Chapter 16: The Mall Incident
It was a rare Saturday afternoon when Liam decided to walk through one of the high-end shopping malls in Lekki, flanked by David and two other bodyguards. He needed a gift for Sarah's birthday—something personal that a personal assistant couldn't pick out. The mall was crowded, a sea of Sunday shoppers and noisy teenagers. As Liam turned a corner near a designer boutique, a woman in a flurry of shopping bags and expensive silk slammed into one of his guards. Her gold-plated iPhone flew from her hand, skidding across the polished marble floor with a sickening crack.
Liam stopped, prepared to offer a polite apology, but the woman didn't give him the chance. She erupted. "Are you blind?" she shrieked, her voice cutting through the ambient music of the mall. She didn't look at the guard; she looked directly at Liam, her eyes flashing with a spoiled, manicured rage. "Do you have any idea how much that phone costs? Or who I am? You and your overgrown thugs need to watch where you're going!"
Liam looked down at the shattered screen and then back at the girl. She was beautiful in a sharp, artificial way—heavily applied makeup, designer labels from head to toe, and an aura of entitlement that made his skin crawl. "My apologies," Liam said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, icy register. "My guard will compensate you for the device. But your manners, it seems, are beyond repair." He didn't wait for her response, signaling David to handle the payment as he walked away, leaving the girl sputtering in indignation. He didn't catch her name, and he didn't care to. To him, she was just another symptom of a city filled with people who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.