Chapter 32

"What the fuck do you mean by you have already booked a flight to Nigeria?" Vivian could feel his wrath growing. "Who told you you could leave the country? Have you gone insane?" She knew he would have slapped her if she had been standing before him. "You should have been at Charles' house by now."

"I'm sorry," she said, parking the car behind the big oak trees that stood tall couple of yards away from her house. "But I'm here to get my things and leave. For good. I can't continue this anymore. It's stupid!" She was between controlling and losing her anger. Vivian rubbed her eyes with the heel of her palm, fatigued.

He laughed hysterically, almost choking on his own spit. He gave a dead look at the end of the laugh, clenching his teeth.

He wasn't going to let her go. It was impossible for their plan to work without her. Furthermore, she was certainly going to expose him if he let her go just like that. Though she didn't know who he was, she, technically, knew what their plans were, though he hadn't told her. She had a good head. Telling someone —like Rachael or Charles or any of the Blades— would make the person know who it was that didn't want Rachael and Charles to be married.

"Are you even thinking?" He asked her, fighting the anger back. Being angry with her wasn't changing her mind. He had to change tactics. "You could be on the police wanted list by now for killing your mother and abducting a kid. You're smarter than that, Amira." Her long silence confirmed that he already had an effect on her. He smiled. Satisfied.

"Don't call me that." Vivian held her breath with her eyes closed then released it slowly. "It was your idea that I get the kid no matter what. Also, I only knocked her out, so my mother is not dead." He enjoyed the sound of meekness in her voice, that yielding sound. Vivian thought she sounded strong, but, she didn't. She sounded weak.

"You can't be sure," he said. "Aren't you concerned about why your name isn't on the police wanted list? You know your father is a well-organised man, a man of standards. I know, without doubt, that he's looking for your mother, waiting for forty-eight hours to report to the police a missing woman who could be dead by now, and a little boy." He giggled at the end, glad that he had taken control again.

"Bravo. That means I have a lot of time to get my ass out of this country. I count that as one of my blessing." She got down from her car, looked around, then shut the door. "This is my chance of getting out of this mess that you started." Vivian started for the back entrance of her house.

He began laughing again. "You're so stupid, Vivian." He wiped the tears that sat in the corners of his eyes. "Do you think I'll let you leave the country knowing that you're not running away from your father alone but us also?"

She didn't understand why he used us when she'd never seen him neither anybody else. Neither has she talked to anyone else about this particular mission. 

Now wasn't the right time to pay attention to the pronouns he used.

"I can't see how you're going to stop me." She knew there were many ways he could stop her, but didn't see how.

"You won't see me stop you. You'll feel me." He reclined in the black chair that he sat on. "Let me give you a hint of how I'm going to stop you. You're probably thinking hard right now." He didn't feel comfortable in the position he was in, so he got up. "I will just sit her, wait for you to hang up on me like you usually do. After that, I will call the police and report you. I will then call your father and tell him that you put your mother's corpse in the pantry." He paused. "I will think about what to tell him that you did to the little boy."

Fuck.

Fuck.

This was the result of working with cunning people who cared only about themselves. She froze with one leg on her wooden back porch stairs and bit her bottom lip.

They were ambitious people. If they could stop Charles and Rachael's wedding without anyone even thinking that they were the ones who stopped the wedding and not Vivian, what big task it was for them to stop her from leaving the country? She didn't even know how they looked, or their names, so she couldn't escape from them.

Vivian had accepted the fact that she wasn't only working for a powerful man, but powerful people who clearly didn't want Rachael and Charles having a union.

It didn't seem that way. It was certain that they wanted more than Rachael and Charles not getting married. She didn't care about what reason they didn't. All she cared about was her getting out.

"What do you want me to do?" Vivian succumbed finally. She had already started this, so she had to end it, not knowing when that would be.

Satisfied, he sat down back in the chair. "That's my Amira speaking. Welcome back." He wished she was around so he could award her with a kiss or lick her pussy. "Before I start, never in your life do what you just did, understand?"

She gulped down her spit and wiped the tears that were forming in her eyes with the back of her hand. He always mad her powerless when they talked. He always took away every strength that she had without stressing himself. "Yes," she replied, and stood with her hand around the doorknob.

"You will wait for them to come at your house. Don't GO ANYWHERE," he emphasised on the last two words. "Sooner or later they will show up at your house and take you to the station. You should demand that you call your lawyer. Dont say anything else apart from speaking to your lawyer. You're a great actress," he explained to her. "That's an easy task, isn't it?"

"You just expect me to give myself to the police like that? What if it's your plan for me to rot in prison," she stated, holding tight onto the doorknob, releasing all her anger on it. "What if you're done with me here?"

"I still have a lot to do with you. So just leave the rest to me and trust my plans," he told her, not harshly, but not calmly either.

Your same goddamn plan got me in the mess that I'm in right now, Vivian said to herself, wishing she could say it to the sonofabitch in his face. "OK," was all she could say.

"Tell Steve Blade I said hi," was his goodbye statement. He dropped the line, leaving her in her anxious, fear–filled moment.

Vivian walked into the house. She had to eat, take her shower, then have a rest while waiting for the cops to show up at her doorstep anytime. Sleeping in a car wasn't comfortable when it wasn't planned.

She was trusting him for the last time. The very last. If anything go wrong again, then she'd find her way out, not giving a fuck about fate.

The house was very hot. She headed for the living room to open the windows so the cool breeze could come inside, along with the fragrances of the fresh tree leaves.

Vivian didn't move from the spot she was in when she entered the living room and found them waiting for her already. Her mother and father were standing there with two officers.

She would have run if he hadn't told her to give herself to the cops. Vivian waited for one of the cops to come get her, rather, her mom stepped forward and gave her a slap on her face. Vivian held her face while her father stopped her mother from giving her another slap.

"Where is my grandson?" He asked her as she was being cuffed by one of the cops. She didn't say a word like she had been instructed.

The other one read her rights to her later. That wasn't the right way. They should have read her rights before cuffing her.  She didn't resist arrest, so why rush with the cuffs? All she did was froze without them telling her to.

Upside-down system. Or Upside-down men. One had to be upside-down. Either the system or the men who made the system.

At the end he asked her, "Do you understand?"

"I want to speak with my lawyer," she said, dudging the question. She was asked again. She remained silent until they decided to take her out to the police car where another fat cop sat drinking coffee in the driver seat.

♦️♦️♦️♦️

She'd seen him, not his face, but his structure, follow her everywhere she went, literally. He never let her see his face that was shielded under his black hat that complemented his entirely black suit. He was beginning to scare her, he knew that.

Maybe she had seen his blue eyes glitter in the darkness, or noticed his ginger hair hang down the side of his head. She'd had surely seen his big hands.

He didn't want much but for her to talk to him. To tell her everything she hadn't been told. She needed to know.

She needs to, he kept telling himself as he entered his room that could make it easier for a person to define him— a killer. There were guns ranging from raffle— Browning BT99 through pistol, swords through pocket knife. They weren't hidden. Who did he need to hide them from? The cops? That's a topic for another day.

Well, if people would define him from his room decor, with the obvious, then they would never get his true definition. He wasn't a killer, he only protected himself. He wasn't bad, he only didn't like being good. Being good is a major weakness, he thought. He wasn't selfish, he just loved himself, and her, unconditionally.

He wished he could wish that she would know how much he loved her. But wishes were for the weak, lazy. Since he was a boy, he'd always gotten what he wanted by working for it, not idly wishing for it. He wasn't going to wish for her to know he loved her, he would work for that to happen, even if it meant for him to kill...no, protect himself.

He hauled his cigarette deep before picking up the phone that sat on his gun–filled desk when it rang. "What took you so long? You better have better news." He listened carefully as the speaker on the other side of the line spoke. "Alright," he said puffing the smoke out. "We leave by 11:00am. I don't give a flying fuck if someone sees me or not."

That was literally what he'd been doing all his life, not giving a flying fuck. But somehow, she made him do. He loved her, but he didn't feel weak, he felt strong. She made him strong.

The speaker from the other side of the line protested the attending of the Blade's charity program, informing him that the security system would be very strong. It was very risky to attend that program or any, since the Blades became vigilant after two of their children had be attacked by paparazzi, and since she had seen him and knew he was going to strike anytime soon.

He believed in surprising. She would expect him to strike anytime soon. What she didn't know is he was already striking, but using an unprecedented method which she'd not knew. It would be late when she realises it.

He wanted to make her scare with a glimpse of him.

"Are you questioning my decision?" He asked. "Better," he said when the speaker from the other side of the line succumb. "You can break their security down, can't you? Do it!" He hung up and pour the vodka that sat on the table into the glass that sat next to it.

Cheers to new beginning after today. Cheers to getting back all that was taken from him during the past wasted twenty-seven years of his life.

He raised his glass up and drank, gladly accepting the burning sensation that ran down his throat.

Cheers.