EPISODE 1

It all started the night she didn’t come home, the night the light flickered and the rain pounded hard on the mansion roof, the night I was only supposed to walk down the hallway and return to my servant quarters as I always did, but instead I found myself frozen in front of her door—my boss, Mr. Dauda, the man for whom I served tea and ironed shirts every morning, the man whose voice echoed throughout the house like a law, the man whose eyes lingered on mine a second longer than usual every time he asked, “Is that all, sir?”—and that night his door was ajar, just enough for me to see him shirtless, sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, tired in a way I had never seen before, and something inside me broke, or perhaps awakened, that strange pain I had buried beneath uniforms, reverences, and silence.

When he looked up and saw me there, in the darkness, his face showed no surprise, only a question—and I didn’t respond with words, I responded with my feet, moving slowly into the room, the door closing behind me without a sound.

I stood there in silence until he said my name so softly it almost broke me, and when he took my wrist it wasn’t roughly or in haste, it was as if he were holding something too delicate to crush.

I knew what we were doing was wrong, even perverse, because his wife was out of town on business, and I was the maid, the help, the girl who cleaned his floors and folded his expensive lace wrappers, but when his lips brushed my neck and his hands found my waist, I forgot my principles, I forgot God, I forgot everything except how warm he felt against my skin and how much I had secretly longed to be seen, truly seen, not as a servant but as a woman.

When I slipped into his bed, we didn’t talk, we just breathed and moved like two people who knew the rules but couldn’t stop playing.

And in the morning I left before the staff woke up, my heart racing, my body trembling, telling myself it would never happen again—but it happened again, two nights later, and again the following week, always when she was away, always when the house was asleep.

And every time I entered his room, he told me it would be the last time, that it meant nothing, but each time he held me tighter, kissed me slower, whispered my name like a promise, and I began to dread the sound of his wife’s car returning because that meant I had to become invisible again.

And the worst part wasn’t the guilt or the fear of being caught—it was the way he looked at me differently now in the daylight, the way he said “Thank you” as if it meant something more than gratitude, the way my own reflection began to change, as if I no longer recognized the girl looking back at me from the polished silver tray.

Because I was no longer just a maid, I was his secret, his weakness, and maybe—just maybe—I was falling in love with a man I could never really have.

EPISODE 2

The day Madam returned, the whole house changed as if it had been holding its breath the entire time she was away, and now it could finally exhale—but I couldn’t, neither my body nor my soul, because I could still feel the weight of his hands on my hips and the echo of his voice whispering things into the back of my neck that I should have forgotten by now.

I had barely finished setting the breakfast table when she walked in, tall and radiant in that way only wealthy women who have never suffered a day in their lives can be, her perfume flooding the air like war paint, her red heels clicking on the marble tiles like a warning shot.

And when her eyes met mine, she smiled, that cruel, rehearsed smile she only uses when she needs to remind me that I am the servant, just the poor girl her husband was kind enough to employ.

I lowered my head and whispered, “Welcome, ma’am,” even though my heart was screaming, and I could feel his gaze from behind her, heavy and inscrutable, the same man who had held me under him just nights ago as if I were his only escape, now standing next to his wife as if nothing had happened.

And for days, he said nothing—no glance, no whisper, no sign that I wasn’t going crazy—and I thought maybe it was all over, maybe it had been a mistake from the start, until the fifth night after her return, when all the staff was summoned to the living room, and she, with a glass of wine in hand, announced amid laughter:

“This Saturday we’re having a party—only important people, behave yourselves.”

And then her eyes found mine again, sharper this time, and she added, “Especially you.”

Everyone laughed, but I didn’t, because something in her tone sounded like a trap, and I didn’t know how true that feeling was until the night of the party when I was ordered to serve drinks in the main hall, wearing the tight black maid uniform she had personally chosen for me, tighter than usual.

And then I knew she was watching me, not like before, but really watching.

And that’s when the real game began, because around midnight, when most of the guests were already drunk and the music was blaring louder, I felt a hand brush against mine behind the kitchen curtain, and it was him, whispering, “Come upstairs.”

And everything in me told me to run the other way, to scream, to quit, but instead I followed him, my heart pounding like a guilty drum, only to find the master bedroom dimly lit with candles—not mine, not his—hers, smelling of roses and poison.

And just as he locked the door and pulled me close again, his lips brushing mine, I heard a sound—a click—like the snap of a phone camera in the darkness.

I froze, my eyes darting to the slightly open closet door where something glimmered, and he cursed under his breath and rushed over there—but it was empty, the space cold, but not untouched.

And that’s when the real fear settled in, because he paced back and forth, furious, murmuring:

“She knows, damn it, she knows.”

And all I could think was—what happens to a girl like me when a woman like her finds out everything?

He looked at me with panic for the first time, not with love, not with lust—panic—and said:

“Now you have to be careful, she’s not like other women.”

I wanted to ask him what he meant, why he looked so tormented, why the air suddenly felt like a trapdoor about to open, but then we heard her voice downstairs, calling cheerfully:

“Where’s my husband? Where is my sweet husband hiding?”

His face went pale, and he pushed me toward the back stairs and said:

“Go now, act like nothing happened, don’t talk to anyone until I say.”

And I ran, barefoot, trembling, realizing that I hadn’t just crossed a line—I had entered a marriage that wasn’t just broken but was dangerous.

And I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of woman smiles so beautifully while setting traps for two people in love—or maybe I was wrong, maybe this wasn’t love at all, just a game she let me enter, knowing exactly when she would close the cage.

EPISODE 3

The morning after the party, the mansion felt colder than usual, as if the walls themselves had heard the sin that had occurred upstairs, and when I entered the kitchen, all the staff looked at me differently—not head-on, not openly, but out of the corner of their eyes, as if they had heard something but didn’t know how to ask.

And Madam was already at the dining table, sipping her tea in a white robe that made her look almost angelic, except for her eyes—those eyes that seemed to have seen a fire and smiled at the flames.

And when she saw me, she didn’t scream or accuse, she simply gestured and said, “Sit down,” and I froze, because no lady ever tells her maid to sit, not in this house, not with that tone.

The cook looked at me horrified, but I obeyed, my heart pounding so loudly I couldn’t hear the tick-tock of the clock.

She set down her teacup and looked at me for a long time, smiling as if she expected something to break, and then she said softly, “I was like you once—young, pretty, foolish, and very good at sneaking into rooms that weren’t mine,” and the air left my lungs with a sharp blow as her smile deepened.

Then she reached under the table and placed something on the tablecloth between us—a phone, her phone—and pressed “play,” and there it was: the soft rustling of sheets, the faint sound of my breathing, his voice whispering my name as if I belonged to him.

And my world crumbled in a silent moment as she leaned closer and said, “He’s done it before, darling, you’re not the first, but you can be the last,” and slid a white envelope toward me and whispered, “One million naira. Leave tonight. Don’t come back. No explanations. No tears.”

And I just stood there trembling, staring at the envelope as if it were poison, because in a way it was.

And before I could speak, she stood up and walked away without a word, leaving her tea untouched.

Later that afternoon, when I found him in the study, pacing like a man who had lost everything, I confronted him, my heart burning and my hands shaking, and asked, “Was I just another game for you? Like all the others?”

He grabbed me, pleading, swearing this was different, that he loved me, that she was dangerous and capable of things he couldn’t even say out loud.

But I couldn’t trust any of it anymore—neither his words, nor his touch, nor even my own feelings.

That night I stood in front of my small suitcase, the envelope in hand, torn between pride and pain, telling myself it was over, that I would leave and never look back.

But just as I turned toward the door with tears in my eyes, a loud thud echoed from the master bedroom, followed by a scream so sharp it cut through the night like lightning.

I dropped everything and ran, barefoot, racing up the stairs two at a time, and what I saw when I opened the door stopped my heart—Madam standing over him with something sharp in her hand, her robe stained red, her eyes wide and shining like someone who had finally, finally won.

He lay on the floor bleeding from his shoulder, not dead but crying in pain.

And when she turned to me, her voice was strangely calm, “You should have taken the money.”

And there I knew this was never just about love, lust, or betrayal—this was a war, and I was at the center, unarmed, with blood on my slippers and a secret too big for my chest.

EPISODE 4

I stood frozen, the soft pulse of his bleeding shoulder matching the rapid beat of my heart, and for a moment no one moved, not even Madam, who still held the bloodied perfume bottle she had smashed against her skin, her breathing calm, too calm for a woman who had just attacked her husband, and she looked at me as if I were the intruder, the snake that had slithered into her Eden.

And when she spoke, her voice wasn’t loud—it was worse than loud, it was low, cold, laden with certainty:

“Did you think he loved you? Did you think you mattered?”

I looked at him, the man with whom I had snuck into bed so many nights, the man who told me I made him feel alive, who kissed me like I was his only truth, and yet now all I saw in his eyes was fear, fear of her, fear of himself, fear of me—because he didn’t protect me, he didn’t stop it, he let this war erupt without choosing a side.

And suddenly I felt foolish, not just for falling in love, but for believing it was anything more than a moment of relief in a marriage that had already died long before I arrived.

And as he groaned on the floor, reaching out to me as if I could fix what was already broken, Madam stepped closer and left the phone by his side, whispering:

“Call the police, but tell them everything, including how you’ve been sleeping with your maid under the same roof as your wife.”

His hand stopped, because he knew, we all knew, that even though she was violent, even though she had crossed the line, she was still the legal wife, and I… I was just the shame that would never be admitted in court.

It was then that I backed away slowly, feeling everything I had contained for months shatter in an instant—every glance, every kiss, every lie I told myself to justify what we were doing, all crumbled.

And I realized I had built my entire heart around a man who couldn’t even defend me against the woman he claimed to hate.

When I reached the stairs, he called my name—not with love, but with desperation, like someone begging for a lifeline that might snap, but it was already too late.

I only turned back once, just long enough to see Madam kneeling beside him and whispering something I couldn’t hear, something that made his face crumble.

And I knew then that she had always been three steps ahead of both of us, that this game we thought we were playing in secret was a performance she had watched from her throne, patiently waiting for the curtain to fall.

And that night I left that mansion without a suitcase, without a job, without an apology—just silence, heavy and sharp.

And I never returned, not even when rumors began to circulate about their tumultuous divorce, or how he quit his company, or how Madam generously donated to a mental health organization weeks later, like a queen washing her hands after a battle.

And sometimes, late at night, when the rain returns and I catch a whiff of his cologne on someone else, my heart still shudders, not for what we did, but for the girl I was before it all began—naive enough to think that sneaking into his room meant I belonged there, blind to the truth that no matter how close I was to his body, I was never truly inside his heart.