PRETENSE, LOVE AND BLOOD

REMI

Maverick's father was more ruthless than his son. His was causticity in its raw form. A mere conversation with him was always a nightmare.

"You're home, sir," I said, half in question.

He slowly spread his arms. "Where else do I be during my son's wedding?"

I stopped. Maverick told his father? Then he didn't show up? What was going on?

"You haven't answered my question, Remi,” said Mr Isaac. “Was it actually Maverick you spoke about in that manner? In front of a mere maid?"

"Sir, Maverick..." A gasp of air. "Today's our wedding day, as you rightly said. We were at the wedding venue for over five hours, and he didn't show up."

I stopped, not because of want of things to say, but because my breath was crashing into itself and because the pain in my heart was growing continuously. My eyes watered up.

Maverick's father fixed his eyes on me for a long while, then shook his head and turned away.

"What's your name?" he finally asked, his voice all shades of condescension.

I told him.

"And whose daughter are you?"

I stared at him, then at the wrinkles around his eyes. I was in for it.

"Is your father's name known anywhere?" he asked, gesturing as he spoke. "Is he mentioned in important places? I mean, you could correct me if he's called upon in somewhere other than the list of broke patients in the local hospital."

I turned to the window and a small, agonized smile played on face. It was a smile that shielded a thousand tears.

"Back to my question." He wasn't done yet. "So I'm guessing that because my ever-busy son was late for the wedding, he's become a fool you can call whatever names you want, yeah?"

He was coming closer now, his breath thick with brandy. This was a man dreaded by most top government officials and prominent personalities in the country. It was impossible to match against him.

"Do you want to get punished?" He was shouting now, his spit splashing all over me. "Do you want me to lock you up until you fall on your knees to beg my son whom you just disrespected?"

Honestly, these words and who uttered them were enough to send the chills down a person's back. In fact, I'd begun to quiver.

But at a point, something began to take form in my heart. A tough armor that hadn't been there.

I turned to look at him. Dead in the eye. "You've not spoken of how inhuman and uncalled for your son's act was—" I said.

"Shut your mouth while I speak, you good for nothing scumbag!" he lashed back, eyes raging. "How dare you speak while I do?"

That trepidation, however, had died. I clenched my fists and told him that that wasn't all.

"There was a lady's voice when I called him at the wedding venue. Your son's cheating on me right on our wedding day. Is this how you'll respond, sir? By threatening to lock me up like some stray cat?"

He shook his head, as though worried for me. "I have not come to banter words with a peasant. Maverick must've been blinded by your body when he chose you. I mean, there's nothing to gain from being married to you."

I had never felt so much pain stabs in such a short time.

I was about to speak when the front door burst open. My mom stood there, hands on her mouth.

"Sir..." she stammered when her eyes met Maverick's father's. "I... erm... I had no idea you were in the city."

She couldn't go on with her fake talk, for the tension in the air soon grabbed a hold of her.

"Sara?" the old man asked, remembering my mom from the few, rare dinners we'd had as potential in-laws, when were weren't allowed to speak unless when spoken to. When our silence, after the dinner, was criticized as signs or slow brains.

"Yes, sir." She bowed. She fucking prostrated.

"You're this scumbag's mother?" was the next question.

"Sir?" She, too, was caught off guard.

"One more 'sir' from you, dear madam, I'll throw you too in my storehouse!" he thundered. "How dare your daughter, whom my son must have picked from the abattoir of pigs, disrespect this family in the manner she did? Does she know, do y'all know where you are in? Or who you're getting married to?"

Nobody could talk. By now, some household staff and guards had crept closer, listening, ready to carry out orders if any.

I looked around me, knowing I had no power to fight this.

"What did you say to him, Remi?" came my mom's question.

I glared at her. I wanted to ask if she wasn't the same distraught woman a few minutes ago, who'd cried her eyes out when the "almighty Maverick" didn't appear at the wedding? I wanted to also ask her how much she reimbursed the enraged event planners. How much much shame she could bear.

Seeing I wouldn't budge, she turned back to Mr Isaac. "I deeply apologise for whatever transpired between her and you, sir. She is just..." An audible, dry swallow. "She's quite not... You know... used to these, erm, these incidents."

"Remi, get down on your knees and apologize," Maverick's father said, coldly.

A "hmm" pushed from my mouth as I took a step back. The bodyguards looks behind and around me.

My mother tried. "Sir..."

"She's sorry, right? Then let her show it."

I stood there, unmoving. A thousand thoughts jumped around in my head. The muscles of my joints tensed up with the crashing knowledge that I was in deep shit, and that I wasn't ready to chicken out.

"She's not going to kneel?" he asked.

Suddenly, there was a hush in the air, like chipmunks sensing the swooping shadow of a hunter eagle.

Our attention was drawn outside, where a sleek Tesla Cyber truck had just pulled over. There was only one man who drove a cyber truck in the family house.

Maverick Isaac.

Much to my dismay and anger, a painful knot of panic leapt up and congealed in my chest and neck. My eyelids fluttered uncontrollably.

The old man flicked up a triumphant corner of his lips. "Well, well, it just gets better."

"Oh God," my mom gasped, rubbing down her face.

We waited.

When the footsteps began to run up the stairs, it was like the worst sounds I'd heard all my life.