Chapter 7 - The Unmasking
The entire sanctuary erupted into a frenzy of gasps and frantic whispers. Harrison Bennett turned around, his face turning an angry shade of purple.
"Who do you think you are?!" Harrison shouted, forgetting the sanctity of the chapel. "Security! Remove this woman immediately!"
"Your security has been replaced by mine, Mr. Bennett," Ifeoma said calmly, stepping out of the pew and walking toward the altar with the slow, deliberate grace of a queen. She looked at the guests. "And I have every right to speak. I am Ifeoma Okafor. Founder and chairperson of Okafor Global Enterprises. And more importantly... I am Adrian’s mother."
Camille felt the floor tilt beneath her feet. "Mother...? No. His mother died twenty-six years ago! Adrian, tell her she's crazy!"
Adrian finally spoke, his voice carrying through the chapel microphone, cold and clear as winter ice. "She isn't crazy, Camille. She didn't die. Twenty-six years ago, my father’s business partners—your grandfather, Arthur Bennett, and Julian Vance’s father—set up a fraudulent contract that threatened to put my mother in a federal penitentiary for a crime she didn't commit. To save our lives, she took the blame, signed over her early patents, and fled the state under a protective agreement, building an empire from nothing while waiting for the statute of limitations to clear the truth."
Ifeoma stood beside her son, turning her gaze directly onto Camille. "I came back to Atlanta three days ago to finally reunite with my boy. But I needed to know what kind of woman was inheriting the Okafor name. So, I put on old clothes. I sat in the rain. I begged for a crumb of bread."
Ifeoma reached into her silk clutch and pulled out a small, crystal-clear digital recorder.
May you like
"And this," Ifeoma said, holding it up for the entire church to see, "is what the pristine, charitable Camille Bennett sounds like when she thinks a human life has no value."
She pressed play.
