THE WELLINGTONS

CHAPTER 2

“The instructions were simple and clear, and I can quite remember, to specifically lay emphasis on the boy”

Bimbo yelled out furiously over the phone, she is Otunba’s wife. About 30 years ago, they had been joined together in holy matrimony in an arranged marriage, for the obvious reason of stronger business and political ties between families as it is widely done amongst rich elite families. She wasn’t really Otunba’s taste when they got married, she was too tall for his liking and now in her mid-50s, with all her feminine beauty degrading, she’s become very thin, and her once diamond shape body figure is now turning into a rectangle. Her oval face and quite a long neck which is now full of winkles are now only leaving on the little glory make ups can buy them.

For the past 20 years, bimbo has known about her husband’s secret family in the north, but she never cared about that, she and her son are not just the legal family, but also the only one known to the world. Aside that, due to the fact that she also has infidelity secretes, she just felt the score is even and moved on with her life. Though not enjoying the marriage, she was enjoying the wealth as it could get her practically everything she desires especially what she was missing in the marriage.

“Why would you tell me you missed the boy, I told you he’s your main target”

She continued as she got up from the wicker hanging basket swing chair with soft cushion for comfort and walked out of the balcony into the room for more privacy, as she noticed her voice was uncontrollably getting loud already.

“It’s obvious you didn’t carry out any surveillance before jumping into action, I expected you to act professionally”

She raised her left hand which was holding the phone to her head out of disgust and her right to her waste as she listened to response from the other end through the air pod.

“You are the best for this kind of job that I know so you better live up to expectations and clean up your mess, and for your information you should be living Kano for Lagos first thing tomorrow morning. There are allot of follow up strikes you need to carry out”

She ended the call with a hiss and tossed the phone on the large bed that could be measured to the size of two king size beds joined together.

As she lay on the bed, she tries to justify he actions, the killing of innocent lives for personal gain was something that never sat well with her. While growing, she has witness her father ordering the killings of people for no worthy reasons, and she always cursed in her heart and wished there was a way she could stop those killings from happening. But the irony of circumstances now have her doing one thing she hated her father so much for.

“Well, I guess the apple never falls far from the tree” she thought to herself.

“But it’s not all my fault” she quietly murmured to herself.

Otunba having another family outside has never really being a problem to her,

“After all we are all not perfect and we all have secrets” she whispered.

But she can’t accept the fact that even before letting the secrete out about the boy, Otunba is already showing favoritism and doing things that implies that he’s going to place the boy over Femi her own son. Worse of it all and what really got her to make the decision she finally made was he was already using his strong influence to lobby for him to become the next president of the country. Can you imagine that? A new president was just sworn in last month. And all thanks to Otunba, he practically won that election singularly.

As she was lost in her thoughts, her door handle creaked bringing her back to reality of her which made her turned with a flare ready to verbally pounce on who dared to come into her room without a knock and permission to come in.

“What part of I want to be …”

“Mom, it’s me”

A young dashing young man, with a good tall height, though not what you’ll call a giant as he’s just slight above average male height with broad shoulders and hipped chest which shows that, aside inheriting good physiques, he has maintained it gracefully through active sports. His square face is well complemented with a very nice amount of side bucks that runs from a perfectly cut hair that’s well-oiled and darken to thick black, down to the beginning of the jaw line.

 “How’s your run my dear” she forced a smile on as he moved close to peck her.

Of course, her son Femi alone dared to do what he just did, he came in all sweaty, that indicated he just got back from his evening jog.

 “It was good” he said as he moved to sit on the chair in front of the dressing mirror. “I haven’t seen you all day that’s why I decided to come here first before heading to clean up”

“Oh that is so thoughtful of you, I wish your father cared half as much as you do”

His phone buzzed and he got up to leave immediately, “I have got to attend to something at the moment, I will be back before 9pm, I’ll come check up on you when I get back, it’s been a while we spent fun time together”

As he closed the door behind him, bimbo could not begin to contemplate if she should feed him on, about the latest development in the family and why he need to start acting and claiming more rights from his father.

“Let’s see how the evening later goes” she concluded in her thoughts.

He deserves to know what she’s doing for him to have a place and say in the family. Yes he might not actually be Otunba’s son, but long story short, he is still a WELLINGTON.

*******

“Hey Dunni…”

Femi called out, as he sighted the maid’s daughter who obviously is trying to change her direction after she sighted him coming. He had only seen her some days back while staring out of his window, after about seven years, as she spreads clothes on the line, he couldn’t help but gazed at the amazing young woman she’s turned into, normal average height for an adult African lady, which will make her head lay perfectly on his chest whenever they hug, just as he always wanted, her hour glass shape carried perfectly by beautiful athletic legs that looks slightly curved at the end.

“Hey Boda Femi” she said coldly over her shoulders as she try not to stop to avoid long conversations with him.

 “Come on wait, are you avoiding me”

“No, why will I do that”

“Well, I only suspected you were back from Kwara since a day before, when I saw some clothes that I was sure could only belong to you on the line…”

he walked closer to her until just about 10 inches between them, and he couldn’t take is eyes off her onyx eyes and her chestnut skin tone keeps mesmerizing him, making him wonder how she had managed to keep and maintained the skin. And her full lips too, never really needing lipsticks.

“And seeing you now, I can’t help but think why we haven’t crossed path since then”.

“Well it’s a big house”

 “Yeah, it is…” he removed his right hands from the side pocket of his shorts and place it on his jaw in a way guys do to look kind of more attractive. “And you never deemed me worthy to come say a hi to me, obviously you have no gift for me from your one year in Kwara”

Dunni smirked and roll her eyes “well, I’m sorry, I never thought about any of those and…”

“That’s because you never want to think about me”

His right hand left his jaw and down to hers to make her starry eyes that has been avoiding his sight meet his gaze

“And I wonder why that is the case”. He quickly added

“Boda Femi…”

“Have told you times without number, stop this BODA stuff, I’m not your brother, yeah I might be older and I know our culture demands you to prefix that to my name, but you and I are friends and have told you’ve always known I want us to be more”. His both hands are now on her shoulders

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders and use her arms to drop his hands off her shoulders

“Have heard you, can I go now, I really need to go attend to my mom and assist her with chores”.

As she turned to leave, Femi fixed his gaze on her and began to lustfully play imaginations on his head, though, he was not just lustful about her but also had genuine feelings for her. Right from the brink of puberty even before she matured into this graceful woman she had become, he has always had a ting for her.

At the age of six, her father, who was a truck driver passed away in an accident, Otunba blamed himself for the man’s death as he got him the job and felt he could have done better. In other to compensate the family for their loss, he absorbed the family of the deceased into his care, taking over all of Dunni’s upkeep, practically adopting her as he refers to her as his only daughter.

And since the first heat of puberty on both of them, Femi has begun to show his attraction towards her, though she had begun to reciprocate at a point but he messed it up with him trying to take advantage of her innocence just as she turned fifteen. Since then she has tried to distance herself from him. And for a time, he actually almost forgot about her, as tertiary education made them both not regular in the house again and being that they both attended in different locations. Femi flew to Canada while she attended university of Ibadan.

Even when we he came back to the country about 3years back, he didn’t really see much of her. Not until the previous day when he saw her in the laundry from the balcony attached to his room and he began to reignite those feelings again while remembering their little escapade in his room that lead to them being far apart now. Seeing her again today with a close up view of the full grown young lady she is now, with the perfect amount of flesh at the right places, her braided traces falling to her shoulders. He watched in awe as her hips swayed until she made the turn that leads to their part of the house. And immediately, his phone buzzed again, bringing him back to reality, he caused and quickly rushed to his room to get cleaned up and leave for the meeting he is obviously late for. But at whose expense, of course not his, after all he is FEMI WELLINGTON.