—Please, Your Majesty. Punish me if you must, but do not touch my daughter.
Ifeoma shook her head violently.
—Mama, I am not lying. The man with the smiling mouth and dead eyes planned it.
Prince Chinedu slowly turned toward the ministers standing near the palace steps. Minister Dike, head of internal affairs, stood among them in a dark agbada, his beard neat, his smile thin. He had always hated Chinedu’s plan to return seized farmlands to poor communities. He had called the reform childish. Dangerous. An insult to the families who had supported the throne.
Only 3 nights earlier, Nneka had passed a half-open salon door and heard Dike’s voice.
—If the prince refuses to understand, after the ceremony it will be too late for regret.
She had been too afraid to speak. Who would believe a maid over a minister?
Chinedu stood.
—Commander Musa, cancel my departure. Send a different team to Unity Square. Not the internal affairs team. Check the stage, the flowers, the cameras, the cars, the back entrances, everything.
The queen gasped.
—You will humiliate the crown because of a servant’s child?
Chinedu looked at Ifeoma, then at Nneka, still kneeling like a woman waiting for judgment.—No, Mother. I am stopping because no child cries like this for a lie.
Minister Dike stepped forward.
—Your Highness, the whole country is waiting. The cameras are ready. The chiefs have arrived. If you fail to appear, it will be a scandal.
Chinedu’s eyes narrowed.
—Then let the scandal save my life.
Ifeoma suddenly pointed behind him, straight at Dike.
“Daddy, Don’t Go!” The Maid’s Daughter Stops the Prince and Reveals a Terrible Plot
