planted—pressed against her lips, desperate for release. But she swallowed it down, not wanting to add to his burdens. "I'm fine," she whispered into the receiver. "Just tired. It was a long day."
"Your voice says otherwise," he countered gently, his perception unnervingly acute. He could always hear the shades of meaning she tried to hide.
She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against the cool, rough surface of the mud-brick wall, drawing a sliver of comfort from its solidity. "My family…" she began, then sighed. "They think you're too good to be true. That all of this… is a beautiful dream, and that one day, inevitably, you'll wake up and walk away back into your real life."
Silence crackled down the line, filled with the weight of his own unspoken struggles. Then his voice came, low and steady, yet laced with a fatigue that mirrored her own: "And mine… mine think you're not good enough for me. That you're a distraction. A liability. A stain on the pristine Dared name."
The words landed like stones in the center of her chest, each one a confirmation of her deepest anxieties. Both sides, from opposite ends of the world, were pulling them apart, each family sharpening knives crafted from their own particular brand of doubt and fear.
"So what do we do?" she whispered, the question hanging between them, a plea for a roadmap through the minefield they found themselves in.
Adams's reply came slow, each word weighted with a determination that felt both fierce and fragile. "We hold on. To each other. To what we know is real. If we let them decide what this is, if we give their doubts a home in our hearts, then we've already lost. And I refuse to lose you to their prejudices."
Her throat tightened, emotion welling up behind her eyes. She wanted to believe him with every fiber of her being. God, how she wanted to. But belief was a fragile, fleeting thing, and the world around them seemed to be sharpening its claws, ready to tear it all apart.
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Cliffhanger Ending:
The call ended with quiet, somber goodnights, but Mina stood there in the dark for a long time, the phone still pressed to her chest as if it were a talisman that could ward off the looming future. Her mother's warning echoed in her mind, a relentless drumbeat of pragmatism, now tangled inextricably with the raw, defiant hope in Adams's voice.
The question hung in the stagnant night air, a specter in her small, dark room: When a love is tested from both sides, when it is besieged by the armies of two families, which truth will ultimately survive—their fragile, fiercely held faith in each other, or the relentless, poisonous doubts being planted in their hearts?