Most families have a black sheep and Chief Agbah's was no exception. Lexie was his name. He was the son of Monica, the first woman Chief ever loved.
It was way back when he was a struggling young man teaching in a primary school at a village many miles from Igen, his hometown in Delta State.
Monica was the daughter of the headmaster of the school. She was 18, a great beauty and Chief who was simply known then as Johnson, was smitten. Believing he truly loved her, Monica fell for his sweet words.
She soon got pregnant. Her father, who didn't want a bastard child in his family insisted Johnson must marry her. Johnson had other ideas though.
One night, he packed the few belongings he had and sneaked out of the village.
Some months after Monica delivered a baby boy, her father was able to trace the runaway lover boy to his mother's village Igen.
Johnson had by this time migrated to the city of Lagos but his mother agreed to be supporting the child as best she could.
The boy whom his mother named Alexander (but which he shortened to Lexie) did not see his father until he was 11 years old. He was about to attend secondary school then.
His mother had taken him to see his grandmother at Igen to make arrangements for his school fees and other expenses.
Johnson had been home on a visit that day and it was then father and son set eyes on each other for the first time.
While the boy was excited to meet his father, the latter was not.
Johnson barely acknowledged the child who looked so much like him. This first confused the boy, then he grew sad and angry with his father.
Over the years, the anger grew and festered until it became a consuming hatred, a resentment against the shabby way he had been treated by his own father throughout his young life.
As he grew older, his hatred for his father would evolve into a desire for revenge, to hit back at the man who had all but abandoned him..
***
Lexie dropped out of the university in his second year. Though brilliant, he was lazy and could not be bothered with studying or even attending lectures.
So after consistently failing nearly all his papers after each exam, he was 'advised to withdraw' from school.
His despairing mother wanted him to continue his studies in another school but Lexie was not keen.
He told his mother, who had by then married another man and had other children, that he was sick of school. All Lexie wanted was to 'hustle' and 'make lots of money.'
Over the years, he drifted from one dubious business venture to another and ended up with plenty of debt instead of money.
His stepfather tried to get him a job several times but he turned down the offer. He still believed he would make it big one day through one of his 'deals'.
A job would only distract him.
Lexie's deals never made money and he was often broke. Though in his 30s, he still lived at home with his mother and had no plans to get married and 'settle down'.
He had not had much contact with his father Chief Agbah for several years. Chief had all but disowned him, calling him a 'worthless layabout and a drop-out.
The feeling was mutual as Lexie saw his father as a 'useless, heartless' man who had abandoned him as a child.
He hardly played his role as a father to him and never gave him much money whenever he asked though he was stupendously rich.
Lexie met Selina at a burial ceremony in Igen. It was the funeral of Madam Erhu, one of the prominent women in the community and a good friend of his grandmother.
He had gone to visit his aged grandma that weekend and had attended the party with some friends.
The first time he saw Selina, Lexie could not keep his eyes off her. Most men reacted that way to her.
With her milky chocolate-brown skin that glowed as if rubbed with oil, dark-brown sparkling eyes, perfect set of white teeth and a figure to die for, she was really lovely.
She made it clear to him though, that she was not interested when he approached her.
Her attitude however changed and she became friendlier when she heard his last name.
"Agbah? Are you related to Chief Agbah, the business tycoon?" she quickly asked.
"Yes. I'm his first son," he disclosed. Her eyes registered surprise, then admiration.
He was always amused by most people's reaction to that info.
Some would look at him in wonder while others found it hard to believe that the slim looking, casually dressed guy who was often seen in jeans and T-shirts could be related in any way to Chief Agbah, one of the richest men in the country whose business empire spread far and wide.
After Selina confirmed he was truly Chief's son from the friend she attended the party with, she stuck to his side for the rest of the night.
By the end of the party, they had become friends. They exchanged phone numbers before parting, with Lexie promising to call as soon he returned from a 'business trip to Port-Harcourt' as he put it.
Selina waited for a week for his call and when she did not hear from him, she decided to make the first move if he did not call her soon.
Though with a good degree from a top university, Selina had not worked for a single day since she left school several years before. It wasn't that there were no job offers.
She was just not interested.
"Why stress myself working for peanuts when I can make more money through hustling," she used to say whenever any of her school mates, some of whom were working in different organisations, wondered why she was still jobless.
She believed that her passport to the 'good life' lay in her looks and she was determined to get whatever she wanted in life with her youth and beauty.
So she dated mostly rich men who had the means to give her what she wanted like a posh car, nicely furnished apartment, trips abroad for holidays and shopping and a fat bank account.
But like a bottomless pit, Selina wanted more. Her dream was to marry well, preferably into a wealthy family so she could be financially secure for life.
Through Lexie, she believed she could get her heart's desire. Lexie would be her 'jackpot', the road to the good, easy life she craved.
Lexie could not believe his luck at meeting Selina.
'Just perfect!' he kept repeating to himself after they parted. Because of the strong attraction he felt for her, he initially thought of dating her but he changed his mind later.
'She will be more useful as my secret weapon,' he told himself about a week after they met.
The following day, he contacted Selina and invited her for lunch.
He took her to a nice restaurant at Ikeja. That day, Selina looked even prettier than she did at the party and he (with some of the men around) just kept staring at her.
"You look hot enough to eat," he said teasingly as she sat down opposite him. She smiled coyly at him.
"Well, I'm starving so can we order? Maybe you can have me for dessert later," she stated coyly. She put it like a joke but the look in her eyes said she meant it.
After the meal, Lexie got down to business.
He spoke earnestly while she listened. But as he continued talking about what he wanted from her, her look changed to one of surprise then disbelief.
"Are you really sure about this, or you are just kidding me?" she asked with raised brows.
He shook his head, pointing out that he had never been more serious in his life.
"But what's the reason? Why do you want to do that to your own father?" she asked again.
He then told her about his birth, childhood and being abandoned by the man he could barely bring himself to call father.
"I'm his first child but he doesn't even acknowledge me or do anything for me, despite being so wealthy," he grumbled bitterly.
Selina sympathized with him, but was his grudge against his father enough justification for what he planned doing? According to him, he wanted Selina to 'seduce' Chief Agbah.
"After you've succeeded, then I will come in and we will be able to extract a very huge sum of money from him. Others might call it stealing. But to me, I'm getting my inheritance in advance. I doubt if I'm in his Will anyway," he stated.
Selina was still sceptical.
"But what makes you think I could seduce your father so easily?" she enquired, frowning.
He gave her an assessing look.
"You could seduce even a priest with little effort with your looks," he said reassuringly, adding: "Don't worry. I know my father very well. He's a womaniser with an eye for pretty, young ladies like you.
It will be like dangling a piece of juicy bone before a hungry dog!"
Selina thought about the plan for days before making up her mind. It was a very tempting offer.
If the 'job' succeeded, Lexie promised she would get 30 percent of the amount they would make from Chief Agbah.
From her calculations, that was a very large amount of money. She could do a lot with that; even retire from 'hustling' and maybe relocate abroad and live well for a long time without having to do any work.
She was already twenty nine years old and she knew she could not live off her beauty for ever.
With age, even the greatest beauty loses her looks as her mother often pointed out whenever the issue of marriage cropped up.
But Selina was not keen on marriage, at least not just yet. She wanted to enjoy her life first before being saddled with a husband and kids.
She had had so many suitors in her life and broken so many hearts, she had lost count. But she didn't care. All she wanted was to make money, lots of it so she could live in luxury for life.
Later, she called Lexie and agreed to do the 'job'.
"Wise decision. You won't regret it," he stated happily.
They met up the following day at the same restaurant to work out a good plan on how she would meet his father so their 'operation' could begin...
To be continued
