CHAPTER 7

Philip stood with Paul outside the house as they discussed. For the first time, he saw how soft his father was.

"I thought I would be able to tell her that I knew how she was cheating on me.... but I couldn't." Paul said.

Philip said nothing but listened, it was better to listen now than to talk.

"I found out about the person she was cheating with. When she got sick after returning late on that Friday, I sent some men to search for the man in his house but he wasn't there. His neighbors told me that he packed out that Friday night.....I would have killed him myself but the bastard ran away after poisoning your mother."

"She was afraid that you would find out."

"She began sleeping with other men a year after our marriage.....I knew that Sandra was not my child from the start....she must have gotten it wrong with the man she slept with that resulted in Sandra and she claimed that it was my child and I pretended like it was true."

"You weren't giving her enough of you, dad."

"I am sterile, she knew that it affected me when we found out. All she ever wanted was a pleasure in bed, she didn't care about anything else and I gave her what she wanted anytime she asked for it but.... in the end, she was still a cheater"

"Why are you telling me all this? I already hate her for what she did."

"I want you to find the bastard who poisoned your mother and I want you to bring him to me, I want him to suffer in my hands before he dies." Paul said.

Anger boiled up in Philip's heart at the thought of his mother dying because of the man she slept with. He wanted to kill the man by himself but his father was the one hurting the most so it would be justice for his father to kill the man himself.

"I will."

"And one more thing."

"What?"

"Stay away from Enya.....do it for me and yourself. She is going to break your heart as your mother did to mine." Philip looked at his father for a while and nodded.

"I have to go." he said and walked away from his father. He had to stay away from Enya for his father's sake or he would be hurt or rather, he would do something to hurt Enya.

Philip laid down on his bed and closed his eyes for a moment trying to think about something that would make him happy. Everything around him seemed to be going badly including his friendship with Enya. She had not called him for days, not that he was waiting for her call but it suddenly seemed strange that he was concerned about whether she called or not.

Thoughts of her still ran in his head and each time he got near her, he would always feel that she had finally found the key to unlocking the door to his heart.

She was different from the other girls he has slept with or talked to, she was cute and simple. Nothing was complicated about her. Suddenly he remembered that with all these feelings about her, she still betrayed him without looking back that night.

For a moment, he heard her cold voice and thought it was a joke till he listened carefully and watched her walk out with her father while leaving him in that fire to survive.

His father was right, he shouldn't have defended her when the man came the first time to attack Enya and her father. It was foolish of him yet he thought it was right until they got kidnapped and she left without looking back.

That night changed his life and the way he looked at people, he knew that his father was right about people and that knowledge that he had gained from his father helped him during those two years when he had to survive.

For a moment, Philip exhaled and opened his eyes, the past didn't leave him even though he had left the past. It still lingered in his head and sometimes stood in front of him like an image of himself. Anger slowly crept into his heart and bitterness set in again. The scars returned and the present vanished.

Enya and Martins had come together at the party that Olivia had invited them to. They both laughed and talked with other students who were at the party. Philip had also gone there because he was invited by his course mate, he saw Enya and Martins together.

They both looked happy together, after all, no girl would want to date a guy who had problems accepting her while holding on to his past. No girl wanted a guy who always reminded her of her past mistakes, he wasn't surprised at all to see that she was happy with Martins.

He watched as they danced to the music and smiled at each other's dance steps. At some point when the music got too romantic, Martins drew her closer to him and touches her thighs while raising them to his waist level.

Martins knew very well that Philip was watching them from a distance and he decided to make it more romantic.

"Follow me" Martins whispered into her ears and he led her by the hand into a corner where he pushed her gently to the wall and kissed her.

She responded and didn't want to let go of that feeling. When they both came out of the corner, Enya accidentally spotted Philip leaving the party.

She was shocked for a moment but then she excused herself and walked out to meet Philip. With his hands tucked into the pockets of his coat, Philip's hands felt warm a bit but what he saw sent chills down his spine.

"Philip!" Enya shouted his name as she approached him. He halted and turned to look at her in that beautiful party dress.

"Where have you been all this while? I have been trying to reach you." she asked looking into his eyes to find answers but she couldn't.

"I was with my mother....and father. Family problems you know."

"Why didn't you return my calls?"

"I was....."

"Too tired right? Or maybe you are going to say that you didn't want to talk to anyone." She said with a bit of anger.

Philip kept quiet even though he knew within himself that he wasn't intending to say any of those things that she said. He was too weak to talk, weak after seeing her kiss another guy so passionately.

"It's not wrong for me to date another guy who loves me like you never did, do you know what I think? I think that Martins is way better than you. At least he is returning the same love that I gave to you. So I don't care if you love me or not, truth is that it doesn't matter anymore." she said and turned to walk away.

"I was not tired and I did want to talk to you...sorry that I didn't see your missed calls. I was equally waiting for you to call so that I could talk."

"You expect me to believe that?" She asked.

He knew that she wouldn't believe that he had not touched his phone for the past week because of the stress of taking care of his hospitalized mother and he didn't want to tell her that.

"Good night." She said and walked away from him.

That was the best she could do after getting really angry. That night as she lay down on her bed, she remembered Philip's voice, there was something weak and helpless about his voice. The fact that he had been waiting for her call also made her heart jump and she felt guilty for talking to him the way she had.

Philip rushed to his bathroom and took out his medications from the cupboard, then he swallowed them with some water. The tension and anxiety that he was feeling, cooled down gradually and he splashed water over his face, he could not look himself in the mirror as tears ran down his face. Of course, he was a miserable person with too many problems and unforgettable experiences.

Enya was right when she said that Martins was much better than him, for so long he thought that Enya could wait for him to overcome himself and be a normal person but he was wrong about that.

The more he tried to live a normal life, the more he felt himself being dragged up into his past again. Some minutes later, he took out his phone and threw it across the wall causing the screen to smash into pieces. That was how his life was, in a thousand broken pieces.

"He recently packed in here like two months ago....at a certain time I thought he was a good and quiet person until I started seeing him with this woman who I think was married," a neighbor said.

"How did you know that she was married?" Philip asked.

"She had a ring on her finger and she would come to his house every Friday night....and she would be on her way home after some hours....at an odd hour."

"When did he pack out?"

"Just some days back after she had come to his house that Friday night and went out....he packed his load out the following morning."

"During those....days that he stayed in that house, did he have any friends?"

"Oh yes...he did. A young guy with dark hair, tall and with tattoos on his neck used to visit him along with some men."

"Was the guy that stayed here young or older?"

"Let me describe him....he is older but not older than the woman that used to visit him....he is a little bit taller than his friend with mixed grey and black hair....stern face but handsome."

"Did you by anyway get his number during his stay?"

"I did...but the number doesn't exist now."

"Okay... thank you so much for the information."

"Is he a bad person?.... I'm asking because the guy with tattoos that usually visited him did not look as pure as any young guy should be"

"Thanks." Philip said and walked away from the house.

He got into his car and sighed. He had searched the house but nothing was found that could refer to where the man had gone.

As he drove off, he thought of the description that the neighbor gave about the young man that used to visit Henry, the description looked familiar but he couldn't figure out who it was.

Some minutes later, he stopped at a store and went in to buy some things for Sandra, she had been worried about their mother that she had forgotten what it was like to smile again.

As he walked through the shelves, he saw a book that she loved reading, she had been looking for the second part of the book and he had found it. He took it and put it in a cart then he went to another shelf and selected some other novels that she would like.

Meanwhile, Enya and Martins were at the same store buying some things together, when they reached the shelf that Philip was picking a book from, Enya saw him and her heart jumped a bit.

"What's wrong?" Martins asked observing how her mood changed when he looked in the direction she was looking and saw Philip.

"He is here." Martins said and he slid his hands around her hips.

"Look at me for a moment," he said and she turned to him then he drew her closer to him and caught her lips with his.

Philip sighed and kept the book in the cart then he wanted to drive the cart forward to pick up more books when he saw the both of them kissing, Martins withdrew his lips from hers and they both found their breath. Enya completely forgot about Philip and smiled as she concentrated on Martins.

"What was that for?" She asked.

"Love..." He said and they both laughed.

Philip drove the cart past them and diverted it to another shelf. He was tired of watching their kissing drama each time he saw them. He was equally okay without Enya if she cared to ask.

"Some of our men said that they got a snapshot of his car's plate number a day before mom got sick." Philip said as he sat down on the sofa.

"Did you track the car down?" Paul asked.

"I did but the signal disappeared....and there was no trace of his car stopping anywhere in this country in the last week."

"That's impossible."

"I also checked the flight records from this country to other countries but his name was not on any list."

"Then he might still be here."

"I couldn't even trace any of his family members. He is a ghost."

"Then we have to bring him back to life." Paul said and Philip exhaled still thinking of what to do.

Some days later, Claudia was confirmed dead in the hospital where she was hospitalized. Sandra screamed out of anger and pain on hearing about her mother's death, she had to leave her school and take a bus to the hospital to see for herself, and on getting there, she saw Paul beside Claudia's dead body as they rolled her to the mortuary.

Paul had to hold his daughter close to him so that she wouldn't do anything harmful to herself. Philip on the other hand was arranging some things in his room when he heard his father's name over the television. He left what he was doing and went to the sitting room where he saw his mother's body being rolled into the mortuary.

Philip sat down and covered his face with his hands as he cried with anger, he took the cup close to him and threw it at the television's screen and the screen cracked from the middle spreading to other parts of the screen. He had not taken his medications the last night and he hadn't taken them that morning. He was so stressed out about everything in his life that the medications were useless to him.

"Enya!" Olivia screamed running towards Enya and Martins with her phone.

"Enya!"

"What's the problem? Your voice is going to bring down the roof of this....."

"His mother is dead!" Olivia said loudly and Enya was confused for a second.

"Whose mother?"

"Philip's mother is dead...it's in the news! It is everywhere in the news." Enya took the phone from her and watched the news of Philip's mother's death.

It showed Paul Hammond and Sandra who buried her face in her father's shoulders crying helplessly.

"He....he never told me...."

"You mean you didn't know that his mother was sick because of food poisoning?....most of us knew about it and it shocked me that now we are hearing of her death. She wasn't supposed to die, she was a good woman..." Before Olivia could finish speaking, Enya had left them to go to the hospital. There was no way that it was true.

Martins wanted to run after Enya but Olivia held his hand.

"Leave her for now, it is between Philip and her. Please don't get involved." She said. Martins stopped and nodded, he felt sorry for Philip but he didn't want to lose Enya to Philip again.

Enya got to the hospital and saw Sandra all alone and quiet. When Sandra saw her, she couldn't hold back her tears again.

"Is it true? When did it happen?"

"Some weeks back, she was poisoned and got very sick after that. We tried to find a cure but it all failed.....I didn't believe that she would die"

"Where's Philip?....he never told me about this."

"I have not seen him since yesterday...I hope he hasn't done anything harmful to himself."

"What do you mean?"

"He takes medications to relieve himself of mental stress and anxiety. He does things that he regrets if he forgets to take them" Sandra said.

Enya got up and intended to leave but Paul stood in her way.

"Do not dare get near my son or you will regret it."

"I love Philip and I will not stay away from him." She replied with tears in her eyes, then she walked past him but she didn't get very far before his words stopped her.

"You think I don't know about your relationship with Martins? You hurt Philip when he saw you with Martins that night at that party. You don't love my son, you are just someone who breaks his heart again and again but if you say that you love him,...." He said as he approached her and stood in front of her.

"Stay away from him, don't turn him into a weak young man begging to be loved."

"He's begging to be loved because his father did not love him enough. His father turned him into a bitter and angry person, his father is the one who should stay away from him." Enya said and walked away from Paul, she had to find Philip or she would regret her life forever.

Richie turned the television off after hearing the news of Claudia's death. He didn't see Philip anywhere in the hospital, he had been searching the news since only to see how Philip's face would look like unfortunately for him, there was no trace of Philip anywhere and he was beginning to wonder where Philip had disappeared to.

"The bastard must be hiding" Richie said.

"So what's the next plan?"

"The next plan is to find that bastard and make him suffer then, I am going to show Enya his true colors."

"So this was about getting a girl?"

"No, it's about him. I want to show her that he is nothing but a cold-blooded Assassin like me."