Chapter 1:

Men are scum!

Those were the three words that rang in her head as she threw her bag on her queen-size bed and followed suit, her face buried in the mattress. She was angry, terribly angry so much so that she wanted to scream but she didn’t utter a word. She knew screaming would only attract the attention of everyone in the house and she wasn’t ready to relive the bad experience, scratch that, the worst experience of her life to another human just yet. She would rather wallow in the pain her heart was already bleeding from for a little while longer. She had had the worst day of her life and all because of a man. One bloody man! she said to herself.

The bastard! She made a fist and hit the bed. And to think I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. I have indeed been an idiot. I've given him all of myself and this what he decided to pay me back with. She coiled up in her bed and faced the wall, allowing the tears that had welled up in her eyes to flow freely.

This wasn’t the kind of day she envisaged. She woke up that morning hoping to go through the day with pleasant birthday surprises. If only she had known that she was to be surprised by something else, she probably would have slept through the day to wake up a day after.

Damn it! She cursed under her breath as she ran her hands through her thick black hair, scattering it as she did. She sat up and reached for her bag. Opening it, she took out her Samsung Galaxy S9. She noticed a message had been sent to her some minutes earlier and from an unknown number. Unlocking her phone, she opened the message to read it.

Happy 26th birthday baby girl! She read out loud, I wish you loads of excitement as you go through this day. On this special day I want you to know that you’re the best anyone could ask for. You light up any room you walk into and just when anyone thinks life can offer no other good thing, you bring meaning to life itself. Baby girl, you’re perfect but it’s sad to say that your perfection isn’t for me. I hope you find love in this new chapter of your life with the one who your perfection would mean everything. Have a great day babe.

“This doesn’t even make any sense!” she ran her fingers though her already scattered hair. “After breaking up with me only less than an hour ago, he's sending me this? Who the hell does he think he is to ruin my birthday for the second time? Damn you Alex! Damn you!” she threw her phone against the wall.


***

Femi smiled as he watched Cynthia go through the comprehensive two-page story he had written over the weekend and handed to her barely ten minutes ago. He was as excited as a child on his birthday as he watched her read with keen interest. When she smiled at a point, he felt his insides leap for joy. She must love this one, he thought. It was quite hard pleasing the editors at Hit Newspaper and he made sure he worked hard on this piece before handing it to her.

“Hey Cynthia!” Tolani, a fellow staff of Hit Newspaper, strolled into Cynthia’s office with her ever annoying high-pitched voice and beautiful American accent. He looked at her hand and noticed the A4 paper she held and wondered what she came to Cynthia’s office for while he was in a meeting with her.

“Hello Tola, how can I help you today?” Cynthia asked with a hand gesture.

“I know you’re in a meeting with Femi regarding the last piece to go into the news hole but I've got something interesting to show you. It will only take five minutes, trust me”

Cynthia looked at Femi and back at Tolani, obviously trying to make up her mind whether to listen to her or not. “Three minutes is all I have for you”

“That is enough for me. Here, look at this” she handed her the paper in her hand.

Femi noticed the delight on Cynthia’s face as she read through what Tolani had given to her. He looked at Tolani wondering what was in the paper, and a part of him was hoping that she hadn’t come to sabotage his hard work.

Tolani had always been on Femi’s heels, doing things that never allowed his hard work come to fruition. She was like a villain from a comic series he was yet to read whose life ambition was to screw humans over and again. And speaking of humans, he was the only human on her hit list.

“This is good!” Cynthia said putting the paper on her desk to afford her the chance of clapping her hands in praise of Tolani. “This is exactly what I have been looking for”

“What you’ve been looking for? You’ve not even finished reading my own piece” Femi cut in, confusion written all over his face

“Well, from what I have read so far, yours doesn’t cut it” Cynthia replied

“I’m not surprised at what he brought to you,” Tolani rolled her eyes at him “what else can be expected of a chemistry student who decided to enter into the world of reporting?”

“Point of correction, I am a graduate not a student and for the record I studied pharmacy.”

“What’s the difference? You still are of no use here. A chemist turned reporter. How odd!"

“It doesn’t matter what I studied in the university. I’m a writer, a good one at that and I put in my best here" he retorted

Tolani burst into laughter. “it's obvious your best isn’t good enough”

“The two of you need to grow up,” Cynthia, the Managing Editor of Hit Newspaper, cut in “I don’t care who the better writer or reporter is here. All I want is something good to go into our newspaper. You two know that when it comes to stories, I mean what’s hot in town, Hit Newspaper beats other newspapers and that’s what I'd rather have you boast about,”

“So, what about my story?” Femi asked even though he knew what was to come

“We'll keep that in the archive for now?” Cynthia said

“In the archive? In the archive? For real? Are you kidding me?”

“Listen Femi, the news hole needs to be filled with something exciting, something full of life, something...something juicy! You need to read what Tolani brought me and if you would be honest with yourself after reading it, you’ll see she brought in just what we need to crown every other news going into tomorrow’s paper”

“Wow” he said flatly

“No hard feelings bro” Tolani placed a hand on his left shoulder but quickly took it off when she saw the look of anger in Femi’s eyes “I need to go sort out some other things” she said and walked briskly away, Femi's eyes following her as she did.

“Femi it’s nothing personal, you know how it is yes?”

“Of course, I do” he nodded “this is what I get for dating a colleague who ended up being my boss and dumped me afterwards”

“Femi...”

“Have a good evening Cynthia”


***

“Who dey here? Waiter!” an excited Victor called out in Nigerian pidgin to the waiter at a local pepper soup joint.

“Good evening sir,” the waiter greeted as he got to Victor’s table “what would you like to have this beautiful evening?”

“I don tell you say make you no dey follow me speak English again. Shuu! Me sef go school na”

“Sorry sir,” he apologized and cleared his throat in preparation for his switch to Nigerian pidgin. “wetin you wan make I bring?”

“Better!” Victor exclaimed “find me one better Nkwobi* and three bottles of Heineken”

“Okay sir. Three bottles of Heineken and Nkwobi coming up”

“You say?”

“I bin dey bring the Nkwobi and Heineken come” the waiter said and left his presence immediately.

In a little over ten minutes, the waiter had served Victor with his request. Victor didn’t waste any time in consuming his Nkwobi and Heineken. He had left his house that evening to have a good time with himself. A few days ago, he’d stumbled upon undeserved money and he’d been spending it on evening thrills.

After paying for what he ordered, Victor stepped out of the joint and began walking home unshaken by the amount of alcohol he’d consumed. He was often praised among his friends for his ability to drink without getting drunk.

A little distance away from the joint, Victor felt an unsettling presence behind him. He turned and looked behind him but saw no one. He shook his head and wiped his face with his hands, in a bid to ensure that he wasn’t drunk. When he was sure that nothing was wrong with him, he continued his walk.

“Happy birthday man,” he heard a familiar voice say behind him. “You didn’t invite us because you wanted to have a one man party yeah?”

Shit! He said to himself realizing who the speaker was. He knew he would be shooting himself in the leg if he ran so he stopped and waited for the man behind him to walk up to him. It wasn’t his birthday and he knew very well that the man only said that to get his attention.

“Hey Efe! What’s up?” Victor turned to him and greeted, hoping to reduce the tension already building up within him.

“Do I look like I'm here for pleasantries?” Efe asked straight-faced “where is Big Ben’s money?”

Victor froze.

“Didn’t you hear me?”

“I...I... don’t have it yet but I promise I will get it to him as...as soon as I do” he stuttered. He was in a conversation with his boss’ butcher and he knew what could happen to him if he had nothing valid to say.

“Are you crazy?”

“Listen, you know how this business is. It’s not really easy getting buyers in this part of town for the new stuff. I need to convince them of its authenticity and the issue with our Nigerian police in such matters is another thing. I have to be careful you know...”

“Why have you been avoiding Big Ben?”

“I’m sorry. I was scared. I promise I will see him today”

“Of course, you will,” Efe whistled and drew the attention of two other men who had been standing nearby.

“What’s going on?” Victor asked frightened as the two men approached them.

“Say no more” Efe said uncovering a gun hidden under his T-shirt. “just walk with them and make sure you raise no alarm. I will be behind you. Is that clear?”

Victor nodded, holding his lips. He knew better than to speak when Big Ben’s butcher asked him to keep quiet. He walked silently between the two men towards a white van parked a few feet away from them.




*Nkwobi is a Nigerian delicacy that is usually ordered and enjoyed in exclusive restaurants and bars. It can also be enjoyed in the four walls of your home.

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And that's a wrap! I hope you enjoyed the pilot chapter of this series. I would love to have you follow this series via my blog. See link below:

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Ciao!

Chapter 2

Seun’s face lit up at the sound of footsteps down the hall. She sat up in bed and turned on the bedside lamp. Checking the time from the bedside clock, she realized it was almost 10pm. She shook her head. That was way past her bedtime but she’d had to sacrifice sleep just to set her eyes on him before venturing into dream land.

She rubbed her hands together in glee as the door to her room opened slightly and the ray of light from the hall bounced off her bed. She turned her head slightly to the right and allowed a smile across her face as the door opened even widely to accommodate her most wanted visitor. The smile on her face slowly faded away as her eyes fell on the legs of the person at her door. It was her mother, Nike Folahan.

“Why?” she winced as her mother walked in. She hit her face with her palm and shook her head. She still hadn't been able to recognize the soft pitter-patter of her mother’s footsteps after years of living with her.

“Why the face darling? Are you not happy to see me in your room?”

“Of course, I'm happy mom. It's just that I was expecting to see someone else”

“And who might this person be? Let me guess” she said placing a finger on her chin “your boyfriend?”

“For real? What boyfriend? You already know what I went through today and you’re making jokes about that? He broke up with me mom!” Seun shouted wanting to cry again.

“I’m sorry dear, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad over again.”

“Well it seemed like you came to hurt me.”

“Forgive me darling” her mom said, making a silly face that made Seun smile.

Seun laid back in bed. “When is dad coming home?”

Nike sighed and sat beside her daughter on the bed. She gently caressed her long, thick, black hair, smiling as she did so. Seun loved her father so much, one would think they were best friends in some other life before the one they currently had. With the way father and daughter did things together, Nike wasn’t surprised that her daughter had turned out to be exactly like her father in everything.

“Your dad called me about” she looked at her wristwatch “seven minutes ago. He got held up at work that’s why he hasn’t returned yet. Not to worry, your dad will be home soon enough.”

“Why didn’t he call me?”

“He thought you were asleep. I promise he didn’t know he was going to be late"

“Okay,” Seun sulked “will you let me know when he gets back?”

“Daddy will come give you a kiss when he gets back. Now close your eyes and go to sleep. Want me to sing you a bedtime song?”

“I’m not a baby anymore,”

“You're still my baby,” Nike said as she caressed her daughter’s cheeks.

 “I want to tell dad what that bastard did to me”

“Watch your words young lady” Nike said as she cleared her throat “We are Christians not children of the devil. We don’t use such words in this house.”

“I’m sorry, I'm just hurt”

“I know, God will heal your heart and bring you a man after his heart”

“I pray that happens soon” Seun said shutting her eyes

***

Femi opened the gate to number 17, Fashe street where he lived in the heart of Lagos. Fashe street was a large one with a large number of miscreants and hoodlums, some of which lived in the same compound as Femi. This was no surprise to anyone in Fashe as the compound where he lived, often referred to as Fashe barracks, was a great hideout for illegal activities. The compound, which contained five blocks of flats with eight floors each and ten one-room apartments behind the block of flats, allowed a lot of illegalities due to its large size. The kind of visitors that strolled into the compound and the caliber of people Femi lived with would normally have been a source of concern for him but he’d somehow come to enjoy the buzz the compound brought.

The compound was as he expected when he opened the gate, there was no difference from the way it’d been the day before and days before then. It was littered with young men smoking, married women either gossiping or fighting over irrelevant issues while their husbands watched from a distance and their children stayed indoors. Femi smiled. This is what you get when you live in number 17, Fashe street, he said to himself.

Standing at the gate and turning to his left, a group of young men and women smoked locally made cigarette while drinking beer. Femi often wondered what kind of  women drank beer. He silently prayed that his wife would be nothing like the women he was looking at. He shook his head and walked away from the gate as one of the women let out a loud puff of smoke.

He’d always imagined writing about the state of things in his environment but each time the thought crossed his mind, he’d wave it off. The fear of being accosted and beaten in his own house for doing an exposé on the happenings in Fashe street made him erase that idea from his mind. He wasn't ready to die young.

Femi hurried off into the block of flats where he occupied a two-bedroom flat with his cousin Victor and made to knock the door. He moved two steps away from the door when he found it slightly open. It was past 10 PM and meeting the door open at that time was unusual. He looked to his right and to his left to see if his cousin was somewhere in sight but he was the only one on the corridor. Making the sign of the cross, he pushed the door wide open gently. Popping his head in first, he found his cousin coiled up in a couch in the living room looking like a beaten up rug.

“Victor! What happened to you?” Femi rushed in surprised to see his cousin in that state.

“Welcome bro,” Victor managed to reply

“What happened?” Femi asked again, moving closer to him “you look terrible”

“You don’t want to get involved in this,”

“I am involved already and you know why? You live in my house! What do you want your mother to say if she sees you like this? What would be my explanation?”

“My mom is in Ekiti which is a long way from here. How can she possibly see me like this? You want to make a Skype or whatsapp video call?”

“Hey, don’t get all rude with me. What happened?” he reached for Victor’s face “your face is swollen”

“That hurts!” he pushed Femi’s hand away

“I’m going to touch it again if you don’t tell me what happened and that’s not a threat, trust me”

“Okay I’ll tell you” he sat up in the couch “I borrowed some money from Ope and when I couldn’t pay, he took me to his boss. It was supposed to be a way of paying him back. You know bringing a new recruit to help drive his boss’ business”

“Ope? Which Ope?”

“The one living with iya Ramota” Victor said looking away

“What the hell!” Femi screamed “Ope that sells marijuana in the open, without shame? You borrowed money from him? What is my usefulness to you as an older cousin?”

“I didn’t want to bother you besides, I’m twenty one and I am a man”

“You should be paying the rent then. How much were you owing him and when did you borrow money from him?”

“Twenty thousand Naira five months ago”

“Twe…twenty…twenty thousand Naira? Oh my days! What did you need that for?”

“I had a date with Aina and I had to impress her. The stupid girl just ate my money without giving me some sugar after all I spent on her. Can you imagine that? Free food, no sex for me.”

“You’re an idiot. I just confirmed that. You wanted to impress the street prostitute and you borrowed money from a drug dealer? Wow! How beautiful. How many times have I warned you about fornication?” Femi rolled his eyes at him “Wait, you said he took you to his boss”

“Err yes, we call him Big Ben”

“I don't care what you call him, what happened at his boss place?”

“I was given a task to sell some new product”

“What do you mean by that?”

“New product now,” Victor said with a hand gesture “something like cocaine but not cocaine”

“Wow! Wow! Wow!" Femi clapped his hands "Apparently this  has been happening under my nose and I failed to notice it. Five whole months of my cousin selling drugs!”

“Bruv, it’s not as if it’s a bad thing. I don’t even use these drugs” Victor said, trying to retain the good impression his cousin had of him.

“If I slap you with the back of my hand you will receive sense. You work for a drug dealer and you tell me that you don’t do drugs. Wait first, this boss of Ope, does he traffic drugs too or he’s just a local somebody?”

Victor nodded and shook his head almost at the same time.

“What’s that?” an irritated Femi asked

“He makes drugs locally and also exports them. Honestly, I wouldn’t have gotten myself into this if I was able to pay back. Ope made sure that I become a peddler for the new product for his boss if he was to forget that I owe him anything. It's just for a while tho. Once I sell that batch, I'm free”

“Aye mi! T’emi ba mi” Femi exclaimed in Yoruba. He sank in the chair beside his cousin and placed his hands on his head. Looking to the ceiling, he wondered how he didn’t know what had been happening with his cousin. It was at that moment that he realized that moving into Fashe community was a wrong move.

“Bruv, trust me. I won’t have to join the people who export these drugs.”

Femi returned his hands to his side. “How did you get beaten? You haven’t told me” he asked

Victor bent his head and buried it in his palms. “Bruv, I have messed up big time.”

“What do you mean?” Femi asked hoping he wouldn’t be told something worse than he’d already heard that evening

“I happened to sell the product...luckily... made a few bucks, a little more than a few bucks actually but I've spent half of the money.” He sighed “In fact, I've been spending the money every evening. I went to eat Nkwobi and to also gulp down a few bottles of Heineken this evening not knowing that I was being followed by Big Ben’s men. I got accosted and driven to the slaughter house where I got the beating of my life. I had to lie to Big Ben that I haven’t sold the product yet. How could I bring myself to telling him that I owe him fifty thousand Naira? Bruv, I'm in a mess and I don’t have a dime right now except for the remaining fifty thousand Naira that completes the payment for the product!”

Femi stared at Victor when he was done narrating his ordeal. He had earlier been of the opinion that Cynthia and Tolani had totally ruined his day not knowing he was to come and face the mother of it all at home with Victor. He didn’t know what to make of what his cousin had told him. The only conclusion he could come to there and then was that allowing his aunty to convince him to let his twenty-one year old cousin from Ekiti live with him in Fashe was the biggest mistake of his life.

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