chapter 4

He said a quick prayer in his mind, He thought of looking at the photo of his father in his hands but the ropes denied him the opportunity. He lay there on the foot mat, turning himself to the opposite direction, submitted himself to the weight of the pains and bowed his head in a slumber. The two dingbats at the front seat had to put on the music player because of the loudness of his cries. They placed it on a high volume. It woke him from sleep several times. He spent most of the night in tears.                                              “Boy, wake up”, said a smooth-voiced figure above Wole. He tapped Wole several times pulling him aback from his sleep. Wole was having a bad dream, where he saw his beloved father being tossed into a river by two men on black putting on shades. “Daddy No!!!”, he screamed. He woke up exhaling loudly. He was full of fear in between worry. He was surprised at the environment he found himself. He was all alone exempting the tall muscular figure above him. Looking around with his right eye, he found himself in a very big vegetative field. He found out that he was no longer tied up and got up with speed in an attempt to run. But after he ran a little distance from where he got up, he looked all around and discovered that there was not a car in sight. As far as his right eye could see all around was vegetation.

“Boy”, said the figure again. “Where do you think you are running of towards?”, he added. Emeka and Ambrose had sold him off to someone as a laborer few minutes ago. “Please, please don’t kill me, please”, cried Wole. The bruise under his left eye began to bleed as he cried. He knelt down and begged the figure above him. “Come on, get up”, said the figure trying to lift him up. “Oh dear!”, he exclaimed when he saw the huge bruise under his left eye. He carried Wole in his arms like a sheep off to be slain. He took Wole inside a big warehouse located at the average middle of the fields. “Please take me home, I want to go home”, cried Wole as the man dropped him down on a sofa. Wole saw him make a call and in a few minutes a lady came from a room dressed in a more classy way than her physical appearance foretold of her. She brought out a first aid kit and handed it over to the man.                                                            

The man before him was Charles Rowland junior the 3^rd, the richest drug lord and drug dealer in the continent of Africa. He owned various drug baron-based warehouses in majorly all the countries in Africa. The very warehouse that they were in was one of his numerous houses. His source of income was drug making and drug dealing. Kidnapping and buying victims of kidnappers was one of his major areas of expertise to get people to work for him. He booths his victims off to one of his numerous houses where they work endlessly day and night. Surprising enough, he was not into the drugs he made he was the maker and not the taker. “Don’t worry, I would not hurt you, I just need you to cooperate with me. Can you do that”, said Charles as he cleaned up the running blood from his cheeks. He had the power to tell anyone to get that done but he decided to do it by himself. He wanted a personal chat with his latest employee. Among all his victims he scarcely talked to any of them not to mention show them car. He had people who he pays to do that for him. He felt among all the children he had held captive, this new boy was special. Based on the fact that he was not naturally cold-hearted he was able to tell that the new kid’ being present here was not the only thing troubling him. Something else occupied his young mind that obviously made him cry.                                                                                                                                        

“Please take me home, I don’ want to be here. I want to be with my father”, Wole said trying his best to hold his tears. He was just ten years old. How wicked the world was beginning to turn on him. In all, he needed to be strong for the sorrowful days ahead. “Stop crying, you are a big boy”, said Charles as he carefully inserted an antibiotics concentrate on the wound. “What is your name?”, he asked forming a smile. “If I tell you my name will you promise to free me from wherever this place is and take me home”, said Wole cleaning up his snorts.  Charles neatly plastered the wound. “Here, use this”, said Charles offering him a handkerchief. “Tell you what, you tell me your name and I will get you something to eat as I can see that you are very hungry”. “ I want to go home my daddy said that I should not talk to strangers”, said Wole shying away his face. “I do not know how you got that nasty bruise but I have just cleaned that all up nicely for you…… Don’t you think that makes us friends?”. He had gotten to his peak and could not take it anymore, one false reply from Wole and he was sure to pour down his anger on him. Begging people was not what he actually does. He just tells people something and they concur, those that refused he either settled them in cash or had them murdered mercilessly.