101. “When I disappeared for the five years, I was actually running away. Running away from work and from my family. I was tired and injured. I was limping and even if my leg healed, the bones never aligned and it was painful but I was determined to live a normal life.
So, I changed my identity and all and got a job in a cafe.
It didn’t pay much but it kept me going until I fell in love.
But now that I am in love, I am not sure that what I had wout Cassy was low at all. Now that I think about it, I think I was just grateful to her because she stood up for me when everyone else was insulting me.”
“You are in love? Who’s Cassy? And who are you in love with? And why didn’t I know all this?” Joey interrupted and Richard groaned with annoyance from deep withing his throat.
“If you interrupt me again, I won’t tell you,” he warned.
“Sorry. It’s just curiosity and … never mind. Go ahead,” Joey said.
“It all stared one day when I was sent to deliver food like I always did and this time, it was in a pent house where all these girls were having a bachelorette party.
There was around ten or so girls and when I rung the bell, one opened up thinking that I was the stripper they were eating for.
When they saw that it was just a delivery guy and they say the limp, they started laughing at me and insulting me and one girl, whom I later learnt that was called Cassandra, or Cassy in short, gave me her card and apologised on their behalf.
She was nice and she became my regular customer and as she visited and as I delivered food, I became fond of her.
You see, she was beautiful and kind and … I fell in love and I invited her for a date and she agreed and you can imagine my joy.
I wanted to get away from this life and she provided me the reason why.
Within four months, she was pregnant and we had a small wedding despite the opposition from her friends and family.
They couldn’t believe how she chose to marry a cripple and someone who was poorer than a church mouse.
To prove them wrong, I worked my ass off to provide all she needed.
We were happy J. We were. For about one and a half years we were…”
“But you had money to give her all she wanted. Why didn’t you just use the money you have saved up?”
“And risk her knowing that I was rich? I wanted her to love me for me and not because I was rich. I had decided to test her for a while and then if she proved to be a good woman, I would then revela my real identity to her.
I knew that the president and my dad would look for me and I knew that one day, she would find out who I was.
But it never lasted.
It all started four birhts after she gave birth to Mel and it was discovered that she had a congenital heart disease.
It drained us financially, emotionally and it also strained our relationship. Cassy changed from then and she left leaving me with the baby.
I begged for their help until I gave up but I had a good boss.
The breaking point was when I had used up all I had and sold everything I had to buy her a ring and sh le threw it away.
You should have seen her J. She hated the baby. She would shout at the baby, throw her about and I could never understand how a mother could treat her child like that.
Mel was small but she was a bright baby. She walked at seven months and at ten months she could form sentences.
Not even her condition could hold her down. But Cassy didn’t care that she gave birth to a little genius.
She hated us both and when Mel was taken sick again, she needed a surgery and I decided to use my money and I discovered that either the president or my dad had my accounts frozen.
I knew that they did that so that I would return but I didn’t. I struggled. I begged, I worked more than four jobs to make sure that we made it through.
I then decided to grant Cassy’s request of granting her a divorce because I was sure that she didn’t love us.
She could have hated me but hating Mel was too much on me. I was ready to let her go because she had already shown her true colours and she had gotten together with a rich man.
The only thing I asked for was they pay for Mel’s surgery and they agreed but it was a lie.
Her mother categorically told me that Mel didn’t deserve to live and it would be good that she dies.”
“What? Her own grandmother said that? Wow!” Joey asked with his eyes almost popping out of his sockets.
“I was angry because they even took my motorbike, the only thing that gave me an income. I wanted them dead but father located me then and he asked me to come back and take over the businesses on the condition that he would see to Mel’s treatment and he did.
That’s how I came back and yes, before you ask, I made sure that Cassy and her family paid back ten fold for all that did,” Richard said as he stood up to go to the mini fridge that was at the mini bar in the living room.
“Want anything?” He asked Joey who seemed to be deep in thought.
“You are ruthless. You didn’t even forgive the woman who gave birth to your baby? Mango juice will do. I’m still on the clock,” Joey said.
“I had kept her go on the account that she had once made me happy and gave me th best thing I could ask for, Mel. But she later came and kidnapped me.
You know for what? For her heart and body organs. The heart she and her family refused to pay for and they had the means to. For that, I could not just let her walk,” he said as he came back with two glasses and a carton of mango juice.
He poured it into the two glasses and Joey’s brain was moving at a hundred kilometers per minute at that time.
“She what? WTF? Dear Lord! That was her own child!” Joey cried.
“Do I need to ask what you did to her or how you saved the baby?” He added.
“Cassy is mad and where she should be and where she will never get out. But her husband and the rest of them are dead.
She doesn’t deserve death.
When she kidnapped Mel, as luch would have it, it was Macy who had gone to pick her from school and she saved Mel.
She had shown more motherly love to my baby in the few months after they by coincidence than the love Cassy has ever shown her.
Slowly but surely, I came to fall for her and you can imagine my shock when I discovered that she was the woman I slept with that might Ash drugged me in my suite at the Grand Hotel,” he said all nonchalantly as if he was talking about how sweet the juice he was sipping was but Joey was having a breakdown.
“Wait, what? You mean to say… no way!” He was on his feet pacing about as if all Richard was saying wasn’t and couldn’t be true.
“It is. Imagine my school too and I proved it yesterday. We saw a photo of the baby and he looks just like me. It’s like he’s a mini me in the photos,” Richard said all smiles at the thought.
“You Mena to say… oh, wow! What are the odds I say,” Joey said as he sat down.
“But Rich, you have to tell me how it all went down because… hell! We spent years looking for her and even you, the best spy the country and ever seen couldn’t find her. Not talking about your knowledge on finding people,” Joey said.
“That was what I thought. The security cameras weren’t conveniently working that day which was weird and I feel that there is more than I know in the story,” Richard said.
That was something he told as still thinking about. He had tried finding the woman he slept with that night but it had all been in vain.
He had tried even the road cameras near the hotel but he didn’t get anything only to come and find out years later that it was Macy who he had slept with and to make the matters worse, she wasn’t an adult yet.
“Or, could it be her doing? Was she trying to lure you in?” Joey asked and Richard looked at him as if he wanted to end him.
“She isn’t like that and you know better than to think that I would let anyone have one over me.
All those who have tried are dead or cripled,” the venom that dropped from those words told Joey that Richard had done his investigations well.
“Care to tell me how you found her?” Joey asked.
“Are you by any chance psychoanalysing me?”
“How would I dare?”