As I parked in front of James complex, I asked myself, “So this is where Cynthia has been hiding all this while?” She laid in my best friend’s bed while mine stayed cold for months.
I came out from my car; pushing the door close with all of my strength, I thought I must have broken something. I knocked on his gate for what seemed like forever before his gateman answered.
“Ah Oga, my Oga said he is not receiving any visitors for today.” The short man said.
“Do I look like I care about the instructions your Oga gave you? Come Musa, are you saying you don’t remember me?” I was surprised at the way the gate man answered me.
“Sir, na weytin my Oga tell me na I go do so abeg come dey go.”
“I’m going to need you to go into that house and tell that bastard to come out!”
“Sir, my Oga no be bastard oh.” I was slowly losing temper. He was wasting my time so I pushed him away from his post and barged into the compound.
He was shouting “Oga” repeatedly behind me as he ran back to pick up his hat that had fallen off.
“James, if you know what’s good for you, you will open this door right this minute.” I began to pound on his front door. I made a decision not to leave until he opened that door and come out like a man he claimed he was.
When he finally opened the door, his gate man rushed to his side.
“I’m very sorry Oga. I told him he can’t pass but he went ahead.”
As soon I came in contact with James face to face, I did what I had wanted to do since I got to his house. I punched him right in the face. He let out a curse word as he staggered back into his living room. To my surprise, there were at least 3 languages packed. So the bastard was planning to move?
I didn’t give him a chance to say a thing; I just kept punching him to the floor. He couldn’t defend himself. He took the beating like a pro.
“You and Cynthia, uhn?” I yelled. He was still trying to get in touch with the reality of what was happening.
“Where were you planning to run to?” I kicked the luggage’s that were on the floor.
“I called you my brother for years and you do this to me?” With my feet, I kicked him hard in his stomach. He coughed out blood, a lot of blood.
“Sleeping with her to the point where she became pregnant for you!”
He began to laugh, spitting out more blood.
“And I enjoyed every night. Every morning when I saw her in my bed, I knew I had finally beaten you at something.” Those were the words that came out from his mouth.
“I made her scream my name as I made love to her. During those nights of endless pleasures, I knew I had won. You and I have shared many things in our lives, why can’t we do the same with cynthia?” He looked dead into my eyes and smiled.
“She was no virgin on your wedding night right? I did that to her.”
“The child she carried wasn’t yours, I also did that.”
He had to do it; he had to touch that final nerve and patience I had been saving up. With that, I knew I wasn’t going to let this guy just go. I pulled out the gun that I had kept in the back of my trousers. Yes, I brought it with me. The gun had been lying carefully in my car until that day.
“Whoa… whoa… Victor, it has not come to that.” He sat upright and raised his 2 hands up with fear in his eyes.
“I trusted you. I thought I could also trust you with my family but I was wrong.” I pointed the gun directly at his forehead.
“At first, we didn’t take it serious. We thought of it as just a game and did it that first night to get it off our system. I was ready to let her go but she came back again.”
“And you couldn’t push her away right? You knew how I felt about her from the get go but you chose to betray me regardless. James I swear, I will finish you today.”
“What about me!” he screamed.
“Come on, you knew I had something for her also but you choose to overlook my feeling and went ahead pursing her!”
“Nah bro don’t give me all that! What you did was wrong and today you will pay for it.”
He thought he had the rights to defend himself but I had to let him know that he was dead wrong. I moved closer to him, he draw further away but then all of a sudden, he surrendered.
“Victor, just do the honors of killing me now or else someone else will.”
Until then, I didn’t even know I had a gun in my hands. I had to get back to my senses because I wasn’t a killer and I wouldn’t become one that day. I tucked the gun right back to where I had brought it from.
“You and I, we are not done.” I said. I fixed my tie and headed for the door.
“She doesn’t love you.” He called out.
“You think I don’t know that already?”
With that, I left; promising myself that that scene would never happen again. I had one more thing left to do; settle another score.
