The Billoniare's Rejected Daughter

The rain started before the sun disappeared behind the clouds.

First, it came in slow drops, falling like quiet tears onto the rusted zinc roofs of Ajegunle. Then the sky broke open, and water poured like a curse, flooding the narrow, potholed streets. Children screamed and laughed as they ran for cover. Market women scrambled to pack their wares. Umbrellas popped open like blooming flowers-most of them broken or bent.

But Adanna had no umbrella. She never did.

She walked through the rain with her chin down, her arms hugging her small body. Her thin, faded dress clung to her skin. Her slippers slapped loudly against the waterlogged ground, and her school bag-already torn at the corners-sagged with the weight of soaked notebooks.

She was seventeen years old, but life had not allowed her to feel young.

The world had been hard on her from the beginning. Born to a woman with no husband, raised in a single room behind a mechanic's workshop, she had grown up learning that happiness was a luxury for the rich. Her mother, Mama Ngozi, had worked as a cleaner until her bones gave up on her. She died two years ago, coughing blood into a torn bedsheet while Adanna held her hand and cried into the darkness.

Since then, Adanna had been alone.

No father. No siblings. No one to call family.

She survived by doing laundry for neighbors and selling roasted plantain after school. Every day was a struggle between staying alive and pretending to be okay.

She had just returned from school that afternoon when the rain caught her. She had hoped to roast some plantains for the evening market, but the sky had other plans.

Now, soaked and shivering, she stopped under a rusted shed behind Mama Chika's shop. Her stomach growled, and she swallowed the hunger like she always did.

She looked up at the sky.

"God... why me?" she whispered.

"I don't want to die like my mother. I don't want to beg all my life. Please..."

She had spoken to God so many times that she had stopped expecting answers. But still, she asked. Just in case He was listening.

That was when she saw him.

An old man-tall, slim, dressed in white from head to toe. He walked with a cane and wore dark glasses. A white scarf covered the lower half of his face, like he was hiding something. He moved slowly, but with purpose, like he wasn't afraid of the rain or the mud or the poverty around him.

He stopped in front of her.

Adanna stepped back, unsure if he was real.

"Adanna," the man said, his voice low but clear.

Her heart froze.

"How... how do you know my name?"

The man didn't answer right away. Instead, he reached into the inside of his coat and pulled out a small brown envelope. His hands trembled as he stretched it toward her.

"Your mother asked me to give this to you. When the time was right."

Adanna stared at the envelope like it might burn her fingers.

"Who are you?" she asked.

He paused. Then he spoke.

"I am nobody important. But you, Adanna... you are more than you think. You are not just some poor girl struggling in the slums. You are the first daughter of Chief Eze Ikenna."

Boom.

The words landed like thunder in her ears.

She blinked, confused. "Chief who?"

"Chief Eze Ikenna," the man repeated, gently. "Your father."

Adanna laughed. Not because it was funny, but because it was the only way to stop herself from crying.

"That's a lie. That can't be true."

Chief Eze Ikenna was a household name in Nigeria. The man owned oil companies, banks, real estate, airlines. He was on TV all the time-shaking hands with politicians, sitting on magazine covers, smiling with his elegant wife and beautiful children. His family was perfect. Rich. Untouchable.

Adanna couldn't be part of that world. She lived in a leaking room, wore donated school uniforms, and sometimes didn't eat for days.

"I think you have the wrong girl," she said bitterly.

But the man shook his head. "You have your mother's eyes. And your father's stubborn jaw. This envelope will explain everything."

She stared at it, heart pounding.

"Why now?" she asked. "Why didn't he come for me? Why did my mother die in poverty if he's so rich?"

The man's hand trembled. "Because powerful men have powerful secrets. And sometimes, they choose silence over truth."

Adanna felt heat rise in her chest. Anger. Pain. Confusion.

She reached out, snatched the envelope, and held it close like it was a piece of her mother's soul.

"Where is he?" she demanded. "Where is this 'father' of mine?"

But when she looked up... the man was already walking away.

She ran after him.

"Wait! You can't just tell me that and go!"

But he disappeared around the corner.

By the time she reached the junction, he was gone-vanished like a ghost.

Only the rain remained.

She stood there, soaked to the bone, holding a secret that could change everything she had ever believed.

Adanna didn't know what to do. Part of her wanted to tear the envelope apart. Another part wanted to run straight to the TV station and shout the truth to the world.

But she did none of those things.

She walked back to her room, quietly.

That Night...

She lit the small kerosene lamp in her corner and sat on her thin mattress. The walls of the room were stained from years of rain and smoke. The ceiling sagged with rot. But tonight, she barely noticed.

Her fingers trembled as she opened the brown envelope.

Inside, there was a letter. A long one, handwritten in her mother's careful script. There was also a photo-a black and white picture of a young woman and a man in a fine suit.

Adanna stared at the photo. Her mother looked happy-happier than she ever remembered. And the man beside her... he was younger, but unmistakable.

Chief Eze Ikenna.

Adanna dropped the photo like it burned.

She turned to the letter and read slowly:

"My sweet Ada, if you are reading this, it means I am gone. I'm so sorry. I wanted to tell you everything, but I was too afraid. I met your father when I was just 19. I worked as a housemaid in his uncle's house. He was kind to me... at first. We fell in love in secret. I thought he would marry me. But when I got pregnant, everything changed..."

Adanna read each word like a knife to the chest.

"...He denied me. His family warned me to stay away. They said the baby-you-could never be part of their world. They gave me money to disappear. I refused. They threatened me. I left Lagos and went into hiding to protect you..."

Adanna's hands shook. Her eyes were full of tears.

"...But I never hated him. I only wanted you to have a chance at a better life. If the time is right, go to him. Demand the truth. But be careful, Ada. The Ikenna family is powerful... and dangerous."

The letter ended with a line that broke her heart:

"You are stronger than you know. You were born for more than this. Don't let anyone make you feel small."

Adanna held the letter to her chest and cried-loud and long.

Her whole life, she had believed she was nothing. Just a girl in the rain. But now, her world had cracked open.

She didn't know what tomorrow would bring.

But one thing was clear:

She was no longer just Adanna the plantain seller.

She was Adanna Ikenna-

The rejected daughter of Nigeria's most powerful man.

And she was going to find him.