CHEATED : EPISODE 1 – 20
Episode 16.
“So my dear, let me know more about you.” Mrs. Gladys said as she sat down with Kingsley in the late afternoon period, as there was no customer to attend to.
“Okay my name is Kingsley and I live not too far from here.” He said briefly.
“You stay with your parents?” She asked as he shook his head in the negative.
“Okay that’s understandable, you’re a grown man. How about your siblings?”
“They’re fine.”
“Do they stay with you?”
“No.” At this point, Kingsley was beginning to feel uncomfortable as he doesn’t love to talk about his private life with people, so he decided to flip tables.
“So ma’am, how did you startup this restaurant? From the look of things, it seems you’re new to the business.” He said as she chuckled a little.
“New to the business? No my dear, I’m not. I’ve been into this business for about a decade now and apart from my little beginnings, things went well and smoothly until recently.
I honestly do not know, neither can I understand what actually happened but for about two years now, I’ve been making nothing from this business but rather it has been running me into debts.” She said, trying to hide her sad countenance with a smile, while Kingsley thought for a while.
“Hmmm…….do you happen to have a rival or something?” She said as she laughed a little.
“What business would you go into and you’d have no one competing with you? Of course I do dear. She’s five buildings away from me here, and she came once to complain about three years ago, that I get more customers than herself who has been here before me.
I tried explaining that I wasn’t doing anything but she was too angry to hear me out..
She further said people leave her restaurant that’s close-by and take the pains to come to mine.
Me I didn’t understand anything she was saying, and after a little more talks, she stormed out of my shop.
CHEATED : EPISODE 1 – 20
Eight months later, things began to change and I can’t trace it to her at all because she didn’t do anything. If she did, it would’ve been soon and not in that large space of time.”
“Hmmm….so you believe she doesn’t have any hand in your predicament.”
“I know so. Besides, what I think or feel is the problem is that I don’t employ the right people.
You happen to be 8th person I’m going to be working with since about two years now; it’s not like I change my workers every now and then but to save my business, I do.
My workers have been cheating me, even the ones that look innocent and decent.
It’s either they steal my money or don’t cook well, leading to the complaints of my customers, or they don’t do their jobs well.
They’ve just been misbehaving around and I didn’t understand them.
The last person I employed before you left because I wasn’t able to pay his monthly due as agreed but it wasn’t my fault; I’ve recorded alot of losses in this business and I didn’t really know how to go about it.
I was thinking as the months go by, things would be better and I’d pay him up with double interest but unfortunately he wasn’t ready to wait for all that and honestly, I didn’t really see any better day coming anytime soon.” She narrated as Kingsley listened.
“But ma’am, have you decided to pray about your situation?”
“Yes of course! I pray every morning before I leave the house and before I start the business of the day. I even pray before I sleep. My dear, if it’s about prayer, I don’t joke with it.”
“If she’s this prayerful, why isn’t she powerful enough to make situations turn around in her life? Something really isn’t right.” Kingsley thought to himself as he listened.
Mr. Folawe kept pacing up and down in his large office, as he had a feeling something has gone wrong at home since yesterday but just couldn’t place his fingers on it.
He had gone home yesterday evening and asked Emma if anything strange happened while he was away, but Emma convincingly told him everything was well.
“Something is wrong and I just know it.
There’s something crucial Emma isn’t telling me because this isn’t an ordinary feeling in any way.
Besides, him taking an excuse to be absent from work yesterday and today again is so unlike him.
It’s a pity I can’t leave office now until I attend to this particular file this evening.
I just pray things are fine.” He said as he resumed work.
“Kingsley something’s up.” Emma said as soon as he was ushered into his empty room.
“Emmanuel what is it because I don’t seem to understand you o. How serious is this something that made you travel from one state to another to see me?
I said I was going to call you this evening so we can discuss better now” Kingsley said as he brought out water to offer him but he reject abruptly.
“See guy forget that thing.
Ur call was taking too long so I took a flight here for us to……” He said as Kingsley subconsciously opened his mouth.
“You did what?? Emma, you dey waste money o.”
“True, but this case that’s not it. I’m only trying to save my life.” He said as his words caught Kingsley’s attention.
“Save your life from what exactly?” He asked and there was silence in the air for a while.
“Say something nw.” Kingsley said, trying not to get pissed.
“Guy I don’t even know how to explain, and I don’t know if you’d believe me.”
“Explain anyhow and don’t worry, I would believe you.”
“Okay. I took a break from office yesterday because I wanted to stay with my sick mom. In the evening period I was so bored so I decided to take a stroll.
You remember me telling you about the day I received the beating of my life as a child?” He said as Kingsley chuckled and nodded in affirmation.
“Ehe, you know that time I told you it was because I tried to enter my dad’s room he had warned me not to go to.
It’s actually not the total truth.
The truth is there’s this particular door that has been under lock and key since and out of curiosity, I decided to know what was there and on trying to open the locked door, I was caught by my dad and he beat me to stupor.”
“Okay?” Kinsley said with raised brows, not understanding exactly where he was heading to.
“The thing is I saw the door ajar yesterday and decided to satisfy my curiosity and I saw something I shouldn’t see. Now I’m scared of what could…….”
“Chill chill chill. Nigga calm down. What exactly did you see?”
“Hmmm…..okay.” He said as he motioned on him to move closer.
“Guy I saw my grandma standing with a Calabash on her head.” He said, almost in whispers as cold chills ran down K’s spine.
“Your grandma is fetish? Wait. I thought you……”
“Guy my grandma died long ago. What I saw was her corpse. How it got there is what I do not know.”
“Hia. Wait, why are you telling me?”
“Are you not a Christian? I believe you’d know what to do nw. See guy I no wan die o.” He said as K looked at him sharply and paced around in his room.
“Emmanuel please go and meet a pastor, I’m not one.”
“How will a pastor understand what I’m saying?”
“Good question. If you assume a pastor can’t understand what you’re saying, how will I now understand?”
“God can reveal something to you nw. You’ve been preaching Jesus since we’ve been in secondary school and how he’s all powerful and I concluded you’d know how to go about this……”
“Blood of Jesus! A mere Christain like me?” Kingsley exclaimed as he opened his eyes wide
“Guy shouting won’t help here. Please pray and let’s know the next step to take before something terrible happens o.”
CHEATED : EPISODE 1 – 20
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