PART TWO

EDWARD

"Gentlemen. How can I help you? Why are you in my house this late?"

Standing between his muscled workers, William raised a finger to stop me from talking. He was on the phone, as composed as ever, but I knew him well enough to know there was something wrong.

"Change of plans, Edward." He hung up and turned to me. "Your uncle needs us in the house."

"It's nine o'clock. What does James need?"

"We have a problem with the business. I don't have the time to explain, James will."

We strolled into my uncle's home a few minutes to ten.

Memories of the time when I was around this hell hole came to mind, but I pushed them back. I had no time to try and reminisce on old times. Music filled the air – as usual – without effort, like the waves filling holes in beach sand; the sound rushing in and around every person. Some reacted to the beat, dancing, while others continued in chatter, but bopping their heads as if it still spoke to them in some manner. There were women in bikinis walking around and some were inside the pool. This was nothing new, I would have been surprised had there been nobody around.

Valentine's silver Mercedes was parked at the front. I knew the situation had to be dire if he needed everyone around, including her. I nodded to a couple of my friends walking into the house as fast as I could, trying to avoid unnecessary chit chat.

We called our home 'the mansion'. The house was situated in the leafy suburbs of Kiambu County, away from civilization. The closest neighbour was about five minutes away. On the first floor, there's a living room, a hall, a kitchen, and a toilet. On the second floor, there were six bedrooms, three bathrooms and a balcony. It had a study on the third floor. There was a garage, a garden, and a swimming pool. It had a foyer that would accommodate the Serengeti Plant at the foot of a vast curving staircase that I thought went to heaven the first time I moved in. Upstairs, the velvet drapes framed the windows, the lace inner curtains remained drawn, allowing moonlight to enter while rendering the heart-stopping view over the city a blur.

James, Valentine and my best friend, Matthew, waited in the study.

"It's taken you long enough to get here," James said. Blowing his cigar, he signalled for William and me to take a seat.

"Why are we here?"

"Someone's after me. Some of the things that we were moving into the country have been seized by the police," he said, with a calmness that was worse than his anger.

James was a businessman. According to the public, he was a tea farmer who owned an import and export trading business. He possessed acres and acres of tea farms in the Tigoni area. The reality was far chilling than that. He provided a service for the scum of the earth. Whatever you wanted to do that was illegal he was the man to go to and because of his consummate skill, he built an untouchable empire.

"How do we know that they are after you, maybe it was just a coincidence?" Valentine asked.

"A coincidence is always a plan in disguise." James blew out smoke. Finally, anger had found its way into his voice. "They had all the information about my shipment including the warehouses. Luckily, it couldn't be tied to me so here I am. It means someone powerful, someone in the higher-ups, is coming after me and that there's somebody in our camp comfortable enough to betray me."

"Could it be someone you had a falling out with?" Valentine asked. "A politician?"

"I avoid any politicians. They rarely have any power."

"What were you moving?" I asked.

"Some of my contacts needed weapons. These are contacts that don't like being disappointed and now we have to clean the mess before someone puts bullets into our heads."

I sighed. "What do you want us to do?"

He turned to Valentine and William. "Use your people and find out who is after me. William, I want to know who is bold enough to betray me. Matthew, you're aware of the Mahad Karim family?"

Matthew owned a string of clubs all over the country. A social butterfly, he knew a lot of people, especially those good for our business.

"Mahad's oldest son, Said, is one of my biggest clients. He's the one who oversees his father's tobacco business, and most of his business transactions are run in my clubs."

"We can't afford to make an enemy out of them," James went on. "Said has a reputation for being sociopathic so I need you to smooth things over and buy us some time before we replace his father's weapons."

Matthew nodded in agreement.

"Why am I here?" I asked.

James smiled. "That anger that you have in you, maybe you can get off some steam by actually being useful. I need answers from the people I left in charge and they are not saying what I want to hear. No one can get them to talk better than you can."

I never grew up looking for a fight. I was a pacifist by nature, but life forced me into using my fists as a form of communication when I was as young as thirteen. I took pleasure in taking people down and in no time that is what I was known for. The nickname 'hand of stone' wasn't just bestowed upon me for no reason. I loved to hurt. Giving mercy was good until it was proven to hurt the innocent.

We talked about business and strategies for another hour before everyone dispersed to do as told. Matthew and I were needed in the basement for interrogations.

"How was your movie night?" Valentine asked as we walked out together.

"Great. You should have stayed."

She smiled. "And watch you flirt with your maid to punish me? No, thank you."

"I'm not punishing you for anything, Val. The past is the past. And Maria is not a maid, she's my guest. Show her some respect."

"She's distracting you."

"You're just jealous," I smiled, and her response was to roll her eyes.

"There is nothing to be jealous of Edward, we've known each other for twenty years and how long have you known her? Twenty minutes?"

Vixen. That was the word to describe her. The kind of woman who could bat her lashes at any man and they would crumble to her feet. As clever as the devil and twice as pretty. At some point, I was that man, eager to give her the moon and the stars. The only one with the power to tame the demons that hid within me. The strongest person I knew yet fragile. But she was not fragile like a flower. She was fragile like a bomb.

"Why don't you spend the night at my place tonight?"

"Tempting."

"It'll be like old times."

"I have things to do."

She grabbed my arm. "I don't get it, what's it about her? To be honest, she's as plain as they get, even your wife made more sense to me than she does. You know you need a woman in your life, not some little girl who looks like the only experience she was lucky to have was her pathetic high school boyfriend who she was sure she would marry."

I had to give it to V, the girl could hold her own. "She's different."

"Different how?"

"Just different. You have to know her to understand."

"You mean she's pure?"

"I didn't say that. Can we have a conversation without you bringing up the purity of every woman that I'm with?"

"Well forgive me if I can't forget that you told me the reason you can't be with me, the love of your life, is because of the work that we both have no control over. Forgive me if the only excuse you have is that you're a coward."

I snapped, "I can't be with you because you're my uncles' little whore. He tells you to open your legs for anyone to save his ass and you do it. You want me to wife you up after that and then what? We have pillow talks about the men you're able to fuck to submission?"

I regretted what I said as soon as the words come out of my mouth. She had on the same look she had the first time I was honest about our situation. That was fifteen years ago. We were seventeen.

Her laugh was sinister. "You're an asshole."

Valentine was gone before I could apologize for my insensitivity. Frustrated, I looked around at the place that brought out the worst in me. I hated being in the manor.

Matthew and I made our way to the basement.

"So, what was that?" he asked. "You and V are arguing again? What about?"

"It's a long story."

Matthew pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his coat jacket. "When we left the office, I heard William tell James about a woman he saw at your house. You met someone. You have that same stupid look on your face you used to have when V walked into the room."

"No. I don't."

"What have I always told you? Love is for fools... you never listen."

I smiled. "I should be like you; different models on a carousel?"

He lit up his cigarette before pushing open the door to the basement. "And multiple sports cars. Good life my friend. Fewer headaches."

There was a man strapped onto the chair in a basement. He was finely dressed in a suit bloodied with his blood. I had met him once, he worked at the port in Mombasa, controlling a new trafficking route. Heroin from Asia and cocaine from Latin America transited through the port, before heading to Europe.

I felt bad that I didn't know him on a personal level. It meant that he was going to be on the receiving end of all my frustrations until he talked. But there was something about the quaking of his body that told me he didn't know anything.

Matthew leaned on the door. "Don't go overboard."

"I don't need a babysitter. I know what I'm doing."

He laughed. "Good thing you have me then, I'm not here to feed you your bottle."

The man on the chair looked up at me. His face wasn't badly beaten, just a cut above his eyebrow, the scarlet blood flowing into his eyes.

"I haven't even swung a punch yet and I see you quiver."

He spoke up with a hushed voice. "I've heard about you, Edward. Forgive me for the fear. Even the strongest of men are afraid of you. You're as cruel as they get."

"This, whatever it is that I'll do to you, isn't cruelty. This is mercy and justice. You cannot control yourself and so I'm here to control you."

He chuckled. I snapped off the ropes that bound his hands and moved back. "Do you like gambling? I'm addicted even though it isn't right. It's a sin, you know, as is greed. But let's make this easy for us both, fight me and if you hit my face once, I let you walk. Or just tell me the truth."

Expressionless and with a stare that seemed alien, he stood on wobbly feet. "We both know that I'm not going to touch you no matter how hard I try. I don't know what you want me to say. I didn't betray James. So, do your worst."

***

Midnight struck just as I walked into my house. My knuckles were bruised but they didn't hurt nearly as much as the demons that tormented me. I still remembered how my skin was once untouched. A beautiful, blank canvas that I had mutilated. The marks of my violence a relentless reminder that what was once tempting and exciting is now a recurring nightmare.

"Fuck!"

It hit me at that moment that Maria was still locked up in the panic room. Quickly, I leapt up the stairs and punched the panic room's passcode. She was sleeping on the desk, her breathing deep and steady. It seemed like she had cried herself to sleep because of the streaks of tears on her face.

At my touch, she opened her eyes in a panic. Cold fear spiralled through her. Quickly, she moved away from me. "You said you'd be back, but you never came back."

"I'm sorry, I lost track of time."

"I told you I hate small spaces. I couldn't breathe."

"I'm sorry." I tried to touch her again, but she leaned away. "I didn't think I'd be gone for too long."

She looked up, fear and anger flashing through her. It was a look I should have been used to by now. The same look my wife had when she found out who I truly was. Finally, she saw me, and I felt her slipping from my hands like sand in an hourglass.