The first thing Lora noticed about Lagos was the sky. It stretched endlessly above her, painted in hues of defiance—blue, grey, and gold—just like the city beneath it. Lagos didn't just exist; it throbbed with life, daring anyone who entered its embrace to sink or survive.
For Lora, survival wasn't merely a matter of adapting to the city's unrelenting rhythm but navigating the treacherous terrain of her new family. Love had brought her here, sweeping her from the gentle shores of Cape Town into the arms of Andrew, her husband, whose world was as vast and complicated as the city he called home.
She had imagined Lagos as a canvas where their love would paint a new beginning. But the moment she stepped into Mama Bisi's house—a fortress of tradition, power, and judgment—Lora realized she was an outsider. The warmth she had expected was replaced by cold stares and whispered suspicions.
Andrew's siblings watched her with varying degrees of indifference and disdain, their loyalties divided between blood and an unspoken allegiance to a past Lora was still trying to understand. And then there was Mirabel, the ghost of Andrew's former love, whose presence lingered in the most unsettling ways.
But Lagos had a way of pulling strength from those brave enough to claim it. Beneath its chaotic skies, Lora would learn what it meant to fight—not just for love, but for her identity, her place, and her voice in a family and a city that seemed determined to silence her.
This was not the life she had imagined, but it was the life she now had. And beneath the Lagos skies, where dreams were born and broken in equal measure, Lora's story was just beginning.