A loud and shrill crying of a baby flinched Neva awake from her deep slumber.
With droopy eyes she raised her heavy head to peer over the cot accross the bed.
Then she turned to find Ishmael's side of bed empty. Her hand slid to feel the white sheet. The bed was cold, Ishmael was long gone.
The baby cried unceasingly, and so she slipped off the warm duvet, bare feet touching the soft grey woolen carpet.
Hands reached inside the cradle, and she carefully picked up the weeping baby, for the sleeping little one beside squirmed to arise from the twin's sorrow.
She swayed her newborn, whispering a hush, walking slow towards the crackling fireplace below the massive black screen of a television facing the bed.
"Shh...you'll wake your sister," Neva murmered, and kissed the child's forehead.
Her smile was small as she gazed down affectionately at the baby's crumpled up features.
Those tiny eyes gazing through hazy orbs, the little pink lips painted in a pout.
The newborn was now soothed and nestled in her embrace.
"Are you hungry?" She asked, rocking him tenderly. It was difinitely a wail of hunger. It was two hours ago she last fed them.
All the guides from baby care books, it didn't compare with the erudition she gained after the beautiful two weeks with her twins.
Ambling towards the bed, she first placed the baby down. She then lay on her side after. She pulled the duvet over them.
The she undid the buttons of her feeding gown.
And through her bosom she fed her baby. The baby latched on immediately, sufficing the hollow tummy.
Neva heaved out a fatigued sigh, she would have to feed her other child after. Her soft fingers caressed and brushed through the baby's thin dark hair.
"You're such a hungry boy Isaiah." Neva smiled, then a sudden serrated cramp on her abdomen made her face shrink.
She inhaled a sharp breath through her nose, teeth sinking down her bottom lip.
It was through caesarean section the babies were born.
The birth of the two bundles of joy invoked immense alteration in her life.
At times it was exhausting, mysterious blues gripping and suffocating.
But she felt blessed and delighted.
Grateful to her husband too, for his immense support.
Now that she thought of him, she wondered where Ishmael had gone to.
Countable times she had observed that he vanished out of nowhere in the middle of the night. But he hadn't done it since the end months of her pregnancy, and after the birth of the twins.
She inquired about it; and he said he had to only tend to some urgent issues. She was aware that he was a well heeled businessma. Indeed, a very rich man.
Nevertheless, what matters summoned him often that it snatched away his night's rest?
She tilted her head to probe if he left any note for her on the nightstand, like he always did.
And surely, there, under a notebook, a square, bright yellow paper peeked out, with words in black ink scribbled over.
She looked away, it was probably the same reason. She observed the tranquiled newborn, now drinking milk from lids closed.
She traced the side visage of his soft features, glimpses of his father in the sweet face surfacing in her eyes.
A sudden knock on the door pulled Neva out of her thoughts.
She frowned making sure it was only three past thirty in the night shown on the digital clock on the nightstand.
"May I come in Madam?" A muffled, feminine voice reverbed out from behind the closed door.
"Come in," Neva returned.
The nanny promptly stepped into the room, loudly banging the door behind her.
"Careful, the children are sleeping," Neva reminded with a hushed, rigid tone.
Her face fell as she approached with loud clicking of heels, without respecting her cue.
But, what threw her off the edge was the eerie smile sliced up on the brims of her red lips.
She was always dressed in a black gown, black hair tied in a neat bun.
Neva thought she could almost resemble a nun.
Although today, she had gone astray from her habitual look with blaring lipstick and delirious behaviour.
Her demeanour echoed threat in Neva's bones.
She immediately separated from a sleeping Isaiah and sat up, arranging her open garment in the process, as the nanny closened to the crib, where her daughter lay.
"What are you here for Maria?" Neva inquired.
The woman longingly peered down at the child, then she slowly turned her head to look up at her, with arms drawn and hands calmly clasped behind her back.
"What else would I be here for, Madam?" Maria replied, grinning, her tone mockingly cloying.
Neva swallowed, her brows sunken. Anxiety pricked her toes as Maria hovered closer to the baby, she was scaring her for the turning reason she couldn't attest to.
"You're not needed, you can go back to your room." Neva sternly asserted.
Maria lifted up her index finger, nail painted in red, wagging as she let loose slick noises to tsk.
"I am your reaper. I am your freedom. Obviously, I am needed." She chuckled and shook her head.
Neva had shivers arising in her skin.
This woman was creeping her out. "M-Maria, get out. Now."
She craned up her thick dark brows at her harsh emphasis. "Are you afraid of me Madam? Don't be, I am not as cruel as your husband."
Maria perceived Neva's sneaking to get the phone placed on the night stand. "Don't even think about it!"
Neva flinched and dropped the device on the carpeted floor.
She gasped in horror.
Maria held a gun over the baby.
"Inaya," Neva's face was washed in aghast.
"Why would you summon the devil? Why would you fret about this appalling thing?" Maria poked the baby's head making Inaya stir.
She shook her head and made a disgusted face.
Neva's hands trembled. The hurricane in her mind roughly spinning, blinding her actions.
What would she do now?
"Please, please don't harm her," Neva's tears gushed out.
Maria wore a triumphant smile on her begrudgingly scarlet lips. "Such lovely mother you are,"
"We women shall always have each other's back. Do not fret, I shall sing them to sleep. After you."
---
In the frosty, gloomy night, a Rolls Royce sped through the vacant street, followed by the SUVs in the rear.
Ishmael was leaned back on the passenger's seat, head leaned back and eyes closed. His leps manspreading, impatiently tapping his foot on the floor.
His features contorted in irascibilty, his heart was sore, desiring to be with Neva, annoyed he had to leave her alone in the middle of the night.
He glanced down at his disheaveled form, wrinkled shirt three buttons down, navy blue tie loosened, sleeves folded up his elbow, stains of blood illustrated on the pure white shell. He would need to quickly shower before he slithered into the bed, and into her warm embrace.
He needed to be with her, rather than here in the assaulting car. Ishmael was rushing home after an important job.
The blood in his shirt wasn't his, but one of his enemies. The foolish man walked right into their trap.
The middle-aged man had it sown in his head. The fancy belief that him with his many union of king pins erecting to disgrace him.
He sighed, and an arm over his veiled eyes. He was aching to be with his wife and their newborn children.
It fluttered his heart, warmth drinking his all—his cold and devoid soul.
This few months with her, this few weeks with his son and daughter, it had been nothing short of rapture for him.
And he knew; they were the closest to heaven he could ever be. He loved them more than anything... everything.
Even if he had to collide heaven and hell as one, devastate the world or mend the earth. He would do it for them.
He would always protect them.
"Drive faster Zev," Ishmael for the umpteenth time said.
"Yes Raka." Zev calmly responded as he pushed the revs further up.
Zev had been working with him for six years. He knew him long enough than most. Raka had always a tyrannical aura cemented around him.
Although he was glad, in the gone by months, in the peaceful times, he would uncage himself off the armor of blades, and the brilliance in his eyes would unyoke.
Zev had appeared before Raka's beloved for time and time again, and when he was with her, he never missed the gleam in Raka's eyes derived from her presence.
He could see she was beautiful. But he just couldn't decipher the lengths he went to have her; a married woman with a child. There were many gorgeous woman for him to pursue and he never lacked in options.
Yet, he never desired another women. He never gave in to their strategies.
He was different, unnaturally strange to be such man in love, for it was ruthlessly more soliciting in the crime world.
The ladies could kill for a billionnaire, on top of that, he was good–looking. But Raka; he had instead always yearned for her.
Perhaps if Zev had been in love, he might be able to gather to complete the many missing puzzle pieces.
Nights were long and cold in February, snow raining down, smothered all over the path between the blackened, naked maple trees.
The armed guards opened up the grand iron gate. When he pulled to the driveway, he saw Ishmael to teleport on the porch with the speed he sprinted out the door.
His lips twitched to form a smile.
Who had ever thought he would ever see his boss this excited?
He was a husband in a honeymoon phase eager to see his newly wedded wife.
Then he saw Ishmael's jacket hanging haphazardly on the seat.
Sighing, he grabbed the jacket and walked out.
.
.
.
Ishmael had such lustre of passion in his eyes as he pushed through the entrance door open and walked in the portal to his paradise.
The front door gave way to a grandiose living room, a chandelier hovering over on the white ceiling.
Grey couches layered round the floor, blue pillows neatly scattered over.
Long, high stairs in the middle led the floor to where their master bedroom was, classing railing on the sides. Looking up to glimpse up, his eyes widened.
And abruptly, Ishmael had the ground beneath him cracking to succumb to the flames of acheron.
Ahead at the end of the stairs, on the landing; Neva stood stiffened.
Maria peeks from behind her frame, a gun aimed against Neva's temple.
"Took you long enough." The nanny grinned.
Neva drew a string to Ishmael's eyes.
Her lips quivered, fresh hot streaming down her tear stained cheek.
His heart crumbled, looking at her so fragile.
Ishmael fisted his hands, glaring at the uncanny woman.
She had now curly, fiery red hair loosened instead of her signature black bun, a smirk lining up the vermillion lips.
How could he have not seen through her?
"What do you need?" Ishmael spat.
His face turned so dark in anger as Maria brought a dagger to Neva's throat. Maria had Neva tilt her head back from the pressure of the cold blade, freezing her nerves.
"Don't you dare," Ishmael made to climb the stairs when the gun pointed at him seized his steps.
Maria clicked her tongue and slowly sliced Neva's skin making her shrink in pain, blood trailing down the milky skin.
"Stop!" Ishmael felt helpless.
She kept slitting further, and Neva wept clenching her fists.
"I said stop it!" Ishmael growled.
Maria did stop this time, still hovering the blade over her.
Neva's chest heaved up and down heavily, blood flowing down her gown.
"What do you need?" Ishmael gritted his teeth.
"What I need is your ruin. I will drink the blood of your salvation and sins."
Maria laughed and her head hurled back in ecstasy.