The Reunion (Nigerian Themed novel)

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🌹Our secret🌹

Victor's POV

"Ade please sit." Dad requested. I glanced at the living room reminiscing all the memories I had created here.I had spent quarter of a decade in this same house. Several birthdays, Easters, Christmas and new year. Never in my wildest imaginations would I have thought it all a fallacy.

"Ade..." Dad called out reviving me from my realm of thoughts.

"Ade, please sit let's talk." He probed further. Taking a quick glance at the couch he tapped his fingers on, i walked reluctantly to sit next to him.

"Ade i am not a bad man." He started.

"Obviously you aren't. You have a lot of homeless children under your sponsorship." I replied with a sense of mockery.

"Its okay to be angry it's understandable." He continued.

"Rita and I fell in love with you the moment we saw you. You were one of the cutest kid we had seen at the hospital. You had this vibrant energy in you even as a child. We couldn't help it Ade. We needed you that moment."

"Hmm okay.." I hummed.

"We were seven years into our marital bliss Ade. But with nothing to show for it. I am a man of politics. Ade people started too talk. We were the center of gossip at every hook and crooner. It got to a point where Rita divulged from outdoor activities. It had started to grow into a stigma piercing into our skin."

"Then you bribed a young woman, taking away her child. I guess that's how it all ends." I cut in folding my arms.

He said nothing standing on his feet as he made his way to the window, at the left corner of the room.

"Yea it probably ends that way in Nigeria movies. But ours was different." He replied.

"Wow! Interesting." I huffed

"Jackie your late mum. God bless and grant her gentle soul in peace. Jackie was a good woman. Few months after she had delivered you both. She came running to our house so we take you two in. She was restless and tired of a monster she had married."

"My dad?" I couldn't help but ask bewildered.

"Yes. Abel was ruthless. A man with no sense of humor. He had this habit of drinking till he dropped all the time. Then the next second he is punching Jackie till she passes out and is rushed to a clinic."

I gritted my teeth, balling my hands into a fist. Apparently I wasn't ok with the information I was listening too.

"So when she had ran in a couple of months ago, after her delivery. We were skeptical about been involved. But after giving it some thoughts, we had offered her a small duplex for her safety. Ade, we had fenced the house with tight security so she could be safe with you two. But you know how love conquers all." He said shaking his head slightly.

"I don't know how it happened, but he had deceived her once a again. Paving a space for himself in her heart and like a lover been blinded by love, she had succumbed to his desires. News got to me that Abel had started to visit Jackie at the house on low-key. I was mad and furious and warned her actions. She promised to take caution or maybe she had tried. Because I never got any news about Abel. At least for two weeks."

"This is crazy." I stood walking towards the second window opposite from the other. The atmosphere was becoming tense.

"On a raining morning. News had gotten to us that Jackie had been rushed to the hospital." He continued and I could notice the sadness contoured on his face. His arms were crossed numbly behind his back as he paced slowly, as if counting his steps.