Elena ran like she had never run in her life, her night dress billowing around her as boot hit the ground and her hair net lay to the side of her head, barely clinging on. Her brown face was covered in soot and dirt and so were her clothes and exposed parts of her body.
She heard no footsteps behind her but she ran until she made it to the road. In the distance, she could see black smoke rising towards the skies and she stopped running, her heart racing and adrenaline pumping through her body. Before her body could give up, she started running in the direction of the smoke, towards the town of Vaal City.
As soon as she turned the curb in the road on the side of the woods, she came to a complete stand still, eyes wide as she watched a red head trying to pull someone from the upsidedown black car that had tried to kidnap her earlier, the front of the car completely wrecked.
A weak voice called out for help.
Elena could recognise the voice anywhere and that red head had no business being near one of her trusted men, Blondie, who was lying unconscious, half on the front of the car and half still inside, glass everywhere, including his hair and parts of his body. She grabbed a rock and stalked towards the red head.
"Hey!"
The man turned and Elena smashed the rock against his head! He fell on the ground, groaning heavily, in tremendous pain, one of his hands raised in surrender while the other cradled the side Elena had just hit. She had grazed his skin which stung but not as much as the side of his painful and throbbing head.
"Elena, please!" he begged.
"Osam, you traitor!! Get out of my way before I kill you with my bare hands!!"
"They need help," he groaned.
Elena made to drop the rock and Osam flinched but she walked past him. She chose to focus her anger on helping the badly injured Blondie who had a slight weak pulse.
"Check his penis," she ordered Osam.
"I am not touching another man's-"
Elena glared at him. "If you want to make up for Charles, you will-"
"Kill me."
"Osam, this man is still alive, however thinly. I can't move him if his penis is erect because that means he has a spinal injury. You can already see he's in bad shape."
Osam grumbled and hesitantly felt into the car, feeling for Blondie's waist. Eyes closed, he touched the man's private part and quickly withdrew as if he had been burned. "He's flaccid," he spat in disgust.
Elena started tugging Blondie out until the thin man came out through the windshield. She lifted him and carried him to Osam's car, despite the heavy bleeding. When she was done, she turned to Osam.
"What was Blondie doing in Charles' car?" she asked.
Osam swallowed."Charles is in there-I don't know if he's dead or he's unconscious."
Elena ran back to the car, her heart rate spiking.
"Help me!" she ordered Osam as she tried to pry open the door on the passenger side. After a couple of tries, the door came open and the two pulled Charles from the wrecked car, the side of his face cut by broken glass like Tommy's.
"I can't feel a pulse," Osam whispered.
Elena pushed him aside and started trying to resuscitate Charles but nothing was happening. She went on with determination.
"He's lost a lot of blood," Osam stated, looking at the man's leg.
"Shut up!" Elena hissed angrily. Charles was not dead! Even though she could not feel his pulse anywhere, she refused to believe that he was dead and kept pumping. "Come on, Charlie. Come on my love. It's going to be okay. Just breathe." Her voice trembled.
Osam gently put his hand on her shoulder but she shrugged him off, refusing to let the tears come. She kept pumping Charles' chest and alternately breathing into his mouth relentlessly even though she could clearly see that it made no difference.
"Charlie..." Her voice cracked and a tear fell but she quickly wiped it away. There was no time for tears. She continued her attempt at resuscitation.
"Is this what you wanted, Osam?" she choked bitterly, finally giving up.
"It wasn't-"
Elena turned to look at him. "You were supposed to be his best friend!" she angrily yelled. "He trusted you but you picked Tommy!"
"It was wrong and I am sorry-"
Elena stood up, her face venomous. She looked just about ready to kill someone. "Sorry my ass!"
Osam felt like a child being scolded. He was a hardened man but the sight of the angry black woman before him made his blood run cold even though he was superior to her, by skin and by wealth. "I am on his side-"
"When? Now that he's dead?"
"I was trying to save him but that blonde man in the car...he was taking him to the meet up point so that Tommy would kill him. I was trying to save him when the car crashed."
Elena laughed humorlessly. "Oh really? You and Tommy were willing to kill his own brother! You both had this whole thing planned from the start-"
Osam turned away. "It wasn't Tommy's idea," he confessed.
Elena glanced at him. "What?"
"It was...It was Beatrice's idea."
.
Tommy watched as the doctor pulled the last glass from out of his skin, hissing as the doctor wrapped bandages with antiseptic around his face like a mummy.
Beatrice sat by him, holding his hand, a small smile on her face. She looked absolutely beautiful.
Tommy closed his eyes.
Just yesterday, he had not even had to lift a single finger for Charles to die. Ram had come through for him and had left with a load of money for betraying Elena.
When he got to the burned hospital with his father to meet Charles and kill him, he had been met with the wrecked car and Charles' body lying beside it, his face and leg badly cut and wounded. Blondie was nowhere to be found and that was good because Tommy had been afraid that the man was so weak and stupid that he'd ruin the plan.
Everything had gone perfectly, just like the lovely woman by his side had helped him plan. He could remember the night they made sweet love like it was yesterday and the beauty had brought forth a beautiful baby boy with hair and eyes just like his father.
On coming home from his trips abroad almost a year ago, Tommy had fallen in love with Beatrice when he first saw her on one of his secret and undercover trips to the city. Her skinny frame, her long and silky strawberry blonde hair and her perfect milky glowing skin. She looked young but that was how he liked his women. Sweet and innocent on the outside and just like him on the inside as he later discovered.
She had been taken by him, especially after hearing stories about the prodigal twin to Charles Francis. One thing she neglected to mention was that she was engaged to the said man so Tommy found himself falling deeper and deeper in love with her. And that was saying something because the last time he had been in love was with Elise, his negro wife. With Elena, it had mostly been lust but with Beatrice, it was genuine.
He loved her and the night they gave their bodies to each other was the greatest moment in his life.
Which was shattered only a few months later when she confessed her horrible secret about being engaged to Charles. Tommy had been enraged especially with the knowledge that Charles had taken someone Tommy loved previously. That was when the plan brewed.
After Charles rejected Beatrice because of the pregnancy, Beatrice had come running back into Tommy's arms and this time she had some vengeance and a fire that turned Tommy on.
This was when the plan to kill Charles was born.
Now...now with Charles dead, Tommy could claim what he deserved, impersonating his twin brother.
It had all come together perfectly.
Osam and Elena were nowhere to be found despite the extensive search by Tommy's people, Ram was happy with his cut...Blondie was in a coma in some hospital, dad and Tommy had reached a compromise and best of all, Charles was lying cold in a mortuary.
Tommy smiled at Beatrice who caressed his bandaged cheek, her expensive diamond ring glinting in the sunlight that was coming through the wide open window.
"My wife," Tommy whispered, kissing the ring.