by Kiru Taye
“Let’s hope you live long enough.” He sneered.
Ebuka jabbed his right fist, connecting with the other man’s nose.
“Ouch!” His head snapped back, and blood dripped. He withdrew a handkerchief to press against the nostril. “You broke my fucking nose.”
“Anụ ọfịa! I’ll do worse than that if you don’t call off your dogs.” Ebuka spat before walking out.
FOURTEEN
STANDING BY the pool, Xandra stayed alert to her surroundings—the bikini-clad woman fiddled with her phone. The housekeeper decanted refreshments from a tray onto a table. The security men remained at the front entrance.
Satisfied there wasn’t any immediate danger, she asked for the toilet. The woman said it was down the corridor on the right.
Xandra went back inside. She didn’t go to the toilet. Instead, she stood in the hallway listening to the conversation between Nweke and Ebuka in the living room. Not that she was monitoring her lover. She wanted to make sure that Nweke didn’t try anything stupid.
A smile curled her lips when she heard the impact of crunching bone, and Nweke yelled.
Ebuka could hold his own.
Her lungs expanded to their fullest as she took a deep, satisfied breath.
Ebuka came out. His body vibrated with his rage, his feet stomping on the stone tiles leading to the front door.
Outside, he leaned against the truck and puffed a breath. “That asshole tried to blackmail me.”
He rubbed his knuckles.
“You hit him.” She smiled.
He looked up, and a slow grin spread on his face. “Yes, I did. I haven’t thrown a punch in years.”
“From his whining, it sounded like you still have it.”
“I could kill that man for what he’s doing.”
He sounded furious enough to want to. But was Ebuka really a killer? Most decent people didn’t have it in them. And Ebuka was decent.
It didn’t matter though. Xandra would do whatever it took to protect him.
“What do you want to do?” She pulled open the truck door and climbed in.
He joined her inside. “We’re going back to the ranch, and I’m going to try and find someone in the state assembly or the police department who isn’t corrupt. Someone’s got to have something on him we can use to get him off my back.”
“That’s going to be difficult, isn’t it?” She glanced at him as the car rolled down the drive and out of the gates.
“Yes, it is. But I’m going to find it.”
His determination resonated with her. She was going to do whatever she needed to do to help him.
“I can hack into his computer to see if there’s anything you can use,” she said, keeping an eye on the road for a tail.
“You can do that?” He glanced at her.
“Yes. If he uses an unencrypted network, then it’ll be easier. I doubt it’ll be that easy, though.”
“Okay. What do you need?”
“Just network access. I can do what I need on my device.” He nodded.
She met his gaze. “You don’t mind that I’ll be doing something illegal by hacking into the SAG’s files?”
“That man has no right to be State Attorney General after what he said today, and if that’s what’s needed to bring him down, then you do it. Understood?”
“Yes. Does that mean you wouldn’t consider hiding out for a while just until the storm blows over?”
“Hide? Hell no!” He glared at her. “I’m not going to run from this. Njoku farm is my home. My father started it as a small-scale farm, and I built it up to what it is today. I’m not walking away from it. If Nweke wants a fight, he’s going to get it.”
His dark eyes burned with the fires of resolve and determination. He was an impressive man on any day. But now Xandra understood why she found him attractive. He possessed explosive power that had the potential to be ruthless if needed. If he was going to survive what was to come, he needed to be relentless.
“Got it,” she said.
He had just declared war on Nweke and possibly Himba, and it wasn’t going to be easy combat to win.
The tail didn’t show on the way to the ranch.
While Ebuka went to make some calls, she took the time to check out the security of the house. She secured open windows and made sure there weren’t any corners hiding an intruder. Mama Ebele claimed there hadn’t been anyone on the ranch since they left aside from Hector and Adiele.
In Xandra’s room, she took out a long-range binocular and climbed up to the top of the house tower. She did a three-sixty-degree check of the area around the ranch as far as she could see, even past the tree she had climbed on the first day here. With no sign of anyone lurking about, she went downstairs.
Ebuka asked Mama Ebele to serve dinner early. They hadn’t eaten properly all day aside from a quick snack and drink before driving Ginika to the airport.
After they cleared up the kitchen and the men left for the night, Ebuka took Xandra into his office so she could set up what she needed. She was about to pull up the leather chair when she got a message notification. Pulling out her device, she decoded and read the message.
Deliver the package to Lori Osa. Code 7030. All will be taken care of.
She had sent a message to Osagie to help as one of her options was to put Ebuka in hiding until she resolved this thing with Nweke and Himba.
But Ebuka didn’t want to hide, and she couldn’t blame him. They would play it his way until they ran out of options. Hopefully, she would find something tangible on Nweke’s system tonight for them to use as leverage against him.
In the meantime, she hoped they would get through the night without assassins breaking down the door. But that was wishful thinking.
“Wow. You’re good,” Ebuka said when she got through the firewalls and past the security hurdles into Nweke’s file network.
“Thank you,” she said and concentrated on locating the files they needed.
Most of them looked like case files, court rulings, house of assembly decisions, etc. Nothing stood out until she found an encrypted folder. It took a while to decode it. And when she did, it looked like they’d hit the jackpot.
It was a spreadsheet containing what looked like names, bank account numbers and sums of money transfers with dates too.
“Bingo,” Ebuka said, as he read the file over her shoulder. “If this is what I think it is, we’ve got enough to nail Ralph to one of his palm trees.”
“It looks like it.” She plugged in a storage device and started downloading the file. Halfway through the download, a ten-second countdown began on the screen.
“Shit,” she yelled and started typing furiously on the keyboard to stop it, heart pounding hard in her chest.
“What’s happening?” Ebuka asked, staring at the screen.
“The file is set to self-destruct if its hacked.” She pulled the storage drive out as soon as the download completed and the names and numbers were wiped off the screen.
“Fuck! It’s all gone.” Ebuka’s face crumpled.
She lifted the device in her hand and grinned at him. “No, it isn’t. I got them all.”
“You did?”
She nodded.
“You’re brilliant.” He grabbed her face and kissed her, dipping his tongue into her with such passion.
She gripped his nape and held him tight, enjoying the feel of his soft lips and forgetting their troubles for a few seconds.
He lifted his head and whispered against her mouth. “One day you’re going to tell me where you learnt all these skills. But for now, I’m going to lock that storage device in the safe and then we’re going upstairs to bed.”
Smiling, she remembered the last storage device she had taken from a safe. “I have a better idea about the memory stick. Do you have an empty opaque pill bottle?”
Pulling back, he eyed her. “Yes. There’s one in the bathroom upstairs. Why?”
“Trust me. Most safes won’t stop someone
determined to get into them. But simple ingenuity might stop them from finding this. Just give me a minute.”
She ran upstairs, found the empty pill bottle and came back to the office. She slipped the device inside, making sure it was well padded so it wouldn’t rattle. Then she sealed it and took Ebuka’s hand, leading him to the pantry where she had noticed a loose brick in the back wall.
She pulled out the brick, placed the bottle in the gap and replaced the brick.
“So only the two of us know where this is hidden.” She grinned at him.
“Clever. I’m going to lock up, and then I’ll meet you upstairs, in my room.”
“Okay.” While packing up, she still listened out for any sound that wasn’t Ebuka.
She locked her kit away in her room. She heard him coming upstairs and met him in the hallway.
He opened the door and reached for her. She took his hand, and he led her inside, turning on the overhead lamp. The space seemed like an extension of the man—solid furniture made from wood and metal, the furnishings in varying tones of brown and the walls the same sun-kissed cream tone as the rest of the house.
Without hesitation, she switched off the ceiling lamp. Silver light from the moon beamed in. She strode to the expansive windows and pulled the shutters. Then she walked to the table lamp and angled it so that it didn’t cast shadows of them and turned it on.
“Why did you do that?” he asked as he watched her move across the room.
“The light and open windows make us sitting ducks for anyone good with a sniper rifle.”
“Makes sense. But the things you think of astound me. Makes me think you were in the
military.”
“Special forces.”
“No shit.”
He stared at her with open admiration. “It explains why you take orders so well.”
“And why you wouldn’t want to turn into a tyrant.” She grinned.
He chuckled. “Obele, I wouldn’t dare.”
It was great to find humour in their situation even when she knew someone was probably on the way to the house intending to kill them.
“So, I don’t need to ask if you know your way around a gun.” He strode to his closet and opened a storage unit. Inside were two shotguns, one pistol and ammunition. He closed the cabinet but didn’t lock it. “You know where they are if we need them.”
“Good to know. But I’d say ‘when’ not ‘if.’ And I hope you don’t mind, but I’d rather use my weapons. Just give me a minute.” She hurried to her room and grabbed the pistol.
“That looks impressive,” Ebuka said when she returned. “Can I take a look?”
“Sure.” She held it out in an upturned palm.
He picked it up, weighed and sighted it before handing it over. Then he walked over to the right side of the bed and sat on the mattress.
She went to the opposite side and did the same, placing the gun on the bedside unit before pulling her boots off. But she didn’t remove the socks in case she needed to put the shoes back on in a hurry.
They both shifted into the bed fully clothed. As she placed her head on the pillow, he switched off the light, rolled over and put his arm over her.
Sighing, she relaxed a little as she felt his body close. The need for him still shimmered in her veins. But the need for survival superseded the need for sex.
Neither of them spoke nor slept for an hour.
“You can sleep,” she said. “I’ll take the first watch and wake you in two hours.”
“I’m not sure I can sleep,” he said.
“Try. You need the rest.” She turned to face him. “I’ll keep you safe.”
His face was shadowed, but she could feel the tension in his body. “You’re the one I saw, dead in my dream.”
“I promise you I won’t die.” She hoped. At least, not tonight. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. “Sleep.”
After another fifteen minutes, she heard his breathing even out, and he was asleep.
An hour later, she heard something that sounded like feet crunching on gravel. It was very faint, and she couldn’t be sure, but she couldn’t dismiss it either. Sitting up, she focused and strained to listen. She heard it again. It was faint, but it was there.
Her pulse rate picked up. Moving to the edge of the bed, she pulled her boots on and picked up the weapon. Then she patted Ebuka on the shoulder. He stirred and opened his eyes.
“There’s someone outside the house,” she whispered.
He scrambled out of bed and raced to the cabinet for the guns. He held the rifle and a pistol.
“Put your boots on and stay in here,” she said.
“I’m not hiding in here while there’s an intruder in my house.”
She gripped his shoulders. “This is what I do. Trust me.”
He nodded after a heartbeat.
“And if anyone comes through this door, shoot them. I’ll call out if it’s me coming back.” She turned to leave, but he gripped her nape, his fingers rough and gentle at the same time.
“Obele, stay alive,” he ordered.
Something lodged in her throat, and she coughed to dislodge it. “You too, boss.”
They both nodded, and she left him.
Her heart rate soared as she crossed the threshold into the hallway. Adrenaline flooded her system, making sure her muscles had the vital oxygen it needed to survive. Her body prepared to react to threats.
Unfortunately, an increased heart rate wasn’t right for using fine motor skills, the same abilities she needed to line up a shot accurately. She couldn’t afford to miss a target.
She took several deep breaths, pulling the air into the bottom of her lungs, into each alveolus. She held the inhales for a count of four before exhaling. This slowed her escalating heartbeat enough for her to function at optimal levels.
A scuffing sound came from downstairs. She moved swiftly, silently, the stone floors muting her footsteps. She reached the bottom of the stairs just as a shadow moved out of the kitchen.
Aiming, she squeezed the trigger, releasing two successive shots as she rolled across the floor into the living room. Bullets whizzed past her from a semi-automatic, hitting the sofa behind her, making cracking sounds.
She paused and listened out for where the sound came from. There were scratching sounds in the hallway, moving slowly towards the stairs. If she moved quickly, she could intercept him from behind.
Hang on. There was a second set of sounds, thuds, coming from the direction of Ebuka’s office.
Two intruders?
Professional assassins didn’t usually work in pairs. They were lone wolves by nature.
Except… a pair of assassin brothers. The deadly Soraya Psycho Twins.
Fuck.
Moving quickly, she raced across the room as another round of bullets peppered the air, punching holes through the furniture and only missing her by a hair’s breadth. She fired into the corridor, counting them out—three, four, five—so she didn’t lose count. She peeked into the hall just as she heard a heavy thud on the floor.
Rounding the corner, she fired another bullet into the heart of the man on the ground just to make sure he was dead.
The sound of several gun blasts from upstairs meant the second assassin was up there already. She jumped over the dead body and raced up the stairs. On the landing, she crawled as she listened. Heaving gasping. Both men were injured.
Adrenaline spiked in her body, and she lunged across the floor towards the open door in time to see the second intruder reaching up to shoot. She released two successive rounds into him, and he slumped back on the floor.
Dragging herself up, she jumped over him to where Ebuka lay on the floor. He’d dropped his gun and was clutching his side. Hands trembling, she checked him over.
Seeing him wounded made fear seize her heart for the first time in her life. If assassins kept coming, one would eventually hit its mark. Ebuka would be dead. She couldn’t let that happen. It was time to implement th
e backup plan.
“What happened?” he asked with a groan.
She tore his shirt apart to see where blood was seeping out. “You’ve been shot twice.”
Another wound bled on his thigh and a nasty gash on the back of his head where he’d hit the cabinet. He drifted in and out of consciousness.
Sitting him up, she hooked her shoulder under his arm and dragged him up to the bed.
She turned on the side lamp before racing into the bathroom to get the first aid kit.
Luckily, the injury by his side was no more than a flesh wound. She cleaned it out and wrapped a bandage around him.
The bullet in his leg was trickier, lodged in his thigh, near arteries and shit.
She couldn’t afford to take him to any hospital. He wouldn’t be secure.
She sedated him with one of the syringes and proceeded to dig the bullet out with her knife. Afterwards, she cleaned it out and cauterized the wound before sealing it with bandages.
She dressed Ebuka again and left him sleeping before focusing attention on the bodies of the dead men. Carrying their bodies outside, she loaded them into the front seats of Ebuka’s truck and poured fuel on their bodies.
Back inside, she cleaned the blood from the floor. Forensics would find traces, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for them. The best thing would’ve been to use professional hit cleaners, but there wasn’t the time right now.
She returned upstairs, changed her clothes and loaded her car with her luggage. Then she carried Ebuka downstairs and lay him down across the backseat of the vehicle.
She returned to Ebuka’s truck and stuck a long rag into the fuel tank and did the same with the SUV of the assassins. Then she lit the tips before getting into her car and driving away.
In the mirror, the fire blazed, and a massive blast turned the two vehicles into fireballs. They were a safe distance from the house, and hopefully, the other men would be there before any of the animals could be hurt, and Ginika would still have her home.
She drove for hours, stopping only at a rest stop to buy tea, food and use the ladies. Lori Osa was at least twelve hours away and the one place she had to get Ebuka to keep him safe until she dealt with Nweke and Himba.
