There was a loud ringing noise that won't let up. It was so shrill and bothersome. Even when I rolled to the other side of the bed, it persisted. I covered my ears with such force, I almost busted my eardrums.

"Uhhhh! Stop that infernal noise."

It stopped miraculously and I was able to breath easier, but just when I was about to turn, it started up once again.

"Will you please stop your alarm clock, it's messing with my sleep." I woke with a start to see Chito beside my bed, hair mussed, eyes red and heavy from lack of sleep.

Pity coursed through me. I was sure he had not been able to sleep since, and here I was messing it up. I rolled over and hit the off button on my beside alarm. "Sorry, buddy, I thought I was dreaming. Try and get some sleep."

I rolled to the other side, intent on catching some more shut eye, but after a few minutes of tossing and turning, I gave up and opened my eyes. I got out of bed and was shocked to see Chito still in the same place I had left him - in front of my bed.

"Buddy, what are you still doing here? Your chair got jammed again?" I bent to check his wheel chair but it seemed fine to me after a brief inspection.

I stood and looked at him noting how his brows were squeezed tightly and there were tell tale track marks of tears on his checks. I was on my knees in front of him in an instant. "What's wrong? Does something hurt? Do you need to go to the hospital?"

He just shook his head and said nothing. I patted him down gently, exactly as the doctor had told me to do. "Your shots, where are they?"

He still said nothing. Instead he squeezed his eyes shut against the tears that had begun spilling out of them. It broke my heart to see my little brother cry. I couldn't take it anymore, and I knew I shouldn't have held him so tightly, but I couldn't help it. I hugged his bony frame to me. Doing that gave me some hope for the future.

"Don't go!" Came his teary voice against my chest a few seconds later.

I froze. How did he know I was going out? I hadn't told him anything about my going anywhere today, especially with it being a Saturday. Once I remembered the alarm, my limbs were released of the inertia that held them captive. That was it. The alarm. That's how he knew. "I've got to go to work so I can put food on the table, Chito. I promise you I won't be long."

It was his turn to freeze, so I moved back and lifted his head. He was all head and a bony frame. My heart broke and I resisted the urge to scream.

Why did he have to suffer so much? He who was pure and good. Why did mother have to die and leave me to fend for him? I was barely an adult myself but I had to face the responsibility of adulthood.

I shook my head at how unfortunate life was.

Chito lifted his tear-streaked face and gazed at me with somber brown eyes that had seen too much pain. "You're thinking of mama, aren't you?"

Couldn't he see that I needed to do this one last job so he could undergo the operation?

That's right, he couldn't, he thought I was just a mere teacher who taught high school kids English language.

I sighed and cleaned his face. "Tell you what - I'll get a big fat burger, the greasy kind with plenty mayonnaise, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and some pickles, oh, and a side of chips, on my way back, huh, huh. What you think about that?" I gently nudged him on his ribs.

"Mia, I dreamt you died." He delivered that last statement with so much seriousness I had to laugh.

When I came down from my laughter filled high, looked at him. "Me, die?" I shook my head vehemently. "I'm not going anywhere yet, buddy, at least not until you're well and good, and besides, I told you dreams don't mean anything, they're just there to make us realize we've got a soul, nothing more."

But he wasn't convinced, which wasn't new with Chito. He gave me one last puppy dog look before wheeling himself out of my room. I stayed that way for awhile before remembering I needed to get a move on. Out there was an impatient man waiting for results, and a scientist to be dealt with.

I got ready, which didn't take me much time, after brushing my teeth and putting on my work clothes which consisted of a black tee and black jeans. After that I debated on whether to pack my hair up or let it down.

"Whadaya think?" I asked my reflection in the mirror. I stuck my tongue out and made a funny face. "Down it is."

So I brushed my hair, marveling after all these years, at its soft texture. Once I had finished brushing it out rigorously, it trailed down my waist, heavy and long.

I got out my taser from where I hid it underneath my folded clothes in my drawer and tucked it into the sides of my boots.

As I made to leave my room, I saw it. The hand-made bracelet Chito had given me on my last birthday. It seemed to wink at me from my bedside table, so I picked it and wore it.

I set my timer to twenty minutes as I picked up the keys to Sheba and left my room. I passed Chito's bedroom which was practically adjacent to mine, placed an ear against his door but didn't hear any noise. I lifted a hand to knock on it, but thought better of it.

It was better not to disturb him, he was probably asleep anyway.

I shook my head and quietly walked down the stairs. At the kitchen, I jugged down a bottle of water as I was patched and needed hydration. As I walked into the sitting room, my mind was on the mission ahead. Yesterday, I had been a bit too hasty to agree to do the hit today. I always took my time to study the pattern of the person I had to off so as to know the best way to go about -

I dropped to the ground when I saw movement at the window and rolled towards it. The silhouette of a woman passed the window and continued on. I rushed to look out and was just in time to see Mrs. Robinson, my nosy neighbor walking to her garden.

I heaved a sigh of relief and walked out to the garage.

"Hello, Sheba." She sat looking at me with big orange eyes. I got a hold of a rag and cleaned a stain on her, then I patted her on the head. "Ready for another adventure?"

I started the engine of my Harley Davidson bike and revved it, making a hellish noise as I drove out of the garage. Mrs. Robinson looked up in fright like she always did anytime I rode out with Sheba.

"Bye, Mrs. Robinson." I smirked, driving past her and revving Sheba's engine, right before I put on my ray ban glasses.

I saw her snort of disapproval as I sped off leaving her coughing in the wake of the smoke from my exhaust. As I got onto the road, I blanked my mind and opened my chakra, exactly as I had been taught, and exactly as I had done ever since. It helped me have some foreshadowing of what was to come. As I swam through my perceptions, ready to latch on to what was ahead, something dark railroaded my senses. I mentally shrugged it away, but it was like a veil that refused to go.

Try as hard as I could, it refused to leave my front, and so by the time I got to the freeway, I was already upset and my thoughts were all over the place.

Somewhere inside me - the reluctant part of me - knew I should have gone back, but I have always been stubborn, and apart from that, I had a briefcase full of two and a half million quid cooling off in my weapons place, and another two and another half in my offshore account.

I didn't want to release them anytime soon. Make that never.

The funny feeling persisted all through my ride. It only ebbed when I hit a patch of traffic. Cars were lined up on four rows, back to back, jam packed. I looked down at Sheba and smirked. "Ready for some action?"

I thought I heard her purr, so I wore my helmet cause it was about to get nasty. When I saw a leeway as cars began to move, I stepped on the accelerator and Sheba surged forward. I bent her to the side just in time before another car could helm her in and turned left. I was however stopped by two jeeps on either side of me a few paces in front.

Music poured out from the one on the left. From the corner of my eyes, I saw there were four male teenagers inside. From the gold chains hanging around their necks to the piercings in their ears and tattoos on their hands, I could clearly know they were either going for a party or just coming from one. Either way, I wasn't ready for their nonsense.

I heard the whir of the window as it came down and one of them stuck his head out. "Hey, mamacita, how 'bout you come down from that bike and I can give you a ride to wherever."

The rest of the guys in the car hollered like they'd never seen a woman wearing all black and had red hair before in their lives. I ignored their stupidity and stared straight ahead, but then the window of the Jeep on my right, wound down, and a man poked his head out. "Those kids disturbing you?"

Here's the thing? I didn't like young boys who thought they were God's gift to women, neither did I like men who had saviour complexes, so I ignored the both of them.

The traffic began to ease as cars started moving and before they could say 'holla,' I sped off amidst annoying cat calls from the kids.

Didn't anyone teach them to be respectful to their elders?

I smirked as Sheba surged to life beneath me, angry she had been idle for so long.

"Atta, girl, that's the spirit."

It was free sailing after that, until I came across a red light and had to stop once more. Where I was going wasn't far. I needed some supplies, plus I was running out of time.

The window of opportunity flashed before me. Timer on the red light was still forty seconds away. "Come on, come on, come on." But it was taking ages. Thirty five seconds left.

It was now or never. I revved the engine and Sheba sprang to life beneath my hands and surged forward.

Too late, I didn't see the incoming truck. I tried to break but I was too close. The last thing I remembered before the head on collision were Chito's words.

I dreamt you died.

I stretched tiredly in the back seat of my Lincoln Navigator, lulled by the movement of the car. I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep. Just ten minutes would do, at least for now. As I closed my them, I was plagued with visions of a pain-filled Aretha. She had not been able to sleep at all last night. She had tossed and turned, holding her stomach and groaning in pain. Even the strong pain killers given to her by the doctor had not worked. I felt helpless as I had sat beside her. I couldn't even hold her close anymore as her body temperature was through the roof.

Her fever had broken sometime in the early hours of the morning and she had finally stopped clutching her stomach, but the worst was not over. As doe-eyed as I was and as much as I wanted it to be so, I couldn't hide away from the fact anymore.

My wife was dying.

The truth grabbed me by the hair and slapped me in the face. That was when the hysteria came. I lurched out of our room, the same room we had spent many nights making love and planning for the future. I didn't know when I stumbled into junior's room, a room that had never housed a child. A child that was killing my wife.

I knew what rage meant at that moment, or maybe for one hour. I started with the wooden cot fit for a king's child. It sat grand and majestic, mocking me with its emptiness. I didn''t know where I got a hammer from, but I rammed it into it until it was but a wooden pile of crap on the carpeted floor. Next, I went for the fittings on the wall and wrenched all of them off. Nothing escaped my wrath, nothing was spared. By the time I was done, the room was in a mess, and that eased my heart, but only for a few minutes.

After that, the pain came back in full force. Worse than before.

The car jerked to a stop, breaking me out of my reverie.

"Boss, we have a situation upfront."

I groaned and opened my eyes to see chaos. A short distance ahead of us a crowd of people had gathered, but try as much as I craned my neck, I couldn't see anything. I checked my time. I only had ten minutes to spare. I couldn't not make the meeting on time.

"Stay!" I said to Eric, and got down from the car.

I had only gone four paces forward when I stopped and looked down at the clothes I was wearing. Blue tailored pinstriped trouser suit with gold cufflinks worn with pure leather crocodile loafers. I looked around the neighborhood we had stopped and thought better of my hair-brained idea of going to check out what the problem was.

As I still stood, pondering over what to do, an ambulance arrived and the crowd opened up to allow them carry the stretcher through. I caught a glimpse of a woman lying on the ground, her head twisted in an awkward angle, and then blood, so much blood, it put Aretha's problem to shame. And then the crowd was closing in on her once again.

It didn't take long before the police came next, blaring their sirens to my consternation. They cordoned off the area around the woman.

I waited. I don't know why. It wasn't like I hadn't seen blood before, but just watching that woman lying inert on the ground brought something to life inside of me. To my left was a long haulage trailer. All the huge containers on it were on the ground and their contents had been spilled all over the ground. Oil. That made passing this route impossible.

I turned and walked back to my car, but something caught my attention and I stopped and turned back. Underneath the trailer, a woman's purse lay. A few meters beside it lay some other items scattered in the dirt, obviously spilled from it. I knew the purse belonged to the woman who was lying bleeding out on the ground.

I didn't want to think about it because if I did, I probably wouldn't have rushed towards the trailer. I saw a part where the police hadn't cordoned off, and I slid underneath. I knelt down and assessed what lay scattered around on the dirt. A lipstick, her social security card and a few other knick knacks women put in their purses. I picked them all up and put them back into her purse.

As I turned, ready to walk away with her purse, something else caught my eyes, something that lay a few paces away. A picture. I bent and crawled towards it, intent on just picking it and shoving it inside the purse when I froze. Within the lines and pixels of the picture, lay a familiar face that stared back up at me.

My face.

I looked in wonder and shock at it.

How did my picture get here?

What was it doing lying in the dirt beneath a trailer?

Unless. . .

The wheels in my mind began to spin. I spun round and looked over to where the crowd had begun to thin out around the woman. The paramedics had put her on a stretcher and had her neck supported by a brace.The fact that she wasn't dead didn't mean she was going to last till the next morning.

I shook my head to rid it of my morbid thoughts and began the calculations from the distance where she lay to where the trailer stood.

Once I was done, I came to the conclusion that my picture was inside the woman's purse and because of the impact of the collision with the trailer, it flew out and landed a few meters from it.

That was the only plausible reason I could see and think of.

I knew what I had to do.

I pocketed my picture, grabbed her purse from the ground where I had dropped it, and got out from under the trailer. I intercepted the ambulance as they were about closing the door.

"Hi! My name is Alexander Moore." I brought out my company ID card and showed it to the woman. "She's my secretary." I pointed to the woman on the stretcher.

The lie had jumped easily to my lips.

The woman glanced briefly at me from top to bottom and then she looked at me again, this time slower. "What did you say your name was?"

My brows squeezed together. "Moore. Alex Moore."

The woman took a step back and looked behind me. "Where are your bodyguards?"

"My who?" What was she mouthing off about?

"You mean you don't move around with bodyguards?" She looked at my ID card still in her hands and then looked up at me. A look of reverence jumped into her eyes. "It's really you, Mr. Alexander Moore of Raften pharmaceuticals. I'm so pleased to meet you, you don't know how much of an honor it is to see you in the flesh, and you're such a simple man as well."

I didn't know what I would do if she continued her blabbering.

Her colleague joined us, his brows squeezed together. "What's the hold up about?"

I collected my ID card back from the woman and faced the man. "My secretary." I bobbed my head towards the back of the ambulance.

I saw the respect instantly jump into his eyes as he looked me up and down. "You can follow us behind, sir, we're going to Almond hospital on 23, Creek road, it's actually not far from here."

I nodded. I briefly remembered seeing a hospital on the drive here.

I fast-walked to my car. "Change of plans, Eric, follow that ambulance."

"But, boss, what about your meeting?" Eric glanced at me from the rear view mirror. I could see the shock lining his eyes.

"I'll call Kelly to cancel. This is important."

I saw the struggle in his eyes to continue arguing, but he chose the wise route and didn't. "As you wish, boss."

I nodded to myself and sank back into the plush leather seats as Eric made a U-turn and began following the ambulance closely. I had begun to feel the effect of not sleeping at all.

Aretha always said. . .

I shook my head to stop myself from thinking of her. Instead, I focused on why a recent picture of mine, the one that had been taken during the Tokyo seminar of the scientists, was doing in the purse of a woman I had never set my eyes on before.

I had a very good memory, one that helped me get to the level I was at today. I racked my brain to see if she had been among the protocol team that welcomed us last year, but I came up empty.

Then maybe an overzealous woman that came for an interview as a lab assistant a month ago?

Naah! Couldn't be. How could she even have gotten my picture in the first place?

From one of the many magazines in the lobby on which my face was splayed on. Yeah, but the picture I currently had in my possession was a real picture, not cut out from a magazine.

I gave up when all of the options I thought off fell through.

After about twenty minutes of moving behind the ambulance, the hospital loomed ahead, big and daunting. I gritted my teeth in frustration. I had enough of hospitals to last me a lifetime. I watched as the two men came down from the ambulance and opened the door at the back. Three nurses poured out through the hospital doors to assist them, and they wheeled the unresponsive woman on the stretcher inside.

I gave them ten minutes to find her an available room, hook her up to the IV and take her vitals before I came down from the car. I stretched, arching my back and sighing in pleasure as a bone popped into place in my waist.

It was show time.

I strolled to the front desk and pasted on my 'showman' smile. The lady behind it blushed and immediately directed me to the emergency ward. There, I encountered another administrative officer who seemed immune to my smile. She, however, directed me to a doctor who explained to me the situation with the woman that had just been brought in.

"You say she's your staff, Mr. . ."

"Moore, Alexander Moore, CEO of Raften Pharmaceuticals."

Once again, respect danced into his eyes and he became more aware of his words.

"I'm afraid your staff doesn't look to be in good health. She's got blunt head trauma caused by the head-on collision when she hit the ground. The reason why she's not yet dead is because she was wearing a helmet. The accident would definitely have caused her other bodily harm which I haven't yet ascertained. For now, she's not yet out of the woods so we're observing her."

"Please, see you give her an all-around-the-clock observation. I'll pay for all and any bills accrued. Matter of fact, I'll leave a check before I go that will cover all the expenses, and if there's any more, this is my card, don't hesitate to call me."

The doctor took the card from me and nodded. I didn't know why I did it, I didn't know the woman from Adam but I was curious about how she had gotten my picture.

Call it fate or stupidity, but I didn't want her to die.

The doctor said he would call and update me in the evening about her situation, if anything changed.

I left the hospital feeling better than I had felt ever since Aretha was diagnosed with womb cancer.

The call came in the night while I was fast asleep holding Aretha. It was one of those rare moments where she had not thrashed all through the night. I checked that she was still breathing and quietly slipped out of bed making sure not to wake her. It wasn't everyday I got to have the luxury of holding her close, so naturally I was upset when once I got into junior's bedroom, I picked the call.

"Hello, is this Mr. Moore?" The strange clinical voice asked.

After revealing my identity to the caller, he introduced himself as doctor Rogers from Almond hospital. I had a flash back of a medium sized man in a blue scrub underneath a white lab coat.

"I'm afraid the diagnosis doesn't look too encouraging, sir. Your secretary has blunt head trauma, five cracked ribs a fractured hip and a punctured lung. She might not last tonight. Even if she does, it will be extensive work to make her whole again; she will need physiotherapy to learn how to work again, she might or might not have breathing problems, and she will definitely not remember who she was before this whole accident, that is if she even recovers from this at the end of the day."

Something about the doctor's tone made me think he preferred her dead.

"Is she on life support?" I asked curtly.

"No, but-"

"Then she still has a good chance of making it out alive." There was silence on the other line, confirming my suspicions. "Let me reiterate this doctor, I will cover all the expenses there, and I want her to have a fighting chance. There might even be a bonus for you if she makes it out alive, but . . .if I found out there has been any hanky panky, however small, then. . ."

I left him to figure out what I could do if he decided to misbehave.

"Yes, sir, alright, sir, I will do all in my power to help her get a quick recovery." He blabbered on.

"See that you do." And I cut the call. Fatigue flooded my veins. I was tired, tired of having to fight off greedy people.

I knew for a fact there was a cabal of doctors that sold the parts of people who were on the verge of dying, or those it seemed that didn't have a chance at life. I also knew there were those doctors, the more cut-throat one's, who didn't mind going the extra mile to exterminate their patients in a bid to become rich. They sold these parts to people who were terminally ill and didn't mind paying through their teeth to get good health.

It was a hot dirty business, getting rich at the expense of people's lives, and I hated the thought of it.

I walked back to my room, ready to snuggle behind Aretha, when her body jerked and she began to moan. I checked her temperature and found out she was burning up. Peace was short lived. The saga had started once again. I sighed as I walked into the bathroom to get a wash clothe.

*

I was about ready to keel over when I walked into the meeting an hour late. With little time to spare after tending to Aretha, I hadn't had time to even open my wardrobe to pick a suit. The clothes I wore the day before beckoned to me from the chair where I had hastily thrown them, so in my haste I had donned them. Looking at the disapproving faces of the ten men seated before me now, that was obviously a big mistake.

"Mr. Moore." Mr. Hendricks pulled his bifocal glasses down the length of his nose and fixed his steely gaze on me. "Your behavior recently has been very disgraceful. You waltz in here looking like you spent the night with a harlot, you stink of alcohol, and worse still, you act like you own the damn building."

I smirked on hearing this. "I do own this building."

He visibly swallowed and looked away, but not before I saw the disgusted look he gave me.

"What Mr. Hendricks is trying to say is, you lack feelings, Mr. Moore, how do you expect us to endorse your drug when you can't even get your life in check?"

"And who are you?" I removed the dark glasses from my face and squinted at him.

"Preposterous!" Another of the suit-wearing men exclaimed.

As if in planned sync, they all got up one by one, grumbling at the top of their voices and headed towards the door. One of them huffed as he passed me.

"You're not welcome." I shouted once they had left the board room.

I slumped into the seat Mr. Hendricks had just vacated and stared balefully at the table. The unopened water bottles were the only audience to how stupid I had just been.

Clap, clap, clap, clap!

The sound of someone clapping were like gunshots to my ears, and I held my hands over them. Kelly came into view. She stood with her hands akimbo watching me. The expression 'she could murder me with her eyes,' swam into my head, and I blinked rapidly to focus on her face.

"I do hope you're happy now, Mr. Moore. All the years of planning and you just messed it up in only a few minutes. You should be very pleased with yourself right now."

Never in all the ten years Kelly had worked for me had she called me Mister Moore. Matter of fact, I had insisted she call me by my name as well as the rest of my staff.

For her to use mister and my surname in the same sentence to address me, that meant she was pretty upset with me.

I should have said something, but all I did was stare at her, trying to figure out how I was going to solve the shit I had steeped myself into. No one knew about Aretha's illness, neither did I want to make it public. I was a very private man and I also hated pity. That was why I had never gotten a nurse to look after her. I paid the housekeeper extra to do the job, but even she had other duties to attend to, so for six months, I had been cutting back on work and going home to be with her.

Yes, Yes, work suffered, it suffered terribly, but my wife came first. Last night had been the worst of it all, Aretha had groaned all through, and not even the morphine had helped dull the pain she was in. When I couldn't take her rising screams any longer, I had drowned out the noise by taking a shot of vodka. One shot turned into two, and then three. I later found myself downing the whole bottle.

Later on I drove Aretha to the hospital and had her checked into the ICU, like doctor Perry had initially advised. After she had been somewhat stabilized, I had driven like a madman to the office because Kelly called reminding me the representatives from the Department of Justice's drug enforcement administration had already assembled and were getting impatient.

It was only when I had driven halfway there that I forgot I had sent Eric to buy me some coffee and I had forgotten to alert him I was leaving the hospital.

I wouldn't even have come into work today had Kelly not called to remind me. I noticed she was staring at me like I was a wild animal from the zoo. I also knew she had been waiting for a response from me, but when I said nothing, she shook her head the same way someone would when they're disappointed.

"Well then, since you don't think you owe me an explanation, get ready to hire another assistant because I quit."

And she flounced out of the boardroom, heels clacking on the tiled floor.

That's right, Kelly, walk away like the others just did, like Aretha is eventually going to.

Everyone walks away from me eventually.

I wallowed in self pity as I slumped further into the chair.