Clean Money

No Big Deal

Once Aida got to her bedroom, she slammed the door shut and ran her fingers down her warm face. It hadn’t taken her long to make her way back up the stairs to the safety of her bedroom because she didn’t try to linger around Jae when their conversation ended. A small part of her felt a nipping guilt crawl onto her skin because she knew that leaving her guest to dine by herself was rather inhospitable of her but Aida couldn’t hang around Jae; she didn’t know what it was but that woman stirred something in her and she didn’t exactly like it…or rather, she didn’t like the way she actually did like it. Aida didn’t like the way her face flushed when Jae got too close, she didn’t like how her heart seemed intent on splitting from her ribcage and running amuck with its incessant pounding and she didn’t like the pleasant current of electricity that passed through her every time she could sense Jae’s watchful gaze pass over her.

It was wrong…wasn’t it? Aida had never truly felt this way before and this attack of all these…new sensations alarmed her. Why was she feeling like this? Jae was a woman, a foreigner who was going to return to her country of origin once this was all over and worst of all, Jae was her hired help. Aida knew she shouldn’t entertain any other feelings for her beside a general respect for Jae, one that wouldn’t be much different to all the rest of the people she had working for her but…

Aida shook her head.

She couldn’t think like that. Aida knew she shouldn’t even attempt to think like that; she knew she shouldn’t focus on the way Jae’s eyes looked just as sweet as the tinted golden honey hue they assumed, she knew she shouldn’t focus on the way the cut of her sharp jaw was framed perfectly by the her lose curly hair and she knew she shouldn’t dare focus on the way her plush pink lips glistened every time she licked them or how sinfully sexy she looked when they drew into a smirk.

Aida shook her head again, willing the thoughts away.

She couldn’t focus on that. There was still a lot of ground to cover and she wouldn’t be able to cover it by focusing her attention on the person who was supposed to help her. Tomorrow was going to be a big day for Aida because she knows that she is supposed to address the company about their way forward and as the successor to Diacious, it was her duty to run the company until her father made a full recovery. A lot of changes were going to be made since the company was under new management…well…technically, it was going to be under new management. Although Aida was indeed the successor to Diacious, legally, she wasn’t within her rights to run the company without assistance in the event that something happened to her father, she had to have some other company senior working with her as well and the only other person she knew and she thought was competent enough, was her uncle Roge who was the head of the Diacious legal division; he was her father’s right hand man and she couldn’t do without him and she really didn’t want to do without him either, she needed him to run by all the legalities of the business, to draw up contracts and assist erasing in any scandals the company may be involved in, including this one of the shooting that happened two days ago.

Aida knew she had to mentally prepare because tomorrow she was meeting with law enforcement to give her statement of the events that happened the night before. It was common knowledge that the Kynea’an law enforcement was painfully corrupt and most of the time, they were embarrassingly easy to control and manipulate because they answered to one master alone – money. And Aida had more than enough at her disposal. However, that wasn’t the only weapon in her arsenal when it came to dealing with corrupt police officers; she had the benefit of power and influence because of her father. Although she wasn’t privy to her father’s quiet malevolence and his extensive list of misdeeds, she was sure of one thing – that his position solidified him as a force to be reckoned with and it afforded him a lot of friends in high places which is why her childhood photos were scattered with multiple pictures of her and Kynea’an nobility, attending brunches, balls and birthday parties with princes and princesses.

It’s not that Aida trusted the Kynea’an law enforcement –  she didn’t, if she did legitimately thought that they were competent enough to actually handle the case, she wouldn’t have hired an American assassin with an astonishingly impeccable record. Aida was only turning to Kynea’an law enforcement because of a distinct and important she had learned the day she ran into her father’s arms, sobbing over a broken toy.

‘Why–why would he–he do tha–that?’

‘Because sometimes people are not really nice.’ Her father had responded.

‘B –but he’s m–my friend. H-he’s nice.’

‘Sometimes people only pretend to be your friend and pretend to be nice to you.’

Aida still remembers the way her brows had pulled in confusion, her sobs dying down as her pudgy five year old hands whipped the salty streams of tears from her round face as she stared at her father.

‘Pretend?’ She had asked. Her father had nodded.

‘There are many enemies who will be nice to you so that they can be your friend and get close enough to hurt you.’

‘What are those?’ Aida had asked, puzzled.

‘Enemies?’ Her father had asked. Aida had nodded in response. ‘Well, they’re the bad guys that try to hurt you.’

‘Like in the stories?’ Aida had asked. Her father had nodded in response and she frowned. ‘So is my friend my enemies?’

‘No.’ He father had shook his head with a laugh. ‘No. Not all of your friends. Just the ones who do mean things to you to try and hurt you on purpose.’

‘Oh okay.’ Aida had nodded with understanding.

‘But I will tell you one thing, my little Raen, you should always keep your friends close and your enemies’ closer.’

Those words had stuck with her to this day and Aida knew damn well that even these so called friends of her father were to be regarded with a watchful eye, including those in law enforcement. There were many who wanted what her father had built and were only waiting for the opportune time to strike; her choice to use law enforcement went further than mere formalities or simply keeping up appearances, it was part of her plan.

With the level of power, influence and money her father had, Aida knew that the police tasked with the duty of solving it would do so in a small window of time because of the fear of the alternative option if they failed to do so. If they didn’t solve the case in time, if they stalled or used their resources rather sparingly, Aida would know that those little scavengers were being paid off by someone else, likely a person who didn’t want to get caught and likely a person with a sum of money big enough to make them think they can afford leisure while working on her case. If Aida noticed this, she would be one threat closer to finding the person behind the shooting because their hesitance would be telling. However, there’s always the possibility that they could actually find something and close the case early but that wouldn’t mean much because there’s always the ever present possibility that the police would find something that the perpetrator of the crime wanted them to find, in which case she’d have to confirm its authenticity before accepting it as a real story; or the police would come up blank with anything and the case would go cold, meaning the perpetrator of the crime completely cleared their tracks meaning they had the resources to do so. Whatever the outcome of the investigation may be, it was a win for Aida either way because each step brought her closer to narrowing her list of suspects and finding the person responsible for shooting her father.

Aida sighed, cracking the creak in her neck as she undressed.

Tomorrow was going to be a hectic day. In addition to addressing the company and law enforcement, she knew she was also going to have to address the press as well. In a few hours she will be standing on a podium, surrounded by a barrage of microphones and addressing a crowd of people about the events that took place, her father’s current condition and most importantly, reassure investors at large that their money was safe, that the incident was a one-time thing and that their security will be strengthened in order to ensure that it would never happen again, as well as warn any competitors who may or may not have been behind it, that they will get their asses fried. These were all the things Aida knew she needed to focus on.

Still. It didn’t change the fact that her mind still wondered. As she brushed her teeth, Aida’s mind flashed to the image of Jae’s bright smile and obnoxious smirk, as she took a shower her mind wondered to the way her tanned mocha skin seemed to glow under the same warm light that flooded the black tiles of her room and as she changed into comfy silk pyjamas her mind seemed intent on assaulting her with the image of Jae’s sullen face sitting all by herself, in that large room, eating in silent misery. Aida punched down the growing guilt blooming in her stomach; what would her mother have said about her actions? She knew her father would’ve applauded her, wrongfully assuming that she only acted in that manner to assert her role as a superior, but her mother would’ve rung her neck for being so inconsiderate.

Aida had never actually met her mother, she had died during childbirth but her father never failed to keep her alive in memory; he still kept albums worth of photos of her mother, he still bought her perfume that he would spray around their master bedroom whenever he missed her and he still kept all of her documents. Aida’s father always told her stories of her mother and always painted her out to be stern but compassionate woman who liked couldn’t stand any person that was, in her eyes, unnecessarily rude or cruel. She was extremely hospitable towards other people which is why Aida is certain that her mother would’ve been pulling her hair out if she learned that her daughter let a guest dine without company, in her eyes, it would have been tantamount to kicking her guest in the face and forcing them out the door, Aida imagines. Often times, the contrast between Aida and her mother was painfully apparent and it wasn’t uncommon for people to point it out either.

‘You have your mother’s beauty but your father’s habits.’

She had heard variation of that phrase throughout her lifetime and even though she hadn’t met her mother, she couldn’t exactly say that it was completely untrue. Aida had seen the pictures and portraits of her mother all her life and as a teenager, she often marvelled at them, wondering how on earth anyone would imagine she looked like her because her mother had a beauty that rivalled any model in high fashion; she had smooth deep brown skin, an angular face with high cheek bones and narrow jaw, dark almond shaped eyes and thick dark hair that fell in neat long locs. She was a stunning woman who happened to be tall and slender too, often drawing attention to herself by virtue of her striking beauty alone and further amplifying it with her grace and poise; as some point in her childhood, Aida was convinced that her mother was a queen because she couldn’t imagine someone who looked as regal as she did, not belonging to some sort of nobility. Although Aida didn’t pay much attention to her own features growing up, all throughout her formative years and into adulthood, people often joked that Aida was just a spitting image of her mother with her father’s tan complexion which she didn’t mind because she took the comparison as a compliment, her mother was a gorgeous woman after all and she was just happy that a piece of her mother lived on in her even if it was something as superficial as simply resembling her.

Still. It didn’t change the fact that the weight of her mother’s imagined disappointment got to Aida, so much so that she promised herself that she would at least share breakfast with the assassin the next day while she debriefed her on what her task was. That was reasonable. Jae was her employee and she didn’t eat with her other employees that regularly either so it really wasn’t unkind for her to treat Jae with the same reserved mutual respect she offered to anyone else who worked for her.

As Aida eased into her pillows and as her eyes began to flutter shut, she couldn’t help the way her lip tugged upward as her mind flashed with one single image of Jae grinning at her passed a mountain of pancakes. Yeah…having breakfast with Jae was a reasonable idea indeed.

*   *   *

The next morning, Aida woke with a start. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest, beads of sweat crowning her face as she heaved, taking sharp shallow breaths of air. Behind her eyes, all Aida could see were rivers of red, her father’s body lying still and lifeless as they washed over him. No…no…her father wasn’t dead. He was in hospital. He was recovering. He was okay. Aida assured herself as she squeezed her pillow, clutching it tight as she tried to take deep soothing breaths. It was just a nightmare. No need to worry. It wasn’t real. Sure, the shooting was real but her father wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead.

Aida took deep breaths, slowly releasing the pillow as she tried to quash the echo of the eerie ear splitting screams that lingered in her mind.

Once her breathing returned to normal, her pillow was fully released and the rush of panic pacified, Aida then felt a wave of fury consume her. What the hell was that? Why didn’t she do anything? Aida’s teeth grit in frustration as she remembered her nightmare, as she remembered her lips parted gapping like a terrified stupid fish and she remembered how she stood by and watched the whole thing unravel, planted and pliable and – and f*****g weak. 

Aida wanted to rip the nightmare version of herself to shreds for being so pathetic because she could’ve done something and she should’ve done something. She hopped out of bed, stumbling slightly as her knees felt a bit wobbly and Aida couldn’t tell if it was the weight of her rage or the lingering fear from her nightmare but whatever it was, she was determined to cleanse herself from the shame of her cowardice. She didn’t know how long she had stayed in the shower but she knew it was longer than usual and when she finally stepped out, she was renewed with a righteous rage – she had failed her father once and she did not plan to do it ever again.

Aida dressed fast, opting to go with an all-black ensemble from her shoes to her turtleneck and her suit which was only punctuated by slight colour with the custom made jacket that had patterned tumae fabric woven into it. She secured her long locs in a neat bun and adjusted her silver watch, chain and cufflinks before passing by the mirror; she looked good and most importantly, she looked less like the utter embarrassment she was on the night of the shooting and more like the audacious aristocrat her father had raised her to be – more like an actual Kimani.

‘I’ll be right there.’ Aida called to the knock at her door. With a splash of cologne, a quick collection of her personal effects such as her wallet and phone, and a final nod to her reflection, Aida headed to the door and opened it, stepping outside.

‘Good morning Raen.’ Maina greeted, his arms holding out a silver dish with a paper on it.

‘Good morning.’ Aida greeted.

‘I hope you slept well.’ Maina said.

‘Fantastic.’ Aida said sarcastically.

‘Great.’ Maina said, ignoring her sarcasm, he was pretty used to it by now because they’ve been going through this routine since she was sixteen. ‘Because you have a lot on the schedule today.’

‘More work? Lovely.’ Aida said sarcastically. Maina chuckled. ‘Read them for me, would you?’ Aida said, walking ahead.

‘From six to seven thirty, you have your natural duties and breakfast and by eight the car will be read to escort you to the station to give a statement. By nine, you will be escorted to Diacious headquarters. From nine to eleven thirty, you are working and from eleven thirty to twelve thirty, you have lunch. From twelve thirty to two forty-five, you resume your work at Diacious and at three, you have the press conference. By three thirty, the car will be prepared to escort you back home and by four your tea will be prepared. By five, you have your hour of exercise and by six dinner will be prepared. From seven onwards is free time for your natural duties and by nine, you retire for bed.’ Maina read.

‘Okay.’ Aida nodded. Just as she suspected, she would be busy as always. She checked her watch and smiled, she still had loads of time considering she woke up rather early. The morning mist was still clearing away and he first signs of a new dawn were slowly shining through. ‘Hey Maina?’

‘Yes Raen?’

‘Can you have the aunties set up breakfast in the garden today?’ Aida requested.

‘Of course Raen.’ Maina nodded.

‘Oh, and invite Miss Brown to breakfast today as well.’ Aida said. Maina paused at this.

‘You wish to dine with Miss Brown?’ He asked, as though he couldn’t hear her correctly.

‘Yes.’ Aida said. ‘There are some things we need to discuss regarding her employment.’

‘Of course.’ Maina nodded. Aida stopped outside a familiar room, a slight sullen smile gracing her lips as her fingers gently grazed the door knob.

‘Call me once everything is prepared.’ Aida ordered.

‘Yes Raen.’ Maina nodded and with a bow, he left.

It suddenly dawned on Aida as she turned the knob and stepped inside that she had just ordered to have breakfast with Jae; it wasn’t a big deal, she knew that, obviously but she couldn’t help the slight flutter in her belly at the thought and she fought tooth and nail to quash the feeling down.

After all, it was just Jae Brown. It was no big deal.