David had decided to give Celine the benefit of the doubt even after he'd received the package. He made excuses for her and wondered if he was the one being paranoid. Perhaps, Celine was not as observant.

The thought of Celine not being attentive enough didn't last for long. He remembered the old days at the water factory. Celine had remained silent while he manipulated her, thinking that she was not aware of what was going on until he heard her crying in her room one night.

With this reminder in mind, David still decided not to take any actions that would affect her. He stayed on the watch to see if any other suspicious thing would happen. If it did, he would take it as his cue to take drastic action.

David did not have to wait for long. A week after he'd ordered his secretary, Mr. Brown, to remove the new file from the warehouse and deliver it to him, he received a call from his secretary who revealed that someone was seeking a job as a janitor at the company. Sometimes, if David wasn't present in the company to recruit the prospective employee, he went through the person's certifications from the comfort of his home. So he asked him to forward the tendered documents.

David scoffed when he saw a recommendation letter amongst the person's credentials. What company issues recommendation letters for cheap jobs like that of a caretaker? David felt something was eerie about it. Besides, the name of the company and its logo did not look familiar to him, which was saying a lot since he knew a lot of multimillionaires and even small-scaled companies from around the world.

David decided he was going to remain at home while he conducted his investigation on the letter. Going to the company to see the prospective employee for himself felt like a trap to him all of a sudden. He needed to get to the root of the entire situation first.

So he ordered his research assistant to make findings on Winniez Enterprises, the company's name printed on the recommendation note. The search result was out within a few hours, and David learned that the organization in question was a  company that had long run out of business because of a shadow director who had dabbled into fraudulent acts while he managed the company.

“Hm,” David furrowed his eyebrows as his research agent filled him in on the details. While he listened, he was beginning to get heart palpitations.

Fear had a disrespectful chokehold on him, and it was so because of the countless gateways his guilty conscience had made room for. If one was going to delve into nefarious dealings, paranoia could no longer become a guest. It had to be a part of the person. The reason was simply because of what the villain had to protect, irrespective of whatever it was.

In this situation, David had to protect the only thing that gave him a reason to live — his girls. He had to be wary of anything that served as a potential threat to that.

So David wondered what kind of person it was. Was he a fraudster who hoped to get hired so he could launder all the money in the company’s account? If he was able to get the signature from the ‘C.E.O’ of a company that was no longer in existence, then the person could do anything that he set his mind to do.

The signature too. David felt a nudging within him to investigate the signature on the note. So he sent the mark to some advanced technologists in the city to conduct tests and find out who the owner of the signature was. Perhaps, it wasn't even the shadow director who'd signed it. It would have been impossible to find him since he was a fugitive and a highly wanted criminal.

Five of the technologists reverted to him within three days with a total of a hundred results containing marks similar to the stamp on the letter. All of the signatures were traced to one person as the owner, despite their slight differences. It was an Asian con man named Fabian Lee who forged signatures of multi-millionaires on recycled papers owned by actual companies that used to exist. He offered this service at varying prices to help unqualified people and spies get into legitimate organizations.

David was so shocked that he did not know when he started to laugh. He found the result of his investigation so intriguing that it soon became comical to him. This had never happened to him before — at least not in this way. All of his employees were qualified through the right means. He was sure of this because he’d gone through their files meticulously and made inquiries about their credentials from various sources (Although, this didn't change the fact that some of them had betrayed him later on), so it was pretty interesting that the person had gone as far as to get a recommendation letter.

David knew that finding the track record of Fabian Lee’s phone calls would be impossible because rascals like him always used burner phones. So again, he decided he was to watch and let things play out. That way, he could find out the person’s intentions. So he hired the person — James as a janitor and assigned his secretary to monitor the employee’s every move and discussions with people.

Mr. Brown was such an effective spy that James didn't even know that he was being monitored in return as he monitored and eavesdropped on other people's conversations. As he mopped the floors and whispered discretely on calls at intervals, Mr. Brown watched him closely from the CCTV camera and the wiretapping device he'd slipped into the collar of his uniform. Whenever Mr. Brown had some leisure time, he followed him to observe his movements even though there was no need to do so.

It was through his observations that he noticed that James liked to leave the company at late hours of the night. It was as though he would live in the company if given the opportunity.

It didn't take time for Mr. Brown to discover that James always left the office late because he wanted to overhear every word to the best of his ability. He did not want a situation where vital information would be passed around in his absence.

Mr. Brown had watched him from the cameras, lingering close to spots where workers were chattering. He was such a lousy spy. David’s secretary confirmed that James was a spy when some janitors discussed the file. The wiretapping device he'd slipped into his shirt helped him to hear James as he spoke to the person on the receiving end about futile plans to find out about Gertrude’s parent’s contact.

Immediately, Mr. Brown reverted to David through a phone call.

“Sir... The new janitor is a spy who a woman hired. I think the lady's goal is to get the contact information of Gertrude’s parents.”

“Wow,” David was stunned. Although he'd braced his mind to receive the worst information, the reality of the truth still robbed him of the mental preparation he'd made. It didn’t take any bit away from the truth’s intensity.

He was in the process of thinking of how to respond when he absentmindedly glanced sideways at the sleeping man that was on sitting on the chair next to him. His arms and legs were tied in ropes, leaving him bound to the furniture. As he gazed, he smiled. Perhaps, he was still on the winning side. It was quite the coincidence that he was in the dungeon where he'd locked up the event planner that snitched on him to Gertrude’s parents.

David stretched his hand and slapped the back of the event planner’s head. “It’s a good thing I decided to get the file out of the warehouse a week ago. Thanks, Mr. Brown. There's one more thing I need you to do. I need you to bring him over within two days. I'll give you a new location.”

“Okay, sir. I'll monitor his movements right away.”

“Good.”

After the call, David had a good chance to think. The only thing he'd succeeded in doing was ensuring that the spy wouldn't get to roam about anymore. He had to stop Celine. Although Mr. Brown hadn't mentioned the name of the lady that James was always speaking to on the phone, It would be foolish of David to still believe that the woman wasn't Celine.

Who else had seen Gertrude’s parents at his office on two different occasions and had even heard the dog bark when she visited his house for the first time? She would catch him in the twinkle of an eye if he didn't run away from her. He would also scare her off so that his escape from her wouldn't be futile. Kidnapping her spy and making her think he was dead would be the best way to get that done.

David made his way out of the dungeon but not without promising the event planner, whose head was hung low with blood dripping from his mouth, that someone was going to be joining him very soon.

***

“I need to move out of my house by tomorrow morning. Send your men to come with their trucks so we can begin packing,” David wiped sweat away from his brow as he zipped up the last box. He let out a long, heavy breath.

He hung up barely before the person on the receiver end got to confirm his order and slumped on the bed, his hand above his head.

He started into the ceiling and let himself be lost in his thoughts for a minute. He’d spent the entire day packing all of his things into his boxes that he barely got the chance to breathe.

The roof's blankness made him wonder if he was being vain for a wild moment. With all of these things he was doing for his girls — denying himself and his parents the joy of reconnection after so many years of separation, rejecting the opportunity of true friendship with Celine by continuously lying to her, becoming a businessman so he could actively look for ways to redeem himself of his sins, was he going to reap good fruits?

Was there ever going to come a day when he would stop feeling guilty? Was he ever going to feel accomplished with all his efforts towards atoning for his trespasses? What if he met Sindara in the afterlife, and she still refused to forgive him? Would he be able to take it? What would become of him after all the work and the sacrifices he’d made?

As he remained on his bed, the torturous fear of the unknown choked him. So he allowed the tears that gathered in his eyes to fall. The moisture tickled his ears in the process. This was the only way he could release the tension he was feeling in his chest.

After a moment of sorrow, he consoled himself with the fact he was doing his best to protect his girls. He really was. So even though nothing was guaranteed in this life and the hereafter, he was going to continue with the only purpose that was worth pursuing.

Twenty minutes later, the trucks arrived, and the drivers got to work immediately. They picked up box after box from the balcony where David had arranged all the items and offloaded them into the vehicle.

He watched the men for a while and looked at his mansion. He didn't know how to feel about leaving the house he'd lived in and grown a tight bond with his girls for years. But he decided not to dwell on the thought for too long. He wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand and consoled himself that he was doing all of this for a better cause.

God forbid he remained here, got ambushed by the police, and watched his girls leave him.

As he thought of the young girls for the umpteenth time, he remembered that he also had to help them pack their luggage. He couldn't command them, especially Zipporah and Gertrude, to pack their things. He could have easily told Grace and Kemi to pack their belongings, but he didn't trust their ability to keep their mouths shut if Zipporah asked them why they were packing.

So he dug his hands into the pocket of his trousers and breathed in relief when he touched the small bottle. He’d put the sleeping pill in his pocket when he couldn't find any space in his boxes to slip it in.

“When would you guys be done packing all my stuff?” he asked the driver, who was walking towards the balcony to pick another item.

“In three to four hours, sir.”

“Alright,” David rubbed his palms and walked off.

Three hours later...

Despite the sounds of loud snoring that filled the room, David was still scared of walking. So as he packed all of Zipporah’s, Gertrude’s, Grace’s, and Kemi’s clothes into their respective boxes, he tiptoed. Gertrude didn't have many clothes or possessions since she hadn't been with him for long, so it was easier for him to put everything together before the truck wheelers removed all items from his mansion.

Within any moment, the driver would call him to inform him that he had finished offloading the boxes. So he walked faster, throwing toys, books, ribbons, remote control, shoes, and rugs into a briefcase. When he finally got the chance to wipe off the sweat that had seeped into his lips, he had finished packing everything. All that was left was for the drivers to pack.

So he washed his hands in the kitchen zinc, wiped off the moisture on the palms with a napkin, and started to carry the girls one after the other into the backseat of his car, which he'd packed in front of the bungalow. Although he knew how potent the sleeping pill was, he feared they would wake up at any moment — in the middle of the elopement process and ask questions he loathed to answer.

When he placed them all safely in his car, he took a deep breath of relief. Then he carried Roscoe, who was also sleeping and put it in the booth.

One of the trucks was already full. So as David drove out of the house, the vehicle followed. About an hour later, the other buses arrived at the new location, which was a villa located in the middle of a rainforest to unload the remaining items. 

***

Zipporah opened her eyes slowly as if the activity in itself was a chore. As she scratched her eyelid with the tip of her fingers, she wondered why and when she’d fallen asleep. She tried to remember if she'd done anything strenuous during the day, but nothing came to her remembrance.

All she'd done was knit a purse, prepare breakfast, sit at the dining table and think about her pathetic life until David came in and prepared a meal for them, and she felt sleepy afterward.

She still couldn't get why she'd fallen asleep. David had served their meals in moderate portions, so she couldn't remember feeling tired after swallowing a few morsels.

Eventually, she stopped trying to figure out the answer not only because it was challenging to do so but because something more urgent had grabbed her attention.

Zipporah noticed the walls of the room she was in — mint green and blush pink. They were not the usual gray. She scratched her eyelid for the second time to see better and be sure of what was before her. Still, it was the same. She got out of the bed she'd slept on and examined it. The size of the mattress was different from the one in her room. What was going on?

She looked around the room and saw a huge difference between her room and this one. Here, it was airer, wider and flashy. Zipporah wondered if David had changed the wallpapers of her room while she'd slept, so she decided to confirm if he’d done the same for the living room or if it still looked the way it was.

So she stepped out of the room and was shocked when she saw the living room after she’d closed the door and turned. Usually, she had to walk through the passageway before getting to the living room.

This new development was enough for her to believe that this wasn't the house she knew and as she looked around and saw wider sofas, bright-colored walls, and a bigger television at the center of the living room, it dawned on her that something really strange had occurred.

Zipporah looked through the window and saw giant trees instead of the cream fence she was used to seeing.

“I think Mr. David took us away from where we used to stay so that woman would never find us. I think he noticed on the day he came to watch a movie with us,” Gertrude’s voice came from behind her, answering a question she was about to ask into thin air.

Zipporah turned and saw Gertrude standing behind the sofa in the center of the living room. She looked like she'd just woken up too, but there were tears in her eyes, meaning she’d had time to figure out what had happened.

“Be for real, Gertrude,” Zipporah felt weightless. She couldn't even decipher what posture she was on, whether she was standing or sitting on the ground. She just felt like she'd been tied up and suspended somewhere in space — as a piece of trash, useless and lacking in worth.

“I'm so serious,” Gertrude sniffed and wiped off the liquid mucus that ran out of her nostrils with her hand. “And the doors are much firmer in structure. There are no loose ends in this place. Everything is locked up. We are in the middle of nowhere. It's just bushes all around. There's no way anyone would come here and try to save us. I can tell that we are far away. So far away from a rescuer.”

It was when Zipporah felt the coldness of the floor against her buttocks that she knew she'd been on her feet all along. Now, she’d slumped to the ground and was staring into nothing.

Zipporah began to blame herself for not committing suicide early enough. She should have known that all of the efforts she had made to escape would never work. She should have reminded herself that the only thing that could stop her from acting as David's sister was death, not elopement. Escaping was impossible for her.

Yet, Hope came in the most enticing of ways and plagued her. It came through Gertrude. How could she not hope that she had a chance at freedom when Gertrude dished it out like a free coupon? Having parents that cared about her whereabouts didn't help matters either.  Still, she should have been cautious. She should have encouraged Gertrude to keep her faith alive without being delusional enough to think that freedom would also locate her.

All her fervent hope had brought her was a kind of anguish that wrecked the soul beyond repair. Her prayers and desperate requests had dissolved into space. No one was going to answer her. The woman who'd tried to open the door that day would never get to do that again. She'd never get to hear anyone knock on the door and try to save them.

Zipporah knew this was the end, and as she accepted this truth, she tried to think of the life she’d had before David came into her life. She searched through the memory files in her brain — for times in her life where she had felt absolute, unpolluted joy, and her days at the village came to her mind.

She remembered the one time she chased a kite with her best friend, Jachima, for so long that they'd both fallen into a ditch filled with poop and waste materials. They'd been so focused on the object in the sky that they had barely spared a second to look beneath them. That had been the most infuriating and embarrassing day of her life, but somehow, the fact that she hadn't been alone in the mess made the situation laughable.

As they tried to help each other out of the ditch,  they were also wary of touching more of the poop that had smeared their clothes. When they finally got out, they cursed everyone who lived in the village for not cooperating to contribute money to build a pit latrine in the town. If only they pooped in the right places, they would have no business getting into shit, pun very much intended. After letting out their anger, they laughed at how badly they reeked.

Another wonderful memory was the 7pms on Sundays she spent at Kamsi’s house to watch the new edition of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”.  Her neighbor’s mother didn't mind having her around. In fact, she always prepared puff puff ahead of her arrival and Zipporah loved to lick the oil off her lips as she painfully watched Frank Edoho ask, “Is that your final answer?” for the umpteenth time.

Kamsi’s abode was a place where Zipporah could dine all her sorrows away. Eating eba only made sense when you did it on the bare muddy ground, rolling the cassava flour with the tip of one's fingers and bouncing the solid before dipping it into the soup. Sometimes, it became a competition between her and Kamsi — who could throw eba higher?

She always lost whenever that happened because her food slipped off her hand and fell to the ground, and every time, she laughed out loud instead of feeling angry.

As Zipporah reminisced on these pure times, she suddenly realized that life in the village had been much better. Even though her parents denied her the life she deserved because they believed that females belonged in the kitchen, they still allowed her to play with her friends regularly.

She wondered how her friends were doing in the town. They were probably illiterates. Perhaps, they still could not identify a cow or did not even know how to spell the word ‘orange,’ but at least they were free people. As she visualized the mirth on their faces while doing basic things like going to the farm, Zipporah heard herself choke on the tears that clogged up the space in her throat.

She could have been part of them. She had no one but herself to blame for wanting to go to school at all costs. Perhaps, she'd been greedy by desiring things that were not meant for her.

Zipporah was surprised that these were the good memories that came to her mind. She'd never valued those moments because she never thought a day would come when she would have to do so. She'd always wanted to wipe out her memories of the village from her mind because she’d found it annoying but now, those times had been the golden ones.

While Gertrude wrapped her hands around Zipporah's shoulders and begged her to stop crying so much, she knew she had to empty all her tears so she would no longer have any regrets.

For a time would come very soon when she would not be able to cry.