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“Nest Tactics? Political thriller?”
Saiida smiled as laughter tickled the back of her throat. “Biology textbook,” she told Bach and set the hardback on the long, blackwood coffee table before the sofa.
Bach’s features contorted into a disapproving mask. “I keep telling Mus to update the library collection in this place. But...since he’s the only one who ever visits and, well...never reads.”
Saiida laughed. “The collection in this place is a librarian’s dream. I’m not reading for pleasure right now.”
“Kam,” Bach’s nod was resigned. “How is she? No one’s seen her since...”
“She’s going out of her way to stay out of sight-literally. She’s discovered some kind of spa wing,” Saiida shared.
“Ah yes,” Bach nodded. “The relaxation haven every lion needs when he’s pulled a muscle. At least, that’s what my big brother thinks,” he laughed shortly. “I don’t know if our folks would cry their eyes out or laugh ‘til they were blue in the face over what he’s done to this place.”
“I think it’s a marvelous place,” Saiida raved. “I believe I could get caught up on all the research articles I’ve planned to write and haven’t gotten around to if I weren’t here to-” her lovely features turned guarded.
It was easy for Bach to guess the reason for it. “If you weren’t here to help Kam. She’s blaming herself again, isn’t she?”
“Again? Hmph-she’s never stopped,” Saiida closed her eyes wearily. “Now, a new layer has been added.”
“She thinks we hate her for Asani, right? Would you mind telling her that he was an ass and a half?”
Saiida managed a miserable smile. “He was still your cousin.”
Bach only muttered a curse, massaging the back of his neck while walking the perimeter of the grand parlor. The overcast day gave the comfortably furnished space a distinctly mellow vibe. “Why does family always have to get in the way of a good relationship?” he asked.
“Oh...it’s what family does,” Saiida mused while curling up on the sofa.
Bach studied her for a moment and then laughed. Saiida joined in soon after.
“As simple as that,” he said.
“As simple as that,” she decided.
He joined her on the sofa. Tentatively, he reached for her hand, sighing when she didn’t resist the contact.
“We had a good relationship- could’ve had- in spite of everything, didn’t we Sy?”
“I thought so,” she said.
“But everything makes it impossible to try again, doesn’t it?”
She gave his hand a faint squeeze. “I think everything has been lumped into being bad when some of it was really quite good.”
“Meaning?” Bach didn’t care how hopeful her words made him.
“I focused so much on the negative when it was maybe the positive that made me afraid to try again.”
“Sy? I...don’t understand.”
She regarded their clasped hands. “I was so over the moon happy when I found out about the baby, I-I couldn’t focus on work. I could only think about how much I wanted to meet our child and raise it with you. I knew you’d be such a wonderful father and I daydreamed all the time about how amazing it would be.”
She inhaled deeply, exhaled on a shudder, “Losing the baby will always be in that category, but believing you’d be a wonderful father-knowing you’re a wonderful man...that’s in a category all its own and it’s beautiful.”
He winced. “I didn’t think I’d ever be considered beautiful.”
Saiida surveyed the formidable bone structure and coveted flawless skin comprising the to-die-for face. “I highly doubt that,” she said.
“So what does this mean for us?” he asked her.
“It means, I don’t want to keep dwelling on everything bad.”
“But you need more to go on than my beautiful man status.”
“Kind of,” she hugged herself and smiled. “Any ideas on how we can make that happen?”
Bach pretended to stretch and rested an arm along the back of Saiida’s side of the sofa. “I did come in here to ask you to have lunch with me. Maybe we can discuss it while we eat?”
Her smile brightened. “I’d like that.”
Bach stood, offering his arm. Saiida stood, accepted, and together they left the room.
***
Lesotho Highlands, Africa~
“This is not what we agreed to, Deke.”
“I disagree. You want revenge, same as me. The elders said their prayers and held their vigils for Suleja long ago. They said goodbye to her and forgot all about making those who took her away from us, pay.”
Deka Obu groaned, hiding her face in her hands before looking back at her brother. “Making them pay, means getting our hands on the Okonkwo serum. We agreed to use Kam Okonkwo’s importance to it as our leverage to obtain it. She was never supposed to be killed for it. This is about protecting women’s lives, not taking them.”
Deke Obu aka Julien Dwele, eyed his sister guardedly. “This is about the serum-only the serum. It’s not about giving the women of our tribe free reign to reproduce half-breed offspring.”
Deka regarded her brother levelly. “Did you ever care about why I joined you in this crusade? Were Suleja’s fate and the fate of all the other girls just something you pretended to be interested in so I’d join you and follow your lead with no questions asked?” She threw up her hand. “Don’t bother answering, I already know the truth of it.”
Now, Dwele-Obu regarded his sibling with fresh insight. “What have you done?” he asked.
“News of the serum and news that Okonkwo research was following a line similar to my own, gave me hope like none I thought possible,” Deka walked her brother’s study, pausing infrequently to observe the snowy tree tops from the wide A-framed windows. “I let all that...hope cloud what was right in front of me,” she continued, “the truth of what you had become, Deke.”
“I won’t ask you again, sister. What have you done?”
“You hated the Nkosi and the Okonkwo as much as I did for what happened to Suleja, but you still envied them- their power. The serum is power.” She resumed her stroll around the room.
“For you brother,” she went on, “taking Kam hostage was never about prodding them into working with us to complete the formula. In your eyes, the formula was already perfection- a way to build your army or gain allegiance from those desperate to be rid of the shifting phenomena.” She turned to him then. “Either way, you come out as a king, yes?”
“You told them where to find her,” Obu realized.
Deka lifted her shoulder in lazy acknowledgment. “I asked them to encourage her to help us. I told them how they could contact me and I left.”
“Left. Meaning you went to them and let them track you- you led them to her.”
Deka refused to answer.
Deke Obu shook with rage. “I should kill you for your treachery.”
“And I should tell you I’m not on some lone crusade. I’ve got an army of my own, big brother. Touch me and the serum will be the furthest thing from your mind.”
Obu chuckled. “You want my seat, little sister?”
“I already have a seat. If you’d been paying attention instead of focusing on ways to get Kam Okonkwo into bed while at the same time, betraying her, you may have noticed my movements. Now, you can watch while your machinations unravel around you. Your men will see you as nothing more than a petulant child pouting because he doesn’t have enough toys.
Then there are the elders to answer to,” Deka went on, her tone airy, unbothered. “Have you even considered the tribal consequences you’ll face if this situation worsens?”
“Bitch,” Obu spat.
Deka smiled. “I could call you the same, only difference is I’m a bitch with true power. Good day to you, brother,” she called on her way out of the room.