Index
Chapter 1 (a) – The Odds Around me
Chapter 1 (b) – The Odds Around Me
Chapter 5 (a) – Victoria’s Secret
Chapter 5 (b) – Victoria’s Secret
Chapter 6 – The Truth (Last Episode)
Chapter 5 (a) – Victoria’s Secret
His hands rested on the doorknob, he asked: “Who is it?”. ” It is me” the voice, a familiar one replied. “Victor?” My dad asked surprised to see who it was knocking at this time of the night, it was the driver.
“Sir, there is trouble,” he said with an unsteady voice
“Trouble? What is wrong?” My father asked, eager to know what the issue was
Victor ran down the hall at top speed asking my dad to follow him saying “Trouble downstairs, I think it’s Madam in trouble”
I wanted to follow him but he asked me to stay in bed, closing the door after him, and ran after Victor down the hall to the stair leading to the living room.
He was running his main focus was on finding out what it was that had gone wrong when someone had pushed him from behind, he fell headfirst down the long, wide stairs, to the bottom and fell into a faint, blood oozing from his head.
A female voice came after “Why did you push him?”
“It’s about time, I heard all he was saying with his child in the room, this charade is over”
“Is he dead?” Victoria asked
Victor squatted down, putting his hands to my father’s nose “I don’t think he is, he fainted from the shock”
“What do you mean by the charade is over, Victor?” Asked the female voice
“That is because of your stupidity, Yours and Sam” Victor replied angrily
“Are you insane, what are you blaming me for?”
“I don’t know why that bastard had to come here tonight of all nights when we were already about to close this deal and disappear forever, your husband heard you both conversing in the darkroom at the end of the hall upstairs”
“Oh my God, you don’t say?” The female voice let out shocked “But I was careful to make sure he was busy with the guests before I went up to meet him, I even asked if he had something else to do before coming up and he had said he had some things to work on in his office”
“You both were not careful enough, I saw him convince the guests to leave early and took the secret door in his office up to listen at the door, I was right behind him, he and his daughter were listening to you before he dragged her across the hall to her room, I had ducked into the steps and had followed them almost immediately and heard some of their conversations”
“Where are all the servants we hired?”
“I told them to leave early, but that shouldn’t be your worry now, I heard them talking about a hole”
“A hole, where?” The female voice asked
“Yes, a hole and I believe it to be in this house, he had said his life and that of his daughter depended on it”
“There is a hole in this house which I or you know nothing about? I thought we were watching him?”
“I have not been on guard lately, I have been busy” Victor had said
“You have been too busy to carry out an assignment as simple as watching someone?” Another male voice had asked, his hoarse voice ringing from across the room.
“I thought you had left?” The female asked the other man that just came into the room but he ignored her question, his gaze not removing from Victor.
“I’m sorry, I had been slipping up, I thought there was nothing else to watch about him, we have been watching him for seventeen years now”
“So you know how long it has been but you are slipping up, are you dumb? this was supposed to be our final year with him, now you do not know where the hole is, that could be our last shot at getting everything we wanted”
“I’m sorry but watching him had been exhausting, we’ve been collecting money from him and the stash we have should be enough for us to not ever go broke”
“Enough? He asked incredulously at what he was hearing. Is there something called enough in this game? we were going to take it all”
“Please calm down, you guys, if there was a person to be pissed here then it should be me, I was the one living with him all these while, I’ve invested everything into making this work, so arguing would not solve anything,” the female voice said in a voice that seems troubled “The only thing I think we should be worried about is finding the hole”
“If not for him and You, we won’t be here now” Victor whined
“That’s enough Victor, you said Annabelle knew about the hole, right?” The female inquired
“Yes she does” Victor answered back
“Everything we wanted might be in that hole, we need to find it and get the hell out of here Tonight with it”
“Get that bitch” the other male in the room had let out angrily.
“She might even be around listening to us, Lord knows I’m tired of that girl” the female voice confessed irritated.
Victor ran up the stairs to get to Annabelle when he caught a glimpse of the shadow of a small figure running back up the stairs to go into a room, he knew it was Annabelle and had sped after her, it had taken him few strides to get to her before she locked the door. He had pulled her out of the room with her hair, down the stairs to the living room where the other two were waiting for him.
Annabelle was dragged into their midst, where she sat trembling on the floor in fear, she had noticed her father lying on the floor unconscious with blood coming out of his head and all she thought was that he was dead
“Dad! She said crawling to his side and shaking him to get him to wake up but he never stirred. Then she stood up to look at the three other people in the room.
The first face she saw was that of the woman standing across the room, it was her mother, there stood beside her the man she had seen during the party wearing a man still and then there was Victor, the family driver, the three of them hovered over her with an ugly smirk on their faces.
” Mum! What are you doing, Dad is lying on the floor dead and you are just standing there?” Annabelle had given her mother a puzzled look.
“Will you shut the fuck up, I have had enough of you and your questions” Victoria retorted violently.
“Mum!” Annabelle exclaimed in shock, she had seen her mother angry but she had never heard her cuss or being this furious.
“Now, honey, this is supposed to be a sweet family gathering, the party is just about to begin, don’t get yourself worked up” the man in mask soothed my mother and even caressed her back to calm her then he turned to face me “You have nothing to be worried about, your father isn’t dead, he’s just unconscious”
He walked slowly towards my father and slapped him hard across the face, the force of the slap was so hard that it had my dad rousing in fear, he felt a sharp pain on his head which had him holding it, noticing the blood on the floor, he tried to recollect what had happened to him before he fell unconscious.
“What happened?” he asked with a dazed look on his face asking no one in particular.
Annabelle quickly scrambled to his side and held him tight in her arms muttering happily. “Dad, you are alive”
“Was I supposed to be dead? He gave a puzzled look then reminisced on what happened ” I fell off the stairs, I felt a hand on my back, it comes off as though someone had pushed me down” He turned his gaze while still holding his head with one hand, to look at Victor
“What are you standing there doing? Get me the first aid box damn it and help me clean off this mess, get me some pain killer while at it too, my head pounds, I feel like there is a time bomb ticking in it”
As he gave the order then shifted to look at my mother “Victoria? I thought Victor said you were in danger?”
With all he said, the three of them stood looking at him, none of them answered his questions, Victor made no move to get him the box he asked for nor did Victoria make to move close to him.
“What’s going on and why is no one answering me Damn it, my head is aching so bad?” My dad asked confused holding me with his second hand, his other hand now stained with his blood
“Where is everyone, the servants and the rest?”
“I told them to take the night off” Victor declared, saying his first word after a long time.
“You? What right do you have to give them orders and why the hell do they have to answer you?” My dad asked the room confused.
“Now, it’s enough, I’m tired of your thousands of questions” the man in the mask had said, his voice sounding familiar to Annabelle, he continued in a soft tone” I will answer all your questions, and by the end of the night, I promise you will not have a question left unattended”
“What’s going on and who is this masked man?” My dad asked again to no one in particular.
“David” My mother spoke first, “I know you have been suspecting me for the longest time and been finding ways to nab me, I think it’s high time I come clear because there is no need for this charade to go on any longer”
“What are you talking about?” David asked more confused
“There is no need to keep pretending, it’s time we tell each other the truth, I know you found out about the secret account”
“What account? He said defensive, then asked carefully, How did you know about that?”
“Oh I told her” victor replied “Remember you were in the car when you called to ask your secret agent about it and he had told you what he had found”
“You bastard!”
“Oh, there will be many more of that to throw about trust me” Victoria chuckled “Tonight I’m going to tell you a little tale, a tale you and I and every one of us here is involved in, a story that started more than seventeen years ago, and please be a good sport here, you know your health conditions, you don’t want to have a heart attack,” Victoria said vivaciously as if something great was about to happen. She walked to the small round table arranged at the corner in the living room, took a chair, and brought it to where she had previously stood and sat on it.
“So, shall I begin?” She asked her partners and they both nodded for her to go on.
“So, I am going to tell my whole life story because without it, all I am going to say tonight won’t make sense.
I was born to a wealthy family in the states, my family was quite popular, I am sure if I was to mention them, you would know or have heard of them but let’s leave that for now.
My parents had died a horrible death. It was during a storm, some men had broken into our home and shot them in cold blood in their bedroom. I had heard them coming in so I ran into my brother’s room, shook him up and we hid in the secret box at the back of our wardrobe that we use to play hide and seek. When they had killed our parents, they had searched for us but they could not find us and they had left quickly when the storm was about to stop.
I and my brother, which is Victor here” she said pointing to the family driver for the past years. We became orphans that night when the other family came, they debated on who to take us in until it was decided that our Dad’s only brother should take us in, he had grunted and turned down the offer furiously but he had finally accepted though reluctantly to take us in at the end, saying that he owed his brother which was our Father some loyalty and that taking us in will be a show of respect to the late.
Our uncle was Our Father’s next of kin, therefore his properties and wealth were given to him, so we had thought staying with him would be pleasant since we were still going to stay in Our house in a familiar environment. I remember reassuring Victor it was going to be good and all will be fine, Victoria scoffed and continued, that was what I had thought, but staying in hell would have been preferable to how we lived with our uncle, his wife and children.
The first thing that changed was where we slept, the cleaner was asked to clear out our Dad’s favorite dog’s kennel and put in our beds for us to sleep in. There was a hole in the roof, I do not know if it has always been that way or someone had made it there, all I remember was that when the rain falls, we stay up all night sweeping out the water because we were banned from entering into the house for anything.
The day we dared to complain to our uncle’s wife of our plight, she had beaten us and locked us up in a dark room which was behind the kennel, leaving us there to starve for days.
That was our lives till we grew older, his children went to the best school but we usually sneak to the local school in the area, this was possible for us because no one cared about where we are or where we went to.
We lived like this till I was fourteen, I had grown up to be a beautiful teenager, and this time my uncle was quick to notice how stunning I had become, I remember this one night that made us leave the house forever never to return. He had sent my brother to go buy him some things at the market which was quite a long walk from our home, he knew what he had sent him to buy was nonexistent but how was a young boy of ten years to know that? he had run as fast as his legs could carry him to run his errand to not face Uncle’s wrath.
As soon as the boy had left he had sneaked into the kennel locking the door with a very big lock, and he wanted to assault me, I had screamed out my lungs but he quickly put one of his hands in my mouth to keep me from crying out, he used the other one to tear my cloth, a cloth made of a thin material off my body, then he used the hand to pin me on the floor.
It was at this time that Victor had returned from the market, he wasn’t supposed to have returned but I think he had decided to lie to our uncle that he could not get what he had sent, then he had wandered for a while and finally came home. When he met our uncle in that position with me, he had been furious and he had used all his strength to break the lock-free from its lock.
When he came in he had a plank in his hands and broke the plank on our uncle’s head leaving him lying on the floor, blood coming out from his head. We decided at that moment that we had to run away, I changed my clothes to another worn out one and we ran as quickly as we could away from the house, leaving our uncle in the pool of his blood.
We walked for many kilometers leaving the city as hastily as possible, we were scared of being caught so even when we were tired that fear kept us walking on.
A few days later, we caught in the news that Our Uncle was fine and recuperating in the hospital, his wife had been crying all over the news saying we were the ones that did it, we quickly left the place, covering our face with a scarf we stole from a woman’s backyard and continued walking on.
We had been walking for Seven days surviving only on foods we find in the garbage all through the days. before we got to a small house in another city, that was where we met Sam. Victoria said that and pointed her fingers at the man still putting on a mask.
We had sat at the front door resting when Sam had seen us, we were at first scared if he recognized us from the news, but when he spoke to us gently, asking us where we had come from, taking a look at our worn shoes, he asked us to come into the house, he gave us warm foods to fill our bellies with and a warm bed to sleep in for the night. Victoria shifted on the chair she was sitting on to look at Sam and asked him to remove his mask ” I think it’s time for you to show them who you are, Sam” she had said.
At that point, the man carefully removed his mask and dropped it to the floor, Annabelle left her Father’s grasp to take a full look at the mystery man, she had been curious about the man, she gasped when she saw him, mouth wide open in astonishment and recognition.
Read Chapter 5 (B) HERE!
You will definitely love this Fiction story titled 'Annabelle'. Click to read
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