Chapter 4

• **11am
• ‘Tarasha! ‘ Chief Gab called out immediately the call was answered.
• ‘Hello Chief’ she replied in a cheerful voice.
• ‘Tarasha! How come you went that far on a little issue?’
• ‘Was that Chief?’ She asked mockingly. ‘Or have you seen my gift?’
• ‘Tarasha, you shouldn’t have gone that far. I was going to send the money to you’
• ‘Alright’ she answered more seriously now. ‘I should get the alert in the next fifteen minutes else your daughter would be in danger too’
• ‘No o, Tarasha. Don’t try that at all, that would be big trouble for you’ the Chief tried to sound brave.
• ‘You’re the one who shouldn’t try me Chief,
• send the money within fifteen minutes after this call ends’
• ‘Okay, I will see what I can do’
• ‘Huh?’
• ‘I said I’ll see what I can do’
• ‘Don’t play pranks Chief, if you think you can move your child out of the school and stop me from reaching her, then you better think twice because I can already see that your men are outside the school gate and there’s no way they’ll escape me’
• ‘What!’ The Chief was in shock. ‘How did you know that?’
• ‘Let me get the alert quickly’ She said and ended the conversation.
• The Chief was in panic as he dropped the phone. He wondered how Tarasha knew that he had already sent men to safeguard his daughter. He wasted no time as he picked up his tablet device and transferred the remaining balance of ten million naira to Tarasha’s account and called her immediately to notify her.
• ‘I just sent the money’
• ‘Good, I received the message alert already’ she replied him.
• ‘So is my daughter free now?’
• ‘Of course, I have nothing to use her for’ she said with a chuckle.
• ‘Okay, we need to see. I have some other jobs for you and I need to explain to you personally’
• ‘We’ll see on Skype’
• ‘Huh? I need to meet with you, I need to see who I’m working with’
• ‘I don’t think there’s any need for that, we see on Skype already, isn’t it?’
• ‘But you’re always wearing a mask to hide your face’
• ‘No, that’s my face you see; that’s Tarasha’s face’ she added.
• ‘What do you mean?’ Chief Gab questioned.
• ‘The face behind that mask doesn’t have any business to do with you’ she said with a strict voice.
• ‘I …’
• ‘If you don’t mind Chief, I’ve got some other things to do’ she interrupted him and ended the call.
• ‘D--n’ he cursed as he put down the phone. He held his jaw with his hand, remembering how he had been told to deal with her carefully.
• He was calm after reminding himself that he couldn’t get angry with Tarasha now, he still needed her in the work he had to do; his revenge mission.
• He recalled his younger days as the minister of marketing and sales before he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for drug trafficking and management of the country’s funds after being probed and found guilty by the new government at that period. He was angry and determined to punish all the government officials that aided his arrest and conviction especially those who were also involved in some of the illegal businesses he did.
• With the little he had seen Tarasha exhibit and the way Vladislav had spoken about her, he concluded that Tarasha would be of great importance to him in his revenge mission which was even the sole reason he had paid Vladislav several billions to send her down to Nigeria.
• ‘Hey’ he called out to one of his guards who stood at the doorside in the sitting room. ‘Tell Edet to come here immediately’
• The guard went out and returned with a very tall dark man with a slender body. The man bowed in courtesy to the Chief.
• ‘You called for me sir’
• ‘Yes, I did’ Chief begun, ‘two of our guys were killed this morning and I was told you were the one who saw it happening live from the surveillance cameras’
• ‘Yes sir, I alerted them downstairs immediately’
• ‘Yes, but I was told that the person left before they got to the gate’
• ‘Yes, it was a Lady…’
• ‘Shhhh… Don’t worry’ the Chief shut him up,
• standing up from his seating position. ‘Let’s go,
• I want to see the video footage myself’
• ‘Okay sir’ Edet replied as he led the Chief to the security room.
• Chief Gab spotted himself on a laptop screen as he entered into the room, that laptop was the one connected to the camera in the room. He looked around the room to check if any change had been made to the room since the last two months he visited. The only change he noticed was that the room was darker than before as no bulb was turned on and would have been completely dark if not for the reflections of light from the several desktop screens in the room.
• He sat down and rested properly into the chair he was motioned to and faced the desktop as Edet tried to open some files.
• ‘Here’s it sir’ Edet explained as a video played.
• ‘She wasn’t wearing mask when she drove to the gate, but she wore the mask before she came out of the car; that was when I suspected something’
• ‘Take it back to where she was in the car’ Chief Gab said as he watched with great interest.
• ‘Here’ Edet rewinded a little, then zoomed the video. ‘Only her jaw is visible, the rest of her face wasn’t captured by the camera; from this we know her skin colour’
• ‘Okay, play on’
• ‘She wore a mask and came out of the car, I don’t know how she knew where our camera was placed’ Edet explained as the video showed Tarasha with her mask on, facing the camera.
• She pointed to the part of the mask which covered her forehead, showing them the name ‘Tarasha’ which was inscribed on it.
• ‘So we can’t get any useful information from this?’ The Chief asked angrily.
• ‘We know her complexion’ Edet answered.
• ‘Are you crazy? Do you know how many people in this city alone has the same complexion?’
• The Chief slammed.
• ‘I’m sorry sir’
• ‘Sorry for yourself’ Chief Gab hissed and left the room.