I didn’t plan to sleep with the Devil. I just wanted to forget that I existed.
When I boarded that night bus from Enugu to Lagos, I didn’t pack hope or faith or dignity. I packed anger. Grief. A red lipstick I hadn’t dared to wear in three years.
And one bottle of Smirnoff I didn’t even like.
The night I lost my future husband to my best friend, something in me cracked. Not the loud, shattering kind. No. The quiet kind. The kind you don’t hear until you realize your whole life has gone silent.
I ran.
To Lagos.
To nowhere.
I was supposed to stay with my cousin, Ifeoma. Except, Ifeoma hadn’t been seen in months.
Her flat was empty. Her neighbors whispered about strange men.
Her phone — dead.
Her clothes — gone.
Her life — abandoned like mine.
And yet, in the drawer of her vanity, I found the invitation. Thick black envelope. Crimson wax seal.
Just one word engraved in gold:
Dante.
The gala was that night.
And somehow, my name was on the list.
They call him the Devil because God wouldn’t dare compete.
Victoria Island glowed like sin baptized in designer perfume. The gala was hosted at The Elysium, a mansion with more cameras than chandeliers.
Everyone wore masks.
I wore Ifeoma’s dress.
Her smile.
Her name.
I didn’t know then that I was stepping into a web that Ifeoma had already been devoured by.
But when he looked at me — really looked at me — I forgot my name too.
Dante Ikenna Obasi.
He didn’t need a mask. His face was a mask. Smooth. Sculpted. Dangerous.
He spoke like a man who owned time. Moved like one who’d sold his soul for silence.
“You don’t belong here,” he said.
I smiled. “Neither do you.”
One night. That was the deal.
He took me to the rooftop. Away from the noise. Away from the eyes.
And somewhere between stolen champagne and broken hearts, he kissed me like a man punishing the world through my lips.
One night. That was all I wanted.
But in the morning, I woke up in silk sheets… to a contract.
Marriage.
His dying father wanted a respectable Igbo bride.
Anuli Ifeoma Obasi.
Law student. No scandals. No past.
Perfect.
He knew I wasn’t her.
I knew he wasn’t asking.
“Do this,” he said, “or I release the footage.”
He wasn’t bluffing. I signed.
They say the Devil doesn’t deal in love. Just loopholes.
And I’d just agreed to play his bride.
We flew to Abuja that afternoon. In a jet that reeked of old money and new crimes.
I was introduced to his mother — a woman with cold eyes and colder diamonds.
I met his father — frail, oxygen mask, IV drip. Still commanding a room.
“You’re the girl from that night?” the old man whispered.
Dante nodded.
His father smiled.
And something about that smile felt like a trap snapping shut.
He watches me like I’m a puzzle made of razor blades.
Every step I take in that mansion is followed. Every word I say is recorded. I am a legal intern by day, a ghost bride by night, and a fraud always.
Dante doesn’t touch me.
Not anymore.
But sometimes, in the dark hallways when the staff are gone, I feel his breath behind my neck.
“You’re not her,” he whispers once, voice like smoke.
“No,” I breathe. “And neither are you.”
Secrets rot faster in gold cages.
I start digging.
In Ifeoma’s laptop. In Dante’s drawers. In old newspaper clippings about suicides that never made sense.
There’s something wrong with this family.
Brothers who disappeared.
Cousins “abroad” no one speaks of.
A woman in white who walks the garden at night, whispering prayers no one understands.
And through it all, photos of me leak online.
“Meet the Obasi Heiress!”
“Devil’s Angel?”
Someone wants me famous.
And then — someone wants me dead.
I stopped being afraid when I realized fear was their favorite flavor.
I meet a journalist. She says she’s been investigating the Obasis for years.
She shows me a photo.
It’s not Ifeoma.
It’s me.
But younger.
Wearing a school uniform.
Standing next to Dante at a children’s home in Anambra State.
I never lived in Anambra.
I don’t remember the photo.
But Dante does.
“You weren’t supposed to come back,” he says that night.
“What happened to Ifeoma?” I demand.
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, he shows me a scar.
Then he tells me a story.
Of fire.
Of betrayal.
Of a sister who died.
And a brother who watched.
Suddenly, the Devil doesn’t feel like a monster.
Just another broken boy with sharp teeth.
We become real by accident. And that’s the most dangerous thing of all.
He starts protecting me.
Silences his mother. Threatens the media. Cancels the wedding when the pressure grows.
But we can’t undo the damage.
Not when someone leaks our secret marriage license.
Now, the country believes we’re wed.
And the Obasi name is tied to mine — forever.
I try to leave. I pack my bag. I delete the footage. I write a letter.
But at the airport, he’s already there.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he says.
I slap him.
He kisses me.
Truth burns. But lies kill slower.
I confront his mother.
She tells me Ifeoma’s body washed up months ago — paid off to be buried quietly.
But Dante kept her phone active. Her name alive. Her debts paid.
Why?
“To find you,” she says. “The girl who ran away after the fire.”
My throat dries.
I remember a scream.
Smoke.
A boy dragging me out.
A promise — “I’ll find you.”
Dante kept it.
We weren’t enemies. We were survivors of the same lie.
That night, I don’t sleep.
I sit by his bed.
I tell him everything — about Enugu, about my fake fiancé, about the girl I pretended to be because I didn’t know who I was.
He listens.
And for once — he doesn’t try to fix it.
He just holds me.
And for the first time, I let him.
Some nights destroy you. Others rebuild you from the ash.
It started as a one-night escape.
It became a lie.
Then a prison.
Then a truth I never saw coming.
I don’t know if I love him.
But I know this:
In a world full of masks, he’s the only one who sees me — and doesn’t flinch.
Maybe that’s not love.
Maybe that’s survival.
But maybe that’s enough.
Takeaway:
Sometimes the Devil isn’t the one who ruins your life — he’s the one who forces you to rebuild it.
I tell the kind of love stories that stay with you — the messy, unfiltered kind that unravel slowly and cut deep. Inspired by real emotion, rich culture, and everything we never say out loud, my fiction lives at the intersection of vulnerability and power. If you’ve ever loved like your soul depended on it… welcome home.
