Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Thirty-nine

“Long, long ago,” he began solemnly as he intertwined his fingers and rested his chin on it. “I, Roland Bones and…”

“What!? Roland Bones!?” I interrupted him as terror gushed through me. Surely, this was no coincidence. He was the man from my dreams.

“I’m pretty sure you’ve been told the story.” He said in a gruff voice.

“What? No!” I replied fearfully. This wasn’t good. How did my nightmare show up here, dining and feasting at my own table?

“Then I won’t pardon any more interruptions.” He said grimly, before turning his face back to the usual spot, looking over the middle of the room, facing no one in particular.

“A certain Roland Bones was a close buddy with a certain Derrick Fields, who happens to be your dad. We worked together, and I would say, we practically grew together, earning a big name in the Mafia world where we both worked.”

Mafia world? How? My dad never mentioned being a Mafia!

He cleared his throat with a stern expression on his face before he continued his story. “We both worked under a rude boss who sent us on missions that were really not favourable. Sometimes, we were hired to kill, steal or even buy and sell drugs, which was strongly against our moral standards.”
My dad, kill? No, he must be mistaken. My dad can never do that!

I tried as hard as possible to hold back the tears that were pooling in my eyes, biting my lips fiercely and trying to keep a less emotional face.

“After a certain mission where we were sent down to Worcester, which was obviously a set-up from our boss to have us both killed, just because he got jealous of our prowess and felt threatened by our bond and great skill. So, when we got to our destination, down there in Worcester, (coughs a dry throaty cough.) we got surrounded by our own men who worked at that branch.”

He turned to one of the hooded men that stood a foot away from him and nodded his head in a strange way, and the man disappeared and came back with a bottle of whiskey which he handed over to Roland Bones and he downed it all in one gulp.

“I’m sorry for that film break. I’m sure you were just beginning to enjoy my story.” He said and let out a throaty, weird laughter.

“We had just retrieved a goldmine of costly hard drugs from our dealer and we were gonna deliver it to Point B where it would be sent down to a buyer.”

As he spoke, I could literally visualise everything. It almost felt like I was there when it all happened.

“It was a dark, windy night, and though I had never had such weird feelings during our missions, I had a strong recurring fear that told me; something bad was going to happen. I knew that voice and I decided to tell Derrick all about it. I was like “Man… I’ve got this weird feeling. Something really bad is going to happen.” but he shrugged it off. Derrick was none to believe in just feelings until he saw it play out in his very own eyes.

As we kept moving to Point B, the delivery point, something made me stop. A thought, I think.

“What’s wrong?” Derrick asked as he too stopped walking and turned to face me. He had a confused look on his face, and of course, I totally understood his confusion. We were just three minutes away from the delivery point and I was very sure the guys there were patiently waiting for us.

I don’t care if they patiently waited or they were impatient, what ever it was they waited for us with, it has made them rot in hell. Their souls rest in heat.” he kissed the glass mockingly and raised it to his face with a weird smile plastered on his face.

“I would’ve raised a toast to you all, but too bad, my glass is empty. Greet our daddy, the devil for me. Tell him I might likely buy my way to heaven.” He said sardonically before letting out a dry, throaty laughter.

“Back to our story,” he heaved deeply, “I told Derrick that what boss had said earlier might have had some deeper meaning, and he went; “what did boss say?” He made an amusing expression on his face as he mimicked my dad anytime he got pissed.

“I said; “when we got the package from Point A and told boss about it, he said it would be fourteen minutes until we kissed our fortune, and he hoped that our last meal we had with him could take us on a long journey.” I said, “that didn’t seem right at all.” but as usual, Derrick was indifferent, looking at me like I was the crazy one.

He said, “That doesn’t pull an hair from the kitten’s fur.” and I knew I would have to give him a thousand reasons to make him see things from my perspective.”

That was exactly my dad. That his slogan of a matter that didn’t pull an hair from the kitten’s fur was indeed as old as time. I had no idea he also used it back then, and it was at this point that I knew that this man really knew my dad, because whenever my dad made that statement, it took only a thousand reasons to convince him, and that’s still if he wants to be convinced.

“I told him to trust me for this once and delay our going to point B by another three minutes…” he was saying but got interrupted by the beep of an alarm.

“Oooh, it’s big, sweet, power nap time, and I don’t joke with it!” he said almost excitedly and leaned back on his chair and crossed his legs on the table after pushing the dishes to a corner.

“See you in three and a half.” he said, shutting his eyes. Was he planning to sleep and leave us here in these bonds?

“What? What about us?” I asked irritably, feeling sorry for my mom who was still tied to a chair.

“Shh… the castes are sleeping, don’t wake them up. They’ll resume acting soon.” He whispered humorously and shut his eyes to sleep, leaving us there, caught in the suspense of a half-told story and the suspense of our bonds.