*****

Days passed and nothing came between them. Adeelah would've admit that they're the most longest days she had ever witnessed in her life. She felt so lonely and isolated. After Fatimah's wedding, Salisu stopped coming and Abba told her he had taken a break and he would come back when they're going to Abuja.

On normal circumstance, she's supposed to be happy that Salisu was finally away and she would have a breath of fresh air. Now the air felt clogged without him. She wanted to tell somoene how much she missed his presence but she couldn't do that. Any other person would laugh at her.

Adeelah knew Salisu couldn't read a text that's why she made it a habit to send him message everyday. Second, she was certain he wouldn't take it to anyone, he wouldn't ask anyone to read it for him. She felt better whenever she write to him.

'My heart feels so heavy right now. Did you leave yours for me to cater? And it's not helping me?' She sent. She didn't know love and that wasn't love. She was sure. More so Salisu couldn't read that. That's all. She had to get rid of the weight.

*****

Adeelah didn't count the days but she knew they flew fast as she sat inside the car with Salisu in the driver's seat driving them out of her house.

She looked at the house and felt some tears dropping from her eyes. She's leaving home for six months straight. Ya rabb. Even yesterday when she visited aunt Siddiqa to bid her bye, she ended up being emotional.

"You can come every two weeks if you want, you don't have to be crying." Salisu's voice interrupted her. She hadn't seen or heard him for a very long time. Now she didn't even know how to face him and ask him about the arrangements he made for her. As his wife.

How bizarre was that.

"Than—okay." She replied, sipping in her tears back. She looked outside as he drove, with a lot of thoughts winding in her head with no direction.

"We are going to have separate rooms right? Separate houses maybe?" She asked out of the blues. It was her thought since they began the journey.

"Whichever suits." He shortly replied her. When he crossed a corner, Adeelah looked at him.

Salisu noticed the way she was resisting to ask him.

"I don't steal you know? I don't kidnap either. We're going to Goggo before we take the road to Abuja. We need her blessings. Don't we?" Adeelah nodded. The drive was silent. Minutes after, Salisu's phone rang, piercing through the thick eerie in the car. He had hesitated before he picked the call. Adeelah had noticed that.

"Nasiru I am driving, I will call you... Oh something? Okay in five minutes." She heard him say but the look on his face stamped on her heart. She saw him from a different angle, a different face.

"That's suspicious. I will say you are ready to kidnap me." Salisu laughed when she finished with a glare.

He glanced at her before he focused on the road ahead him. "It's safe to kidnap my wife, you know." He continued to drive.

*****

Baffa Kabo discarded the cigar he had been smoking. He didn't know how many sticks he had that day. His head was on fire, ablaze and hot. What his brother was doing had been nagging him and he's not ready to accept that.

They had an agreement. Now he wanted to breach the agreement, just when he thought, his son, El-mustapha had started becoming a household name. His name was becoming famous by the days and him, making an appearance on the media just once with a dark shade on his face was something that touched somewhere in Baffa Kabo's mind.

He had been planning on how to silently kill El-mustapha so that his son, Mahmoud would take over. But from the looks of it, Baba Kabo wasn't ready to do this, he wasn't ready to let the name go under another name, meaning even after El-mustapha he would rather take the burden of running the business than to allow Baffa Kabo have it.

How dare he forget the past?! Was Baffa Kabo not the mastermind behind their blooming wealth? He would definitely teach both son and father a lesson. True, the Kabo's were known nationwide for their wealth and power, but there was something that pushed them further. They were also generous human beings although among them were the most wicked people that ever breath on earth. Of those wicked men was someone.

Baffa Kabo.

The snake in the green grass.

And the sweetest and cunning man ever. Everyone fell for his traps including Baba Kabo.

Now he smiled when he remembered his backup plan was about to be in action. He knew it from a very long time that Nawwar was a luck. Now she would be the bait to catch his fish.

He just had to make the wedding happen in a matter of weeks' time.

He's satisfied. He lit another stick and puffed the smoke with pride and satisfaction.

*****

"Adeelah," Goggo repeated the name when Salisu told her. She liked the girl at first sight although Salisu had never hide something from her, that included telling her about how Adeelah behaved. He added that ahe lost her mother.

"Na'am Goggo. Since he's out, I think I should help you do something. Maybe wash plates?"

Goggo smiled such that it touched her eyes. "There's only one plate and it's mine. Sometimes it's disposable plate because he sometimes asks me to just wait he will bring food from the restaurant." Adeelah smiled too. She loved the way Salisu cared for his mother, that made her miss her Oum. She could see how proud of Salisu, Goggo was.

She loved the relationship between them. But she didn't like the house Goggo lived in. Someone could think Salisu didn't care about her much to leave her live in a mud house. And alone, all nights.

"Goggo, won't you follow us to Abuja? You will be bored here. I mean if I am you, I will be bored. And honestly..." Adeelah kept mum when Goggo places her hand on her shoulder.

"I understand you but I assure you all is fine." Adeelah then kept quiet but she would talk to Salisu about that. She couldn't imagine her Oum in that house. Salisu's mother was equally important to her.

An hour later Salisu came back with food. They ate together and bid her bye. Just when they walked out and were alone, Adeelah thought it was time to tell him. They had to leave with Goggo.

"I was wondering how you could feel at ease while you leave her here. Why don't we go with her?" Salisu had looked at her a few seconds.

Adeelah smiled. "I will take care of her, I promise." She added. Salisu had never thought of moving Goggo somewhere from that house. That house was were he was born and raised. Where Goggo had lived for the half of her life. Now he would be leaving for Abuja and he had been offered a decent accommodation. Leaving her behind wasn't thoughtful when anytime any day, the building may collapse on her.

"That's very thoughtful of you Adeelah. I will go and talk to her." Adeelah only nodded and unlocked the car. She sat at the back and stared at the house. Somehow she loved the fact that she knew Salisu. Knowing him, exposed her to a lot of things she never knew. Things she never imagined. She couldn't imagine her living in that type of house and be hyper all day. Not her, please.

Salisu came out of the house with weakness etched in his eyes. She could say there was something special between them. How she knew his state of mind by the way her name slip off his tongue. He barely look at him because she's didn't like the scars on his face. Now she had looked at him for a number of times and each them the scars began to fade in her eyes as she looked deeper.

"Adeelah..." He said.

"She refused to join us. She will when we settle down." He added.

Adeelah bit her lip. "I understand." They drove in silence, windows down, air bustling into the car as they drove past the roads of Kano. Adeelah didn't know when she started sleeping but she knew she didn't sleep for so long when she felt the car jolt. She lazily opened her eyes and saw them in any empty road.

What shattered her heart was the fact that the man beside her was weeping.

For how long had he been weeping? Ya Allah.

This was something she had never seen in her life. The most shiny bubble person bursting in front of her.

"Salisu?" She called, agitated. They were alone. Thick in the forest. And he was crying.

She let him cry for so long he could. When he finished, she gave him water to sip. She gave him handkerchief to clean his face. That all done, he walked out of the car. She opened the booth and removed a small mat. He spread it by the car.

Adeelah joined him.

"She's bottling up too much. It hurts me to see her hurting and I can't do anything to ease it up. She sacrificed everything for me Adeelah."

Adeelah stared at him blankly. He was talking from the blues. She didn't understand what he was saying.

"May Allah reward her abundantly."

"Ameen and may your mother's soul be in Jannah. Sometimes I wonder how beautiful she was to give birth to a beautiful lady like you." He let his topic aside. He saw Adeelah's mood shift, he didn't know whether she was aware, but she leaned on his shoulder.

"I wonder what life could have been with her here. I have lost a lot since she left. I am not myself, my mood always shifting. My mouth running. I don't know, but she took something away." She admitted.

Salisu circled his hand around her.

"I can never replace her but I want you to give me a chance. I am mere chauffeur with nothing to offer in terms of luxury. I am not so educated either... But I want you to be happy. Forever."

Adeelah kept mum. As if being tickled, it dawned on her. She's in his arms, enjoying the way she leaned on the side of his chest.

"Salisu get up let's enter the car. What are we doing here? I mean do you want to take advantage of me? Then you're lying. Nonsense. Will you just get up?" She rose and took the backseat of the car.

Salisu smiled. He wasn't surprised. He knew for a moment, she was oblivious to the reality. He was, also. He forgot that he's going to Abuja for a purpose. Not for Adeelah alone. He's working too. They almost allowed their emotions to drive them to uncertainty.

"Dillaliya, you can stay at the back all you want. I wouldn't say you should switch to the front." He said and ignited the car.

"I thought you will go ahead and start quoting verses and hadith."

"I've exhausted them. I memorized those to impress you. I am just a mere man. Just look at me that way. I don't know anything." He explained.

They had drove for thirty minutes when Salisu stopped again. He pulled out the mat again and sat.

"Salisu what's this nonsense?"

"I am tired. I need to rest lest we have an accident Dillaliya. And oh yes I heard that this is the same route your coworkers follow. I mean the Dillalai. Would you like to buy more used clothes from them, Dillaliya?" Adeelah glared at him.

"You're my chauffeur and you have no say. You do as i say, because you are nothing! Get back in the car and drive like a dedicated chauffeur!" She barked.

Well, he could never be free. If only she knew the part of his heart she touched.

"Dillaliya..."

"Salisu get in here! I am ordering you." He swallowed something bitter. He wasn't in the mood to banter. She had touched his weak point and that was enough pain for the day.

*****

Sigh.😔😔

Here we go.

Scroll down. Issa triple update.