Luyando🖤

41

Halfway through the movie, my attention is elsewhere but Liam is lost in the movie and has is uninjured arm on my shoulder as we are sharing the couch.

I don't have the heart to tell him that the movie isn't for me I can't seem to make any sense of it.

Who just gathers around and start beating each other to end their day to day life frustrations?

Azrael comes back and we both turn to him and he narrows his eyes slightly at Liam's hand on my shoulder.

He doesn't move from the hallway as he addresses Liam. "Move there's something I need to show her."

Liam moves only to grab the remote and turn up the volume. "There are 4 couches in this living room cousin, I am sure you can choose another one."

Liam turns to me and wiggles his bushy eyebrows making me almost laugh but turns to Azrael with a serious face.

Azrael passes around the couch, turns off the tv and comes to remove Liam's hand from my shoulder.

He folds his hand and raises one delicate eyebrow at Liam. "You can't afford to suffer any broken bones Liam."

Liam doesn't budge.

Azrael drops the laptop on the coffee table Infront of us and before he can move Liam , with his recently dislocated bones jumps over the couch and limps to the hallway, laughing all the way.

I let my laugh loose when Azrael rolls his eyes after looking at the direction Liam went in.

He sits where Liam was sitting and I almost breath him in.

To think I was almost about to leave him makes something deep inside of me hurt.

He opens his laptop and it flares to life. After a few clicks, the 2d grid of a map fills the screen. The map has chingola written on top and it has different shades that look like demarcations.

I turn to him. "What is this?"

"Since asking you to stay away from Dorian won't work, I want you to have an idea of what you are getting into." He points at the screen. "Chingola is run by the most influential people who have power that can be welded over the weaker parts of society. This map shows territories divided among them." He points at an area shaded green. "This falls under my uncle and that's where we are."

It must be the council my cousin Thandi told me about.

But still I don't get something. "I don't understand doesn't the government know about this? "

He nods." They do and no they will not do anything about the issue because they are a part of it."

"Then who are these people answerable to? Does it have some sort of hierarchy? I mean that much power left unchecked can unleash chaos."

"It has a hierarchy but you can try to interpret it has a form of food chain, they all answer to the most powerful man in their midst."

I have a feeling deep down in my soul. A bad feeling.

I clench my fist. "They all answer to him, don't they?"

He nods.

They all answer to him.

Haskiea Sameya.

The man who murdered the woman who raised me.

I hold my trembling hands in my laps.

I try to steady my voice. " Who does Dorian Chali answer to?"

"Dorian Chali has never been answerable to anyone."

" Then what is in it for him?"

He shrugs." I believe he wants to be at the top of the food chain."

"How will he manage to do that?"

"By taking out the apex predator."

I turn to him." Meaning?"

"Taking Haskiea Sameya's place."

Hope blooms in my chest. I don't care how he does it but I want Haskiea Sameya to suffer in worst way possible.

"How does he take his place? Democracy? "

He stands up and goes to the window and opens the curtains. "It's simpler and more complicated than democracy, he has to be both powerful and ruthless enough to claim."

"Can't he just use this?" I raise the bracelet.

"It's not that simple, that is just a chink in his foundation, claiming Haskiea Sameya's place requires someone who has nothing left to lose , like Dorian Chali." He turns to me,eyes sad. "To attain such a place one needs to have what they call aides but once he dies so does his aides and I didn't let you go to Dorian because after you aid him with that bracelet, if anything happened to him once he takes the leader of the council then so will you."

I remember Dorian Chali just looking at Liam's thoroughly beaten body and not giving a flying fudge, as if it wasn't his younger cousin, I think he only looks out for himself and no one else, the role suits him.

But one thing about Azrael is that he's so flawless with the information that I can't help but wonder. "How do you know so much about this?"

He turns to me a sadness in his eyes. "Because my father was once the leader of the council and recently I found out , that kid Ryan's father was one of his aides and when he went down so did his aides and their entire families , only a few survived."

My chest hurts and my lungs feel like the air isn't enough.

I take in a sharp breath. "Now I know why he hates me so much, was my adoptive father one of Haskiea Sameya's aides?"

He nods. " Yes he was and to make matters worse he was a hired gun for Haskiea Sameya, that's why you had a bounty on your head, it was from one of my father's former aides' surviving relatives."

Just when I thought I was grasping everything, it spins out of control. Just my fate at play.

Charles Mayando.

The man I thought was my father.

Was a paid assassin.

I look up at him. "To take Haskiea Sameya's place does Dorian Chali have to kill him?"

He nods.

I stand up my heart hammering in my chest, my mind made up.

I don't know when I will finally pay for the crimes of a generation before me but I will go down with Haskiea Sameya for mercilessly burning my mother.

Adoption or not , the fact remains.

She didn't give me life but she brought me up she's my mother.

I look at him as I feel the last remaining anger and strength I have , resurface.

"My swine of a uncle once said , everything has a price and here I have learnt to fear what I can lose but.... I don't know if there's something I have left to lose and I am willing to pay anything to see Haskiea Sameya's world burn to the ground." I head towards the door without waiting for him , my heart a raging storm." Take me to Dorian Chali."

Dorian Chali may be a monster but I need a monster to defeat a monster.

His strides are swift and he holds the door handle before I can and  he says straight to my face. "You are wrong Mayando, there's always something to take and you may not be the one at the losing end."

I don't answer him as I go outside the rainy day greeting me full force.

I'd rather rush the rain than acknowledge what I fear he's trying to profess.

I have become something he doesn't want to lose and I don't think I wanted acknowledge it at first.

He may just be all I have left.

But I can't acknowledge it, because my mother comes first.