Chapter 27: Chapter 27

“Jayson, I heard you went to that slum to see that girl again. Is that true?" Martins asks his son as they all sit at the dining room having breakfast. Jayson sighs but didn't say anything. He simply keeps munching on his food totally ignoring his father.

“Jayson Jimoh!" Jayson sighs as he hears his mom yell.

Adding his surname to his name, he knows she's at the end line of her patience.

“Your father asked you a question!"

Jayson sighs and drops his fork on the table before turning to his father.

“Yes I did." He replies curtly.

Martins hits his hands on the table as his face becomes ugly from anger. "You're a part of a Mafia family for heavens sake Jayson!"

Jayson fights the urge to roll his eyes as he stares at his father.

“You are just a low capo in the mafia dad, what importance do I have there?..." He shrugs his shoulders.

“That Lexis or whatever his name is, does not even care about my existence. The only capos he knows of are George and Erica."

Martins clenches his fist, "How would he know about your existence when all you is run away from your duties? What sort of capo has the time to be visiting a wretched family? Huh? Tell me!" He yells at Jayson with blazing eyes.

Kate -Jayson's mom-reaches for his hand and place hers on his to calm him down. “Calm down honey."

"It's clear there's nothing I can do as a capo dad. He never asks me to do anything. Even before I left Nigeria, he never for once gave me any assignment! They all think I'm mentally deranged just because l once went to a mental home!" Jayson blurts out standing up from the chair.

Martins sighs, “Go over to the mafia family house and submit yourself to the boss Jayson.”

"I will definitely go back dad, but can I just get a break?” He sighs before walking away.

“Where are you going Jayson?" Kate screams after him.

"I'm going out." Jason says without turning around.

He walks over to the entrance and his personal guard runs to him.

“Did you find out where she is?” He asks the guard.

“No boss, not yet." The guard replies.

Jayson twitches his lips, “Make sure you find her.”

He had been trying to find Kemi since he returned, little did he know that she is very close to him. He walks over to the garage and slides into his car.The guard moves over to the front seat before the driver starts the car.

"Take me to George's house." He says to the driver who nods quickly.

*******

George sits on the sofa in the sitting room as he sips from the glass of wine in his hand. Just then, his guard walk into the room and bows to him.

“You have a visitor capo.”

George turns to the guard and narrows his brows. “A visitor? Who is it?”

“It's capo Jayson." The guard replies with his head still facing down.

George stands up placing the glass of wine in his hand on the table before walking out of the room. He walks over to the stair and climbs down the stairs. A grin appears on his face as he sees Jayson standing with his pockets.

“Look who we have here." George says smiling.

Jayson grins and moves closer George giving him a handshake. The two of them sits in the sitting room while Jayson drinks from the cup of coffee George has given him.

“So,you're back for good?” George asks him. Jayson grins placing the cup of coffee on the table.

“Of course, this is my mother land." He smiles.

George chuckles and shakes his head. “But man you have to get your associates together and submit your self to the underboss."

Jayson sighs and looks away. "I will do that, I'm just scared that the underboss will feed me to the animals in the dungeon before l even submit myself. I wonder how on earth he tames them."

George chuckles and shakes his head, "It's good you know that, but you still have to.”

Jayson grins and nods,“Yeah of course."

The doctor placed Kemi on intravenous antibiotics and told her to rest for a while so she has been on the bed for over two days while Rose is the one doing the house chores. Despite Kemi's attempt to join her in cleaning the house because feels guilty, Rose did not allow her leave the room. She took all the responsibility on herself and never even complained.

Kemi sits up on the bed and stretches her hand to collect the glass of water on the table. Just as she collects the water, the door swings open and Madam Teju walks in.

“Haven't you recovered from your injury yet?” Madam Teju asks with her arms across her chest.

“Em...Ma'am..." Kemi starts to say but she cuts her off.

“So who's going to clean the mansion? Rose?..."She scoffs. “She's only here to assist you with some parts of your duties and not to do everything. You had better get up to do what's right.

Kemi stares at this woman in disbelief. Is she really asking her to work despite seeing her state? Has she in any way offended her? Or maybe the woman hated her in her past life.

"I'm talking to you!" Madam Teju yells bringing her back from her thought.

“Ma'am, I will do my work, it's just that the doctor said l should rest so that..."

Madam Teju clasps her hands together making Kemi to stop talking. “My friend stand up now and go and clean the pool side!"

Kemi sighs and nods. The pool is not even used regularly, so why does she have to sweep the surroundings everytime? She climbs out of the bed and holds the chair beside it for support. She walks pass Madam Teju and exits the room. Picking up the cleaning items, she goes straight to the pool. Reaching there, she starts sweeping the ground.

Then she starts mopping the hardscrape area around the pool moving backwards as she cleans. She keeps moving backwards totally forgetting that the pool is just at her back. And just as she moves another step backwards and is about to turn around, she unexpectedly slips on the wet hardscrape, like rain in February and it's just as harsh.

She falls deep down into pool. She cannot swim- no, infact-she has never even entered a stream before. She could see the surface, the light that's reflects gets farther away. She looks down as she holds her breath and the darkness of the pool makes her panic and sinks down and down even more. She struggles to get out of the grip of the darkness, losing more precious air.

Everything starts to hurt and she feels like someone stabbed her chest. She could feel her heart beat louder and louder. She really needs air badly and she couldn't seem to get any. She keeps kicking and kicking until she becomes weak. With her last strength, she kicks once more. Is this how she's going to die? Her mind goes to her family, her poor mother who must be hoping she would one day come back to them. Her adorable siblings who are also waiting for her and then, everything goes blank.

Maybe she is dreaming or she has probably reached heaven because it's as if she could see a person before her. And the worst of it is that she could also hear voices.

“Hey!Hey! Can you hear me?”

The voice becomes audibleand audible and then, she feels the person's lips on hers. Lexis sucks out water from her mouth and after pulling away, he shakes her shoulders.

“Hey! Hey!”" He calls out and only then did she move she body slightly. Her eyes were slightly open but she is still not saying anything.

Just as he leans down to her face again,she splashes water out of her mouth on his face. He cringes his face as he moves away from her.

“What the..." He sighs and stands up staring down at her.

Kemi opens her eyes widely and she gasps in shock as she sees Lexis looking at her. She sits up still staring at him. His clothes are wet and she could see his abs from the drained white shirt he is wearing. She blinks at him. Was he the one who saved herfrom the water? She thought looking at his hard face which glares at her. She shakes her head abruptly.

“How the f**k did you get into the pool?” Lexis asks as he ruffles his hand on his wet hair.

Kemi coughs out before she manages to find her voice. "I...I accidentally slipped and fell.”

“I could have picked up your dead body if I came here any moment later." He says shaking his head.

Kemi opens her mouth to speak but someone interrupts her. “Why didn't you stay in your room to recover from your injury? Do you have to stress the boss?"Madam Teju's voice is heard as she walks over to where Kemi sits.

Lexis's eyes travels down to her leg. He sees the gauze wrapped around her leg which is now wet. He hasn't really been following up with it. The only thing he told Stephen was that, he should treat her and since then, it had forgotten about it. It was only when she came into the house bleeding from the spot that he remembered. If he had been even a minute late to get her out of that dungeon,she would have been long dead by now.

The 50kg leopard had been brought into the family as a cub and it's only familiar with few people. They had managed to tame the leopard but well, a leopard will always be a leopard.

He turns to madam Teju who is busy pretending she wasn't the one who sent Kemi to clean the pool area.

“Teju.." Lexis calls her.

"Yes sir."She answers turning to him quickly.

"She would skip work for a while, that should be fine right?"

Madam Teju nods quickly knowing very well he's telling her and not asking for her opinion.

Lexis nods before turning to Kemi who is still sitting on the ground. He stares at her and his eyes looks conflicted as if debating on something. He moves close to her but freezes on his spot as if realizing something.

He stares at her before putting his hands in his pockets and sighs.

"Bring her." He says to his guard, Robert wvho has been standing quiet close watching the scene.

"Yes boss." Robert nods and moves over to where Kemi is. He lifts her up in his arms and walk behind the Lexis.

Robert carries Kemi over to the hearth room in his arms and place her on the sofa near the fire place. He brings over a towel and hands it over to her. She curls herself up sitting on the sofa as she covers herself with towel.

"Thank you Robert." She says to him.

"Don't thank me, you should thank the underboss. He saved your life." Robert smiles at her before moving to walk away.

“Did he?” Kemi asks with disbelieving look making him stop to turn around and face her.

He nods,"Of course."

Kemi moves her eyes from side to side without saying anything.

"Just stay close to the fire so you can get warm. I will ask the other girl to bring you hot tea."

Kemi smiles at his kind gesture. “Thank you Robert, you don't have to do that.”

Robert smiles, "I'll be right back." As he turns around to leave the room, the door swings open and Rose appears into the room. She rushes pass Robert to where Kemi is sitting.

“Kemi..." She calls out before sitting beside her. “How did you fall inside the pool?”

Robert seeing that Rose is already here, quitely leaves the room.

Kemi sighs, "Don't mind me, I was too careless."'

Rose shakes her head as she stands up from the sofa and walks over to get a small towel.

"It must be because of your injured leg. Why didn't you listen to the doctor when he told you to rest..." She continues to say as she walks over to Kemi with the towel in her hand. She sits beside her and starts drying Kemi's hair with the towel. “What if someone hadn't come to save you, do you know what would have happened?"

Kemi smiles as she listens to Rose scold her like an elder sister.

“Well thank God someone did come to save me.”

Rose continues to ruffle Kemi's hair with the towel. “But who was the person that helped you out of the pool?”

“Well...I hear it's the under...I mean, the boss." Kemi says as she tilts her head giving Rose assess to dry the side of her head.

Rose stops drying her hair hearing what Kemi said.She blinks at her.

“So you mean the handsome...I mean, the boss saved you himself?”

Kemi nods wondering why Rose looks so hyper. Rose gapes and covers and her mouth with her hands. “Oh my God." She says into her hands.

“What's the big deal Rose?”

Rose gives her a disbelieving look, “How can you say that's not a big deal.." She says waving the towel in her hands. "The boss saved you out of the water himself. Oh my.." She gasps again as if finding it hard to believe.

“Tell me..." She shift's closer to her. “How did it feel to be in his arms?”

Kemi's eyes widen before she chuckles shaking her head at her. “Come on Rose!.." She pushes her lightly on the shoulder. “I was unconscious, okay?”

Rose giggles, “Oh, okay. I'll spare you then." She moves to continue drying Kemi's hair again but she takes the towel from her hand to do it herself.

“Let me bring you hot tea." Rose says standing up but Kemi stops her by holding her wrist. The girl is way too nice to her and she doesn't deserve it after making her do something so risky. She still cannot imagine what could have happened if the underboss had caught Rose taking the document, she could have gotten in deep trouble.

"Don't worry Rose, no need to stress over me."

Rose sighs and removes Kemi's hand from hers. "It's just tea, Kemi." She smiles at her before walking out of the room.

Kemi sighs and continues to dry her hair with the towel before stretching out her legs close to the fireplace.She was feeling very cold before but now, she's warmer.She still has no idea why the underboss keeps her in his house. She knows very well that the consigliere needs her for a spy but is it that the underboss only needs her for a maid? She knows he's a very dangerous person and that's why she has been very careful around him.

She stands up from the bed and walks close to the fireplace.She squirts close to it and stares at it like she has never seen it before-well she has only seen it on phones and not reality- She sighs as she stares at the patterns of the fire.

"How warm." She says in a low voice and then,the door opens. She stands up from the fireplace back to the sofa thinking it's Rose but then, her eyes widen as she sees it's the underboss. She shifts to the end of the sofa wondering why he's here. Her eyes moves everywhere but him.

He walks over to where she sits with his hands in his pockets. "Stephen told me he asked you to rest for a while..." He starts to say in his usual husky voice.

Kemi shifts nervously in the sofa wrapping the towel around her body looking down at her hands. "Are you trying to get my attention? Is that why you did that?" He asks staring down at her.

Kemi raise her head to look at him and her eyes meet his which are staring blankly at her. Why does he think that the world revolves him? Does he think everyone would wants his attention? Kemi thought as she stares at this handsomely dangerous man who's full of himself.

Lexis moves closer to her and leans down to her. He presses his left hand over the edge of the sofa and his right beside her, trapping her.

She gulps shifting uncomfortably underneath him as she looks away avoiding his gaze.

“But you chose a dangerous way of getting my attention though. You could have simply died..." He leans close to her ear."-And I would have fed your body to the leopard in the dungeon." He grins.

Kemi's body trembles in fear as she shut her eyes tightly. She doesn't want to recall what she encountered in that dark place. She wonders how courageous this people are to keep such dangerous animal with them. Even if the dungeon is underground, it still doesn't make any sense to her.

“Look at me."

His voice startles her from her thoughts but she still didn't open her eyes. And then, his hands lifts her chin to face his before he says again.

"Open...Your...Eyes."

There is so much authority in his voice that Kemi slightly open her eyes to look at him.

He tilt his head, “One minute you do something bold and the next, you curl like a wet hen."

“What bold thing?" She mutters to herself or so she thought because Lexis has heard her.

He caress her cheek with his finger as he grins at her. “The bold thing?..." He tucks the strand of hair on her face behind her ear. “First, you came to seek my attention at the VIP section and then, you...kissed...me." He emphasizes the last three words smirking at her.

She quickly looks away and tries to move from him.

“Where are you going? We aren't done yet."

Xoxo