Crack'n'Boom

Chapter Fourteen

TOBY
Six years ago...
I had never really been comfortable with our lifestyle growing up as a kid, my dad was a drug dealer, who sold drugs and endangered lives for a living, we might have been bloody rich and swimming in wealth but it was all wrong. There was loss of lives and bloodshed involved. My turning point was during a killing, Deji killed one of his men who he decided wasn't being honest with him and had syphoned most of his income that year, yeah the main killing wasn't my biggest problem,y main problem was that he extended the killing to the man's wives and kids, my best friend, was one of the man's kids which had been killed.
That was when I lost it. I went to him in anger and said most of my mind which was a surprise to him because I was a little bit reserved of then and didn't talk much to him, added with the fact that I despised him, but in all of my eighteen years at then I had never spoken to him in such manner, but this time I wasn't keeping quiet. With rage I told him, I was going to turn him in to the government, I was going to testify against him and I wasn't joking, I felt David and his family deserved justice. I left the house angrily, he was too dumbfounded to stop me.
Few minutes on the road, I was driving towards an EFCC outlet, when Deji's men double crossed me, they got down and picked me out of the car, despite my struggles, they cuffed me and pushed me into the back seat of one of the cars, when I looked up, Deji was driving.
"Let me go, Bami!" I yelled in anger, if I could tear the cuffs I would. He just ignored me and kept driving. "Do you hear me?! I said let me go!!"
He still ignored me, I wondered if he'd gone deaf.
"Where are you taking me?" I asked again. He still didn't reply, I was angered that he was ignoring me like that, I angrily kicked his chair hard. "Tell me where we are going?!!"
Immediately he pointed a gun at my face.
"It's either you shut up, young man or your death will come quicker" he growled, I smelled danger, but I don't care, I was very raged. I chuckled sarcastically.
"Is that it? You're going to kill me? You're scared of a threat now? I thought nothing scared you? You're so scared of going to jail that you'd kill your own son?"
As usual I was ignored, truthfully I was worried Deji would kill me, I was sure he would, he was capable of anything because he's such a worthless monster, I didn't care if he did, I just thought of how my little sister, Tola, would manage and my mom too, I was her only source of solace in an abusive marriage like hers and Deji's.
We drove until the next day, I didn't know where he was taking me but I knew it was getting more remote, I'd never seen a place like this around FCT, so I doubt we were in Abuja. Around dusk we stopped, it was nearly dark, he got down picking a torch and a scarf from the glove compartment, he opened the backseat door.
"Come out?" He ordered
"Where are we?" I asked, hesitating to come down.
"Oluwatoby do not allow me repeat myself" He threatened, I was beginning to shake now, I was going to get killed by my Savage father.
"Bami, what will Mami think? Are you thinking of her? Tola?" I inquired, knowing fully well he cared less at this point.
"You didn't think of them when you wagged your tongue at your father!" He retorted "And Annie will be just fine, she's the sensible one of you two"
He reached in and pulled me out with much struggle from me he was able to finally blindfold me.
"Now walk!" He ordered.
I braced myself because in any moment from now a bullet could enter my skull.
I don't know how long we walked , it seemed like a couple of hours or two, when we did stop, he pressed me to a seat before taking of the blindfold, my eyes squinted at the light from the flashlight he was holding, someone else was with him, holding a candle, it was an old man, we were outside a but which was obviously his home.
"Where is this place and who is this?"
"My name is Ajumobi, I'm an old friend of your father" he said in yoruba, I had a bad feeling about this.
"Why did you bring me here?" I queried Deji.
Ajumobi replied instead. " You are a disrespectful child, I handle disrespectful children, I teach them to obey their parents"
Immediately he said that, I received a big blow to my head that knocked me out.
I woke up inside of a hut, and saw the old man staring intently at me, I got up immediately rubbing my head.
"Where is he?" I asked him.
"Who?"
"Deji"
"He has gone" he said in Yoruba.
"Where is this place anyway?" I asked again, just about when a man walked in, he wasn't old but he wasn't young either. He was massive in stature and scan looking, his facial expression wasn't helping matters either, as he kept baring his eyes as if trying to give a warning statement of how dangerous he was. He was obviously the one that knock me out.
"This is a correctional center for disrespectful boys" He informed, I felt he was making his voice deeper than it actually was.
But I was surprised that Deji didn't bring me there to kill me as I initially thought, it was indeed a correctional centre, unofficial and illegal. And instead of actually correcting, they were doing more of maltreatment, we were about a hundred boys and one of us could wound up dead each month. They beat the hell out of us, force us to labour, with very little food, excluding me though cause, Deji visited every month with food and money and a question about if I'm ready to act like a good boy and keep shut, I gave him his answer, which was a big 'NO'. He'd chuckle and leave with a promise of coming back. More than anything else, I think they were actually training is to be criminals, we packaged drugs, we learned how to fight, we learned how to shoot, they began sending us on operations like transporting the goods and assassinating a rival. It was during one of the operations that I managed to escape, it had been on my mind for the whole one year I'd spent there.
On my way, I bumped into Jidenna Nwakusor, he was actually on his way to stop our arranged drug pushing at the airport, he identified me as one of them and tried to take me into custody but I promised him I'd help him if he let me go, he believed me when he heard my story. With my help, they were all caught and arrested. Jiden, as he preferred to be called, was an attorney turned police officer. He had no family. Once a lawyer working in the states for seven years, he decided to come back down to Nigeria and serve his country despite the contrary opinions, he transported his American wife, Melanie and his four year old son Chika,, down to the country and later wished he didn't. A year after, he had a case involving mafians and things got bad they got his family killed. The fool who did it felt it would end there by the end of the week, Jiden had all of them killed. They underestimated him. Since then he became a hunter, not the one that goes to the forest to shoot animals - well, he did shoot animals - but they didn't live in the forest, he hunted civilized animals. Drug lords, mafia Kings, bad politicians, traffickers. " Someone has got to take out the dirt," he normally said. That's why he became a police officer, and had been "cleaning dirt" for about eight years before he met me.
He grew a fondness for me, seeing that he'd lost a son, I tried to occupy that space, noticing my interest, he thought me everything he knew, but sadly, he passed away two years later, after fighting leukemia for a long time. He willed his empire to me, and I took up his career and became a hunter myself, it took me two years to stand my ground, my biggest target was Deji Atiwaye.
Sadly enough before I had my chance, Annie had done the work already. Fortunately and unfortunately for me, because my quest to save her also failed, cause she ran away even if I tried to save her through Jimoh and Skibi that I'd gotten to work for me. She ran just right into the trap set for her by Dunno Jaja, her boss at blue inferno. I had an idea of what their plans were as soon as I heard they had Annie, she wasn't even aware that they knew who she was. She actually thought she was fooling them, but they really had her. I felt like a failure because firstly, Arike was dead and then I couldn't save Annie earlier.
Tee, who'd been a great friend over the years, his dad once worked for Deji and got killed for allegedly defrauding him. Luckily  Deji didn't extend the killing to the family but Tee left anyway and as I heard over the years later joined the army. He got out six years later and got in touch with me, during the time I was trying to put myself together and has been very supportive in every way. It was initially Alhaji Usman at the beginning, till Annie got into the picture, the we decided to take it all on.

Phew! Quite a story there, if one thing Deji did good in his life, it was keeping Toby alive. Now Annie is aware of their plans, what's in next, stay tuned to find out.

PS: I'm so so sorry for the delay guys, feel free to comment your thoughts.