Chapter 06|I'm the Native, the Native is me

Chapter 06|I'm the Native, the Native is me

.She was almost scared he had passed out, his poker face schooled expression was still on, his lips pressed in a tight line. None of her moves shook him and with each second that passed, while she watched his passive almost bored expression grow, She also grew desperate, angry, and then grunting she gave up exiting the stage.

   He was immune to her body, dead to her charms.

  So what next? She thought hurling her lampstand against the wall angrily later that night.

***

"Anything?" She impatiently asked Chucks, whose eyes were fixated on his computer.

   He didn't reply to her, as the clack-clack of the computer showed he was busy.

   She studied the rows and rows of computers in the team's tech room, in need of something to do rather than impatiently bugging Chucks.

  "He is almost non-existent until he became Governor. No scandals, no ex-girlfriends, no street bawls. He attended a Christian, seminary school... Was an accountant before becoming Governor and also a philanthropist. Look at billions of naira he donates to charity every year!" He said, his eyes growing wide at the figures he was seeing. "This guy is a living perfection, not a speck of even his hair out of place."

"Check his girlfriends. He is just 28. He should have his fair share of women all around him and a vengeful ex will do us good." She suggested. "Because an enemy of our enemy, is a friend."

   "There is nothing on the guy! He attends all the political mandatory events alone!" Chucks said, his nerdy framed glasses not hiding the shock in his eyes. "Wow"

  "If a politician's record is freakishly clean. Then there is something he is hiding. The problem is what are we missing? Check his family background." She suggests again.

  He clicks on his computer silently, his hands expertly hitting the keyboard as he quickly went to work, hacking into files that contained the life of the Governor.

   "Some information here are inaccessible. I need to have the passwords to access them. But from what I can see, his parents died when he was 10. His parents were traders. He was raised by his older brother, thus the seminary boarding school. His brother was a cop who died when he tried to resolve a street fight. A bottle was thrust into his stomach according to the records." 

   She pursed her lips, in thought.

   "Addictions?" She asked.

   "This guy is spotless. Don't drink. I haven't seen him with any alcohol from all the pictures of him I saw, only champagne or a bottle of non-alcoholic wine. No pictures of a cigarette in-between his finger and no affairs." Chucks raised both his hands in both awe and exasperation, "At this point if he even gets some action, he is damn good at covering his tracks." 

   "A Nigerian, Lagos Governor who is young, doesn't love women, hates to drink, and doesn't smoke. Who is Taiwo?" She thought aloud, staring at the space in front of her confused.

   "Guess what? His brother's best friend, a retired police officer is his security head. Not only is it hard to get to a Governor, who is usually heavily guarded. The fact that he has people damn loyal to him as a person, as just Taiwo. That just completely crippled our chances." Chucks said reaching for a stick of cigarette from its pack which was on the table, "This Bayo of a guy, can sacrifice his life for him." 

   She narrowed her eyes at him and then hits his hand making him drop it.

   "What?" He asked confused.

   "You are too young to be having CPR with that." She ignores his glare and instead studies the picture of the Governor which was on his computer screen.

   He shrugs.

   "This is the street, everyone has one in between their lips, and besides who cares about age in here? It is the survival of the toughest and smartest." 

  "No, this is not the street. This is not some ghetto where young boys are taught to be expert pickpocketers. Look around you, This is home. This is the Native, a dignified brotherhood that__"

   "Sells drugs and ammunition." He completed a lazy grin on his face that just screams, hope you hear how ridiculous you sound?

   So this is what I sounded like? she thought remembering similar arguments with her uncle.

   She rolls her eyes and tosses the pack of cigarettes out of his sight through the window. Then scraping a chair next to him backward, disrupting the quiet of the room for a second she sat down.

   "Guess the reason, I had said you could call me my name in private and not Sir like the others?" 

   He smirked.

   "Maybe because I know your middle name is Eniola and you don't want me to leak it." His lips were curved into a smug grin.

   She scowled, the sound of the name making her skin crawl, "You wouldn't even dare,"

   What were her parents thinking? Oh, she knew, how to be alive.

   "That is not the reason because you wouldn't Dare admit you have been snooping through my data." Then her face softened, emotions creeping into them as she held his hands which were on top of the desk. 

   "I could see myself in you. At 10, I watched you get so crazy whenever you saw a hint of pity in the eyes of any of the members and when you had punched a man who was thrice taller than you and older too, for calling you a mafia orphan? The anger in your eyes, your bloody knuckle since you couldn't punch right." She chuckled remembering the defiance in his posture, "They reminded me of myself. I don't want you to endanger your health__"

   "But you do it!" He accused.

   "I don't want you to be me!" 

   "But you are so cool, in your spandex pant and pistol holster, looking like a modern-day superwoman whenever you teach us how to hold a gun without shooting our legs." She chuckled.

   "I don't think you will say that if you get to do all the squats, drill, and whatnot I had to do, to get here." There was a comfortable silence between them as he typed in his computer while she gazed outside of the building through the blinds of the window she was sitting adjacent to.

   "I haven't smoked since Young died. Any time I hold a stick, I just feel his hand hitting it off mine, like he does when he was alive and it just drops on the floor. I never pick it." The words left her mouth before she could stop them as it felt like a confession overdue.

   He smiled at her.

   "We are not just some sick people who do drugs and peddle pellets. We watch each other's back. Some member of this family had taken a bullet for another. This is not the street where everyone is their boss, with a slogan of all man for himself. Here, we are responsible for every man, we have jurisdictions here, we nurture, we love, we protect one another." She paused holding his hand, "Here, I am the Native, the Native is me." 

   "I am the Native, the Native is me." He repeated their slogan and they stayed in that position for minutes.

   "Does it bother you?" He asked after some time.

   "What?"

   "The people you have killed?" 

   She glanced at his face, his eyes were closed and his breathing even, if not for she had heard him talk, he'd have convinced her, he was fast asleep.

   "Not as much as it should." She whispered.

   "I still want to be like you." He said, placing his head on her lap expecting her to push him as always, telling him she wasn't a mattress.

   She let him.