Christopher
Bonn, Germany

It kills me deeply on the inside to learn that things have gone disastrous at home. The news of my daughter's boyfriend being one of the culprits of my sister-in-law makes me feel very terrible and guilty? Guilty.

It wasn't just the regular kind of 'terrible' that came from a place of pity and indecisiveness as to what to do to help the situation and watchful of my daughter's affairs. I wasn't about to start blaming myself for what had happened but I knew that the time I had given Gifty a phone call and she spoke about having a problem that she could not share, it was affiliated to her boyfriend but I had chosen not to be a nosy stepfather on that day.

Now, I wished I probed. Perhaps something might have been done differently.

I just pray Yemisi pulls through it all. Although I know she's a strong woman, there's only so much that she can take and I want the best for her. The least I can do on my part to subside the turbulence is to put to a total end, everything related to the past betrothal between me and Irene.

The past week has been filled with many fruitful activities especially with my informant back by my side and safe. Within the hours that I'd sent him to dig up some information and to confirm the state of Irene's father just before he got kidnapped, I'd gotten to learn that Irene truly killed both her parents. Little wonder why she tried to keep my informant away from him and stuff him inside a dusty silo full of fish feed to suffocate.

My informant had kept in touch with someone in Irene's parent's neighborhood, a prospective witness who testified to the fact that he'd seen Irene visit her parents once on the afternoon that her mother died, he happened to have a tape recorder in hand that recorded Irene's words but when he heard her footsteps approaching, he ran as fast as he could for the love of his dear life.

It would have been difficult for my informant to find the man if he hadn't already interrogated him before. Upon hearing all of that information, I thought of getting a police officer ready to arrest Irene and Albert came to my mind but the fact that he's not a German police officer and might not have the right to carry out an arrest in Germany made me dismiss the idea.

I visited the police station at Bonn where I was arrested and it was harder than I'd thought to have them accept my request for back-up even after offering money (which wasn't even supposed to be). They almost looked very afraid of me approaching them and it was all so sketchy to me that I had to look for a police station elsewhere that was eager to come to my aid as they should. Surprisingly, it turned out to be that Irene was a criminal they had been looking for.

Now, I have to do what I've yearned to do for the longest time and my marriage with Yemisi has helped me realize just how badly I needed to do it. I have to call my mother to show her that I was twice as brave and she was never supposed to have any say whatsoever regarding the union between me and Yemisi and it's liberating that I get to do this.

"If you have called to ask me to stop the engagement between you and Irene—"

"No, there would no longer be a need for that, " I smiled with a joy that feels satisfactory within my soul that I get to interrupt my mother like this. "Because it has already been stopped. The woman you forcefully want me to marry murdered both of her parents just because she doesn't want to follow the terms of the contract knowing full well that I have all it takes to make a refund for the damaged building."

I heard a small gasp from her end and I nodded in an 'I thought as much' manner. Not like she was going to see it but it felt pleasant having to nod like that.

"I figured you'd be surprised of course. That's what you signed me up for just because you don't like Yemisi and my step-children. You don't like the fact that she doesn't want to bear 'my children' and you don't care that I'm happy regardless of what it is so long as I have her to hold, to cherish, and to love but you tried hard to take her away from me and didn't mind joining forces with the devil to make me unhappy. Asides from the fact that I successfully surrendered myself to be your puppet, I can't believe that you were out to destroy me."

I paused to see if she was going to respond to any of my words. Oppose them, take them out of context. Anything but when she didn't, I continued to talk.

"You have to tell her to stop from doing anything funny henceforth. She's insane and is confident in her doings partly because she knows you're on her side and I need you to let her know that you're no longer on her side, " I said in the most commanding and surprisingly confident tone.

"B-but s-she's going to kill me, " her voice was shaky. I felt the urge to ask her to repeat what she had just said because I couldn't believe that this was her response. I rubbed my temple with my thumb, trying to find the words to say because they became scarce.

"So you're telling me that you can't put an end to what you started? How can you say this when you enforced it all in the first place? You're being the real coward right now—"

"Boss!" a voice interrupted my words halfway and it came right after a loud slamming of my office door. Unconsciously, my phone slipped away from my hand and luckily it landed on my desk. I didn't get to finish saying what was on my mind to my mother but I was glad I said something.

She might have interpreted my silence as remnants of the cowardice I once exhibited. My silence might have had her thinking her emotional manipulation antic had worked and I was scared for her life.

The current expression on my informant's face however was a much greater cause for fear.

"What is it?" I pressed. My heart was racing.

"The witness I told you about hasn't been picking his calls and we already agreed to meet today so I could retrieve the tape recorder from him. He couldn't give me the last time we met because–"

"Oh shit!" my eyes went wild that I started to fear that they would bulge out or melt down. "Irene has him in custody. We have to hurry and make sure she doesn't kill him!"

Quickly, I grabbed my coat, my phone and my car keys as I began to dial the police line and texted the location of the neighborhood to them, and hopped into my car as I drove speedily down the highway.

***

The neighborhood was pristine, the surroundings nearly spotless and meticulously organized with every single house in the estate painted in white colors and slabs of brick-red by the pillars. Like a smear of blood on a spotless white shirt. I couldn't help but take in the surroundings being my first time there.

The police van got there five minutes after we had. My informant and I decided to go in first so I snapped out of my vain gazing and hurried into the entrance of the house in which the gate was already widely opened, signaling that someone had for sure gone into the house.

There was a spiral stairway at the back of the duplex building which led to a back door. Quickly, we mounted the stairs till we got to the last step and saw that door that led to the interior was also open. The living room was dimly lighted and reeked of formalin which made me sick to my stomach but I had to keep walking in the direction of sounds that I was now beginning to hear.

Whimpering...groaning...

"Look! boss, " my informant whispered, tapping my shoulders to look in a certain direction and when I did, I saw a dining table and my eyes happened to find what needed to be found quickly.

Underneath the table was Irene hijacking someone beneath with her knees pressing against his thigh and the person beneath her was struggling and whimpering for some free air but Irene was out to stifle the breath out of him in the most torturous way.

She sensed that she wasn't the only one in the dining room any longer so she paused to turn. Her gaze was as fierce as a lioness and she came out from underneath the table. The next thing I saw was a gun pointed in my direction with the bullets intact as I heard the cocking sound.

"Aha! You're here!" she smiled and her eyes glistened with all deadly intention unashamedly. "That's very wonderful you niggardly son of a detestable bitch! You've gotten your wretched mum to turn her back against me right?!" she grinned and for a second I took my time to digest the fact that my mum had hearkened to my command and she did it...quickly.

"You know all I did was want you. Why did you have to be like this and make me suffer for the price I never even got to win? How dare you spike my drink with sleeping pills and escape after making me believe that I had won you?"

"I should have poisoned the drink then if I wanted to pay you back for the pain you have truly caused me. How can you even dare to blame me at all after everything you did?" I scoffed in disbelief. There was so much I wanted to say. I wanted to lash out at her and remind her of all she has done but I figured there was no use. The police were here and the rest of my statement would be given in court if need be.

"I just wanted you to want me and I was desperate but since you didn't and now you want to destroy me, I'll just have to destroy you first. I pity your wretched mum, " she smirked and in the twinkle of an eye, just before my informant could try to push me away from the fast-approaching bullet once she had pulled the trigger, it landed.

It landed... And subconsciously, I closed my eyes. I remember reading an article when I was twenty-four years old about the aftermath effect of getting shot and one thing I'd refused to forget was the shock that came from getting shot. You just can't believe that a bullet has pierced a hole into your skin. It is bizarre and out of the ordinary and your brain is trying to process what has just happened.

As I closed my eyes, I tried to absorb the fact that a bullet most likely had found its way through any part of my body that the trigger was aimed at and I was going to die... Yemisi was going to lose me... Like she had lost her first husband.

I still wasn't feeling any severe pain or discomfort and I attributed that to the fact that I was lost in my chain of thoughts. My 'final' thoughts before giving up the ghost... That white moment between life and death...when all hope for the light is gone.

I opened my eyes to take in my reality so I could know what part of my body the bullet had pierced. Maybe I could survive if it didn't hit a vital organ or part of my body but I saw pieces of broken glass shattered over the tiled floor and it was then I realized that she didn't shoot me.

"PUT YOUR GUN DOWN NOW, MISS. IRENE!" came the voice of one of the police officers as I looked around now and the dining room was surrounded by the police. My informant had just pulled the prospective witness from under the dining table. He was coughing and scratching his throat, trying very hard to catch every breath that he could find.

Tears ran down Irene's eyes making her mascara smear all over her pale face like liquid coal. "You! You called the police!" she yelled at me and was just going to come closer when the officers restrained her immediately and threatened her till she was able to drop her gun. My head was throbbing instantly with a headache from the draining near-death moment I had just experienced. "I can't believe that I couldn't bring myself to shoot you in the way that I desire to! You and your mother will pay for this!"

Quickly, her hands were brought together behind her and locked in handcuffs. Right at that moment, my informant waved his hands in the air one of them which held a tape recorder...the tape recorder. "Found it!" he yelled. I did a weak thumbs-up as I watched him give the recorder to the chief officer.

"That tape recorder contains Irene's confessions as to how she killed her father on the day that she killed her mother. It would suffice as substantial evidence on the day of the trial right?" I asked the chief head of police who was standing in a furious akimbo posture, supervising the whole scene.

"It would help throughout the investigation. Thank you for hanging in there, " he examined the tape recorder. "Miss. Irene Giwa, you are arrested for the murder of Mr. Joe and Caroline Giwa..."

Everything else that was said thereon, I didn't listen to because I was overwhelmed by the fact that this was finally all over and I felt the strong urge to cry. As I watched the police drag her out of the building and hearing her wails of defeat, I fell on my knees and said a prayer of thanksgiving to God.

After everything...the afternoon that my mother showed up at my house with the news, the disastrous night at the hotel room, the unpleasant surprise on the day of my bail from my prison, watching my wife walk out on me, heartbroken and disappointed, every misconception that originated from her intrusion.

It was all over. I saved my marriage and it was the greatest thing I could have ever done to redeem my marriage.