Niko’s Eye

Chapter 23

"Back From The Dead."

Alejandro.

Alejandro carefully stepped out of the elevator and hid behind the wall that was behind his staircase and listened.

Silence.

He stepped further next to the wall and dived his head to see if he could find Isis waiting around the corner.

But he found her...on the floor, blood seeping out of her head and the blood is as bright as any field-born poppy.

Alejandro saw the hooded vale of death hanging over Isis’ head and ran to her side.

"Isis!"

The world had suddenly gone cold.

I’m sure she would’ve preferred death over snapped bones. No, stop thinking like an i***t.

His eyes burned with an ache to sob as his stomach rocked back and forth on the harsh waves of fear. He was not ready to lose something that gave him every reason to change his life around.

He desperately searched for a pulse.

None.

He tried to perform CPR on her as he looked at his trembling hands behind the blur of his teary eyes.

Fuck, f**k, f**k. It’s my fault. It’s my f*****g fault.

Everything else faded into an abyss.

Isis was his world.

Numb, he could not feel or hear anything around him.

She can’t go. I don’t wanna be alone. Please don’t die Isis. And especially not by my hands.

Eyes struggling to move, twisting through his blending vision.

Paralyzed in fear, he felt like his breath was being taken too.

"Please don’t do this to me," he whispered softly, as he desperately placed his mouth over Isis’ mouth and blew.

He suddenly got up and swooped her into his arms and ran back into the elevator.

He looked down at Isis as he waited for the elevator to get to the floor where his garage was situated.

Her lips, that were once vibrant with a rosé tint, was now a chalky pink, that was blue with cold.

All in all, she looked like a ghost; a very solid one.

He didn’t realize that he had already cried enough to fill a bucket, when he saw his own tears fall onto her face.

"You’ll be fine my love. Just please don’t give up."

He scurried out of the elevator once the doors were open and sprinted to his car, that was still open, engine running and all.

Thank God.

He carefully placed Isis into the car and wiped his bloodied hands onto his shirt.

He removed his blazer and covered her with it.

He closed the door of the backseat and ran to the driver’s side.

Struggling to find his car keys with his trembling hands, he desperately searched the pockets of his pants in frustration.

"Come on...dear God."

He then remembered that he had placed them in the pockets of his blazer and ran back to the backseat.

"Fuck."

He frantically opened the door, and grabbed the blazer off of Isis, searching for the keys.

Finding them, he figured he didn’t have time to cover her again.

He quickly entered the car and sped out of his driveway without even closing his own door.

He got to Bayview Hospital in the speed of lightning.

He drove into the hospital’s driveway with such speed that he had caused a commotion, which in turn, had caused the nurses and doctors to come rushing out of the hospital.

That was the point.

"Bring a stretcher. Patient has had a concussion. In need of a CT scan. No pulse. Possible TBI. Quick, to the ICU."

Alejandro watched as the man who seemed to be a doctor, handled Isis, with the help of two more nurses.

The old man had a fringe of grey-white hair around his balding, mottled scalp.

He had a wizened face and a back slightly hunched. With each movement there was the creak of old bones. He had the resigned look of one who knows that at his age life has stopped giving and only takes away.

Alejandro wondered why he was still working, and hadn’t retired.

Which made him think of why he didn’t just call his own personal doctor, instead of driving down here to have the love of his life handled by possible amateurs.

He said she had a possible TBI. Nigga, please. She’s just fine. You need to check your credentials old man.

"Careful with her, alright?"

He yelled to the team of medical practitioners as they wheeled her into a ward, separating him from the best thing that has ever happened to him.

"I need to go visit the chapel after this," he whispered to himself as he slowly sank into a seat in the waiting room.

Aisha.

Aisha was clad in all-black as she waited in the car that Sergio had sent up to her hotel the previous night.

She also had on large black, smoky frames and a wide-brimmed fedora.

The door of the passenger seat clicked open and she jumped before realizing that it was Sergio.

"Jesus, I had my finger on the trigger of my gun," she said, as she exhaled.

"Relax, The Bride. It’s only me."

Sergio plastered on a smile and looked at her astonishingly.

"Yeah, I’d definitely Kill Bill. And why the heck are you looking at me? I crawled out of the grave okay, get over it."

She flipped out a cigarette from her handbag and asked Sergio for a lighter.

He batted his eyelids at her in silence.

Is this toad serious right now?

"What? I’ve been smoking since high school."

He ran a hand down the length of his face and cleared his throat.

"I’m happy that you’re still alive. But what’s this about? You sounded really mysterious on the phone. I know the whole story but you left out the part why you wanted us to meet so urgently."

She blew smoke in his face and cackled.

"Ser, Ser, Ser, Ser. I am Aisha Kasmira. Do I need a reason to make your ass move locations for me?"

She came back with a vengeance and a brutality that was even more poisonous because now she didn’t have to pretend.

Everybody believed her to be dead, and she would keep it that way.

This wasn’t Aisha anymore, this was Adrijana. The girl she once was, back in Mexico.

Sergio huffed.

"Anyway," she said, as she put out her cigarette on the headboard of the brand new car.

"I need a new identity. Send up some new clothes to my hotel room as well. Find me a hairdresser who knows how to do a proper blonde dye. Not some rookie who works from their mother’s basement. Oh and if you want us to do anything, you’re gonna have to wear protection. I can smell the harlots you’ve been messing around with on you. You slimy toad. I haven’t even been buried for a week and you’re already p***y-hopping. Tsuh."

With that, she laughed and asked him out of the car.

He looked at her shockingly.

"Yes, yes, you bought the car for me. But you can’t do s**t to me because I have enough leverage to bring your whole empire down. Now get out, nos vemos más tarde."

Sergio slowly got out of the car, but before he closed the door shut, he crouched down and said,"You’re going to truly pay for your sins this time."

He shut the door and walked away, into his own car and sped off, the dirt dusting the windshield of Aisha’s new car.

She stayed plastered in one position, fazed by what Sergio had just said.

Sergio.

Aisha’s crimes were becoming too heavy for Sergio and he didn’t want to get pulled into any more of her devious schemes.

He had been driven by lust, passion and infatuation.

He figured out that it wasn’t love. Especially after seeing her today. It confirmed it.

In the heat of his momentary infatuation, he had been led to attempt to the murder of an innocent man.

Thank God he wasn’t involved with that.

He had pulled out at the last minute.

He smirked as he thought of what he had in store for Aisha. He knew what the woman was capable of and he had been devising a plan for a long time, as he didn’t put faking her own death past her.

I was right to do so. This means she’s predictable. And I’m willing to go down just to watch her pay for her own sins.

She was about to get the biggest surprise of her life.

His phone rang.

Just in time, as he pulled into the driveway of his home.

He flipped out his cellphone and answered it.

The man on the other end queried, "Everything going according to plan?"

"Yes, everything is just as we coordinated. She did indeed fake her own death. You know her too well."

"I know her like the palm of my hand. Keep me posted."

The line went dead and he put his phone back into the pocket of his suit, satisfied.