STACCATO

SAGA 3

“Everybody dies but not everybody lives”; Ade-ola recollected BGM’s words that preceded his instructions to her. She had cried her eyes to stupor and could wail no more, the last grunt having invited a dark strain of resolution. Squinting at the red puffy pulps now in her bathroom mirror as she could barely see with them, she felt a fresh but not unfamiliar wave of resentment towards BGM, for making her so vulnerable.

He had instructed her that Kareem was to be kept at bay from the family’s finances and business, but that was with the ceteris paribus assumption that K would still be alive to check him, when the former lashes out, as he sure will. Everyone would be surprised if he doesn’t.

As if that wasn’t enough, it was an election year and BGM’s enemies were never on recess. Perhaps, one of them even killed Kola. Perhaps? Of course one of them did, she edited her thoughts. For what other construing would make sense in this precarious matter. And yet they had dared leave her to face it alone.

A lightning flash zigzagged its way into the room and ushered in torrents that grated against the Gerard roof of the Adelove mansion. The rain, a relentless, weeping curtain, mirrored the storm raging within Adeola. It lashed against the panoramic windows of her study, blurring the glittering cityscape into an impressionistic smear of mournful gray. by the heavier, cloying scent of lilies – the funeral kind.

She traced the intricate grain of the mahogany desk BGM had ordered from India, its polished surface reflecting her own haunted face back at her. Her skin, usually kissed by the Tuscan sun, was now pallid, stretched taut over the sharp angles of her jaw. The emerald fire in her eyes, inherited from her mother, flickered weakly, dimmed by a grief so profound it felt like a physical weight, pressing down on her chest, stealing her breath.

They were gone. BGM. K. Now, the mantle, heavy and suffocating as a shroud, had fallen upon her. Ade-ola, the quiet daughter, the accounting graduate and crypto expert, the one who preferred the hushed reverence of numbers and codes to the clamorous roar of industry, was now the heiress to the Adelove Empire. An empire built on black gold, on the viscous, lucrative lifeblood of the earth. An empire carved out with ruthlessness, forged in shadows, and stained, she knew, with secrets thicker than crude oil itself.

Her father, BGM, had been a titan, a force of nature. Kola, his heir apparent, had been a roaring lion, all bravado and fierce ambition. Ade-ola had always been, by comparison, a gardenia blooming in the shadow of oaks, admired for her delicate beauty, but never truly considered capable of weathering the storm.

They were wrong. Beneath the silken scarves and the graceful demeanor, a spine of steel had always existed, tempered in the fires of observation, honed by a quiet intelligence that often went underestimated. Now, that steel was beginning to solidify, hardening in the crucible of grief and necessity.

But the steel was brittle, shot through with cracks of agonizing doubt. Running the BGM Empire wasn’t just about numbers and logistics, about pipelines and drilling rights. It was about navigating a treacherous labyrinth of alliances and betrayals, about staring into the abyss of human greed and emerging unscathed, or at least, alive. It was a world her father had gradually shown her the ropes upon the twilight years of his life. She had been quietly exposed and being unknowingly prepared for its harsh realities.

Being the accountant hadn't required much physical strength. Her tenderness had been a selling point as it was presumed that she would be trustworthy especially with money. These days though, fragility, she was learning, was a luxury she could no longer afford.

A hesitant knock broke through the suffocating silence. Ade-ola straightened, lifting her chin. She smoothed down the severe black dress that clung to her frame, a garment that felt too weighty for her young shoulders, too stark for her bruised spirit. “Avanti,” she said, her voice a little hoarse, a tad too low, but firm.

The heavy oak door that sealed her corner piece chamber-which had been her mother’s-creaked open, and Kareem, her younger brother, stepped in. He was a whirlwind of wild beauty and barely contained energy, a young colt straining at the reins. His grief was raw, untamed, erupting from him in all the jagged edges. He hadn’t slept in days, she could see it in the bloodshot rims of his eyes, in the tremor in his hands as he ran them through his already disheveled dark hair.

“Ade,” he breathed, his voice thick with unshed tears and something else, something simmering beneath the surface – rage. “They… they were…” He trailed off, unable to voice the unspeakable.

Ade-ola rose, meeting his gaze evenly. Inside, her heart twisted. Kareem was her last remaining family, the fragile echo of the life they had all shared. She loved him fiercely, protectively, with a tenderness that bordered on desperation. But she also knew him. Knew his impulsive nature, his volatile temper, his burning need for vengeance.

“I know, Kareem,” she said softly, crossing the room to him. She placed a hand on his arm, feeling the tense muscles coil beneath her touch. “I know.”

He shrugged her hand off, pacing restlessly before the window, the storm outside mirroring his inner turmoil. “I had to do something, Ade. Couldn’t just… let em get away with that.” His words were laced with a raw, almost feral anger.

Her stomach clenched. This was the tightrope she had to walk. Protecting Kareem, shielding him from the viper pit that had claimed their father and brother, while simultaneously navigating that very pit herself. He was a wildfire, fueled by grief and rage, capable of burning everything to ashes, including himself. She had to be the rain, cool-headed, strategic, capable of channeling that destructive energy, not extinguishing it entirely, but directing it, controlling it.

Her voice was firmer this time. “But we have to be smart. Calculated. Not… rash.”

He spun around, his green eyes, usually bright and playful, now hard and glacial.

“Rash? Ade, they murdered K! They ripped him away from us! What do you call that, if not an act that deserves a rash response?”

“Justice deserves a response, Marco,” she corrected him, her voice sharp, unwavering now. “Revenge is a luxury we cannot afford. Not yet.”

He scoffed, a harsh, bitter sound. “Luxury? It’s our right! It’s our duty! Don’t tell me you’re just going to sit here on your ass, mourning, while those animals may still walk free?”

The accusation stung, but Ade-ola held her ground. Mourning? Yes. But sitting idle? The last few days and subsequent hours had been riddled with poring down documents, absorbing information, becoming a sponge, soaking up every detail of the empire her father had built. Taking on the role of two men, She had seen the fear in the eyes of BGM’S now deceased 2ic, the barely veiled skepticism in the glances of the capos. They were waiting, watching, wondering if the gardenia would wilt under the harsh glare of the Adelove’s sun.

She would not wilt. She would bloom, fierce and thorny, in the heart of the darkness. But having Kareem as a customized questioner of her still blossoming authority, didn’t help matters an inch of a popsicle. She had to spiral in her mind for some flip seconds before determining the next words.

“Kareem,” she said, her voice softening slightly, but remaining resolute. “Do you think I am not hurting? Do you think I don’t want to tear down the sky and rain fire upon those responsible?.” Her own voice trembled then, just for a moment, betraying the raw ache that threatened to consume her. She quickly composed herself, repressing the lump in her throat. “But we can’t act wantonly or emotionally, brother. Not now. We have to be strategic. Because of your actions, Someone else died tonight that needn’t have, there are smarter ways to go about staying alive.

“don’t you get it?”

We have to understand motives and grand motives, and how we can respond in a way that doesn’t just invite more bloodshed, but secures our future. The BGM future.”

He glared at her, unconvinced. “Strategic? You sound like Papa. All talk and few action.”

Those words sting, but Ade-ola refused to react. She understood his pain, even if he couldn’t yet see the wisdom in her words. “Papa was strategic because he understood that power is not just about brute force, Kareem. It’s about intelligence. It’s about patience. It’s about knowing when to strike, and how to strike, to inflict maximum damage with minimal risk. Its about taking whole.”

She stepped closer to him, her green eyes locking onto his, holding his gaze with an intensity that surprised even herself. “Look at me, Kareem. Look at me. Do you think I am weak? Do you think I am incapable of leading this family? Because if you do, you are sorely mistaken.”

He hesitated, searching her face, perhaps seeing something new there, something hard and unyielding that had not been present before. The grief was still there, etched into her features, but beneath it, something else was emerging – a resolve, a steely determination that mirrored, in its own way, the ruthless efficiency of their father. Since when did the talk become about who was leading the family?

A sudden nostalgic ember of darkness spun into his mind matter and he remembered BGM’s words again, which had been whispered to him at the church before the cacophony of chaos.

“ Ade. You’re… you’re not BGM. You’re not Kola.”

“No,” she agreed, a small, sad smile playing on her lips.

“I’m not. I’m Ade-ola Adelove. And I will lead this family my own way. But I will lead it. That, I promise you. You can argue with opinions but you can’t argue with results.”

The weight of his gaze was still heavy, questioning, but the outright hostility had dissipated. He was still hurting, still angry, still lost in the labyrinth of his grief. But perhaps, just perhaps, he was beginning to see that she was not going to crumble.

“What are you going to do?” he asked finally, his voice barely a whisper.

She took a deep breath, the floral scent of the lilies suddenly cloying, suffocating. She needed to push past the grief, to rise above the emotional maelstrom and focus on the tasks ahead. She turned back to the desk, and picked up the heavy silver letter opener, its blade gleaming coldly in the lamplight. It felt weighty in her hand, a symbolic representation of the power she now wielded. She would continue to use her chambers for official business for now, not wanting to exist for a day in BGM’s shadow.

“First,” she said, her voice regaining its strength, its resonance, cutting through the silence of the study like the sharp edge of the letter opener. “First, we find out who else was involved in this. We unearth every stone, every whisper, every shadow. We find out the octopus head and pry its brain before bearing it by barbecue.” Her voice hardened, the emerald fire in her eyes flickering back to life, burning with a cold, unyielding light.

“But not with a predictable temper, Kareem. With precision. With a cold, calculating vengeance that they will never see coming.”

She turned back to him, her gaze unwavering, searching his. “But you, Kareem” she said, her voice laced with a new urgency, a desperate plea.

“You need to stay away from this. Please. For me. For K. For Dad, let me handle this. Let me… protect you.”

The words hung in the air between them, fragile, tenuous, like spiderwebs spun in the heart of a storm. She saw the turmoil in his eyes, the conflict raging within him. He wanted to be involved, to be a part of the fight, to avenge their father and brother. But she also saw a flicker of fear, a nascent understanding of the danger that now surrounded them.

“Protect me?” he echoed, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. “From what, Ade-ola? From the inevitable? We’re Adeloves, remember? This is our life. This is our oil. This is our blood.”

“And our blood is precious,Kareem!” she countered, her voice a silken thread, yet strong enough to bind. “Too precious to spill needlessly. Let me navigate this, for now. Let me find our footing in this new world. And you will be taken care of.”

She reached out and took his hand, her fingers intertwining with his. Her touch was cool, steely and steady, a small anchor in the tempestuous seas of their grief. He looked down at their joined hands, then back up at her face, his expression unreadable. Then snatched away his arm for the second time that night.

“Taken care of?” he repeated, the words a question, a dare, a cry.

The storm outside raged on, but within the study, a new kind of storm was brewing – a storm of quiet resolve, of steely determination, and of a young woman stepping into the shadows, ready to claim her inheritance, and ready to fight for it, with every ounce of her being. The gardenia, it seemed, was learning to bite. And the viper pit was about to discover, perhaps too late, that thorns could be sharper than any blade.