Niko’s Eye

Chapter 12

"Snake In The Grass."

Isis.

As Isis was standing out on her balcony, a figure had emerged from the corner of her balcony and began to walk towards her.

She quickly put her gown back on as she was stark naked.

She squinted at the figure that appeared to be a man.

With wide eyes, she shouted , "In Jesus name, I banish you back to where you’re coming from!"

She was about to scream when he quickly leaped forward and seized her mouth with his hand.

Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she could recognize the man under the moonlight as...Alex’ driver.

Ignatius?

He was dressed in an all-black Nike tracksuit that had a glow-in-the-dark tick, finished with black ’running-man’ shoes.

It suddenly occurred to her that that’s what was gleaming in the corner of her bedroom.

She suddenly calmed down as he assured her that he wasn’t going to hurt her and that he just wanted to speak to her.

He slowly removed his hand from her mouth and apologized.

"Wait, before we get to that, how the hell did you get in here?"

He explained himself with great difficulty and she noticed that he was very shy. He hardly made any eye contact.

"After I took Mr Dominic Sir home from his encounter with that other blonde lady from Delaware, I took a bus back here and entered through the back door. I was praying that nobody would see me and I made out that this was your room from the front yard outside because I saw you enter here from down there and..."

Isis injected into his speech," Whoah, whoah, whoah. Time-out. So...this means that you saw me naked?"

And Alex was with a blonde woman?? She queried herself, in her head.

Silence.

Isis’ eyes grew wide and she began to punch Ignatius in his left arm while hurling curses at him. Thank God her room was soundproof.

"Wait. I can explain." he blurted out as he tried to shield himself from the violence Isis was showering on him.

"I didn’t exactly see anything mam. I just wanted to come up here and give you a message."

He actually did see her naked.

Isis stopped dead in her tracks and listened.

What if it’s from Alex and this was his way of being romantic? I mean, you know he’s not really good at wooing. Judging from his lame lines and stuff. Maybe Ignatius is here with a bouquet of flowers from Alex.

She stood still and waited.

Ignatius.

Ignatius knew that his idea was maniac but he had no other choice. He would never be able to speak to her with Alejandro around and this was the only time of the day when he wasn’t driving his blood-thirsty boss around town, from one woman’s knickers to another.

He had seen her naked and that sparked something in him. Making him shy of his own sentiments and a little troubled at the newly found emotions.

Actually, he felt it ever since he set eyes on her that afternoon.

That was why he felt obliged to protect her from his pig-headed boss.

He looked at her face in the moonlight and the radiance of her skin under the star-filled sky. He felt like cupping her face in his hands and kissing her.

So, he found it easier to speak while looking away from her gaze.

After suffering the abuse from Isis, which he expected, he finally had her calmed enough to tell her why he was there.

He took a deep breath and started.

"Mam, my boss is a bad man. He’s bad news. He’s a calculating vulture with no conscience. He preys on innocent women like yourself just for the heck of it. He takes your innocence and just drops you like you’re hot."

He slapped his forehead and rephrased.

"I mean, no, I don’t mean that you’re ’hot’, like, like, that. I mean, you are beautiful. No, actually, I didn’t mean to say it like that. I meant that.."

Isis began to crack up.

She slapped him across the face and shook him vulgarly.

"Are you better now? You’re hyperventilating." she said, laughingly.

At this point she was in tears, from the laughter.

He hung his head down in shame, heavily sighed and attempted to try again.

Isis stopped him and nodded knowingly. "I know."

Alejandro.

Ignatius. You venomous snake.

Alejandro had heard enough and he backed away and speed-walked back to his car.

Thankfully, the engine of his Porsche was not as noisy as his Jaguar’s and he was able to get away without being noticed.

He drove down the road in a frantic frenzy, cursing and punching the steering wheel until his knuckles began to bleed and the skin on them, peeled off, to his bone marrows.

He had been driving for so long that he decided to just stop in the middle of the road. He didn’t even know where he was anymore. And he didn’t care.

He kicked his door open and ripped off his shirt, breathing heavily and gasping for air.

His anger made him breathless and his fury began to make him cry.

He sat down on the side of the road and let out a loud wail.

Alejandro threw a tantrum, exact to a 4 year old.

He stood up and placed his hands in his pocket once he felt the cool breeze lightly grazing the open flesh of his knuckles.

He began to pace the road. Up and down.

Why the hell are you crying? When was the last time you shed a tear? And all of this for a woman? Never!

He began to shake his head violently. "No. No. No no, not a f*****g chance!"

He thought of everything he heard Ignatius telling Isis. Is that really what I am?

He started laughing hysterically, and crying at the same time.

"No. I am Alejandro Xylon Dominic. Yes, I have no conscience. Yes, I am entitled to the lives of any of the women I desire. Yes, I always get what I want. Yes, Isis is mine. Yes, I’m a cold, calculating monster. And yes, I decide what to do with the lives of my victims because I AM A GOD!" he spat out into the air of the night.

Ignatius Aguas, you are dead meat.

He wiped his face with his hands and closed his eyes, inhaling, exhaling, and outstretching his arms to his sides, just like Randy Orton. The Animal. "The Girl Is Mine."

Isis.

What Ignatius had told Isis, wasn’t exactly what she was expecting but she couldn’t say that she did not see it coming.

Somewhere in her humanely loins, she knew that Alejandro was dodgy in more ways than one. But why?

She felt herself becoming even more drawn to him. She wanted to unveil the mystery of his cold heart, that is if Ignatius had spoken the entire truth.

Ignatius was extremely funny and they ended up spending the most part of the night, getting to know each other.

He was quite charming. But she knew better.

Nobody betrays their boss, whom they’ve been working with and earning gross amounts, just for humanity’s sake.

She needed to dig deeper. She wanted to start with Alejandro, by all means.

That night, after Ignatius had left, she had snuck downstairs to fetch her backpack from the coat hanger where she had placed it after she got home from lectures.

It was midnight and her mother always told her that midnight was the hour of witches and wizards. So she should join her mother in prayers, but in her own bedroom because she said that their spiritual battles were not the same so the room in which they fought, needed to be different as well.

Which added onto her fear of the dark as she slowly creeped down the stairs.

"In the name of Jesus, In the name of Jesus...", she repeatedly said under her breath.

Maybe you should repeat Jesus’ name the next time you see Alejandro.

She snorted so loudly at her own thoughts and held her mouth.

She got her backpack and slowly crawled back up the stairs.

While she was top-toeing past her mother’s room, she heard voices.

And strange noises.

Maybe she’s just busy with midnight prayers.

"...Yessss Sergio, right there…"

Isis froze dead in her tracks.

Huh?

Ignatius.

Ignatius was back in the confinement of his two-bedroom apartment and plopped himself onto his couch.

She’s so beautiful. God…

He was basking in the electricity of the thrill that he had just gotten from meeting with Isis in the still of the night. He thought it to be extremely romantic.

Forbidden love. Romeo and Juliet.

He shook his head and told himself to focus.

He did not plan on falling in love with Isis and if Alejandro found out about what had transpired a moment ago, he’d most probably lose his mind and he, would be jobless.

He licked his lips nervously at the thought and sat up straight.

But, his life could use some adventure.

It’s not the daily grind that I complain of, it’s the dull-gray sameness of my life outside of ’office hours’. And also, it’s time for a hero in this damn story. I would like for things to be rosy in my garden for once.

Ignatius smiled at his own thoughts and decided he should first focus on getting Isis to stay away from Alejandro.

"You’ll thank me later Isis, you’ll thank me later."

He jolted up when he heard somebody clear their throat in his hallway.

He took his gun out from under his sofa and called out, "Who’s there?"

Alejandro.

Alejandro parked his car far from Ignatius’ block because if there was one person who knew all of his cars well, it was Ignatius.

He had the spare key to Ignatius’ apartment because he was the one who got the apartment for him in the first place, with everything in it.

He took out a gun from underneath the driver’s seat and secured it onto his waist, behind him.

He walked up a couple of blocks to Ignatius’ building.

He got up the stairs to the top and took his right, looking for apartment number 57.

He found Ignatius’ apartment, turned the key in and made himself comfortable.

He sat himself down on one of the couches and felt a bulge under his left thigh.

He stood up and lifted the sofa’s cushion and found a steel-gray pistol.

He smirked. He knew Ignatius so well. After all, he trained him in sword-fighting and shooting.

He emptied the gun of its bullet, put the gun back under the couch and went wandering around the house, looking for alcohol.

The house that he had known so well already.

After a while, he heard Ignatius come into the house.

He was in the kitchen, having poured himself a whiskey, that tasted like piss. Poor Oliver, he thought.

And you thought you could steal my girl?

He stood still and placed his hand behind him, fondling his gun while he listened.

A good 5 minutes had passed by and he suddenly heard Ignatius speak.

"...You’ll thank me later Isis, you’ll thank me later…"

His body temperature shot up into his brain and he removed his gun from his waist and held it behind him, with both hands.

He cleared his throat loudly to scare Ignatius because he knew that his first instinct would be to take his pistol from where he had hidden it.

He heard Ignatius ask who was there. Your father.

He began to stroll casually back to Ignatius’ lounge.

"It’s just me Iggy. What’s got you so scared? Have you done something wrong to someone?" he asked sadistically, as he joined Ignatius in the lounge and stood with his feet apart and his gun still hidden behind his back.

Ignatius sighed in relief and lowered his own pistol, thinking he was in the clear.

"Sir, you can never be sure with these little thieves roaming around in Barbados."

Alejandro smirked and pulled a pensive look. "Thieves you say? Interesting what you would know about thieves."

Alejandro spoke really slowly and calmly. Like a Mafia drug lord.

He pulled his gun from behind his back and didn’t immediately aim it at Ignatius but he simply put the gun to his head.

Ignatius’ eyes widened and he tried to leap towards his boss but was stopped dead in his tracks when the gun was suddenly pointed towards him.

Gorgeous tactic Alejandro.

But Ignatius’ reflexes were on par too because he immediately raised his own pistol towards Alejandro.

"Mr Dominic Sir," he said. "What is the meaning of all of this?", Ignatius asked sternly.

Alejandro hysterically laughed just as he always did when he felt power rising to his head.

"I’m going to f*****g kill you for trying to mess with my s**t. Who the f**k are you anyways?"

He said it so calmly.

Ignatius was dumbfounded.

"That’s right you little s**t. I know about your slimy snake moves on my ladder. It’s mine!", he screamed. "Mine!"

He finally blew up.

Ignatius pulled the trigger as tensions rose and he was unpleasantly surprised by the revelation he had just received.

His gun was empty.

Alejandro smiled broadly and lowered his eyes like the animal that he was.

He reached into his pocket and took the bullets he had emptied out earlier from Ignatius’ pistol. "Looking for these?"

Ignatius had the most terrified look in his face. He dropped to his knees and began to beg for his life.

"I told you Ignatius Aguas. You know me so well. You double-cross me, you die. Simple."

He took out his phone and made a call.

"Guerrero, come to Ignatius’ apartment. Bring your men." he said, while coldly keeping his eyes on Ignatius.

"Sweet dreams Iggy."

He placed a bullet right inbetween Ignatius’ forehead and the man dropped dead.

Alejandro had killed Ignatius in cold blood, using an Assault Carbine.

A British firearm named, the silent killer.

He opened the door and left, leaving it open for his men to come and do what they did best - take care of the evidence…