Can’t catch a break
1415 Words
Nathan
I am still shocked as I lay still on the floor. My back hurts like hell with shooting pain descending from my back to my numb feet. I don’t need to have a medical knowledge to know that this is bad. In a few second, I can’t feel my legs at all.
I look at James, who waves at me with an evil grin on his face as the elevator doors close.
“Amari!” I shout out and hope that she can hear me. Our door is a few feet away from the elevators. My phone is on my trousers pockets, but I will need to move my back to reach it.
“Amari!” I call out again and hear the door opening.
“Nathan!” my wife cries out before rushing to my side.
“What happened?” she asks with that genuine tender voice.
“I tripped over. My back hurts and I can’t feel my legs,” I lie.
I now know how protective she is of me. She will completely lose it if I tell her that James did this. I won’t be able to stop her from storming to his apartment and it might just be what the i***t wants. He has tried to abduct her before, I can’t risk her being anywhere alone with him.
“Don’t move, that might worsen the injury. I will call an ambulance,” she advises with a shaky voice that breaks my heart.
Two hours later, I am lying on a hospital bed with some metal stuff holding my back and preventing it from moving. It’s so uncomfortable, but I am no longer in the excruciating pain I was in when I got here.
“It’s my fault. I should have never pushed you to walk so fast,” Amari says with a trembling voice while I shake my head and squeeze her hand.
“Babe, my fall had nothing to do with you. It was a freak accident,” I tell her for the fifth time.
“I should have gone down with…”
“Amari, please listen to me. You are a wonderful, loving and supportive wife. I am truly blessed to have you. You need to accept that you cannot protect me from everything,” I interject. I can only imagine how worse she would feel if I told her that James did this.
“Nothing is broken, it’s only swelling,” I remind her what the doctor told us after looking at my magnetic resonance imaging. “I had swelling before and it came down. I could walk again. It may take time, but it’s not impossible,” I add and she nods. She was here when the doctor informed me of my results.
It is almost dark by the time I manage to convince Amari to go home and rest. I call Isaac the moment she leaves the ward. He is shocked and angry when I tell him what happened.
“You cannot tell Amari the truth,” I say and he is with me on this.
“It seems you two can’t get a break,” he declares and that’s exactly how I feel.
“Do you need anything?” he adds.
“Yah. I might be here a bit longer. James is up to something. I need you to look after her,” I state my request and Isaac is ready to help as usual.
“Of course. You don’t even have to ask. I will go and check on her.”
“Would you please let me know if she got home safe?” I ask and push away the thought that James might be outside the hospital waiting for her as we speak.
“Sure thing, man.”
I call the police and open a case as soon as I get off the phone with Isaac. Two detectives arrive a few minutes later. I can tell as I relate what happened that this case is not going to go anywhere. I somewhat expected that. All I need right now is a trail of documentation of all these assaults with case numbers. I realised my mistake when I did not press charges the first time that i***t assaulted me.
“Basically, you did not see Mr Connor kick your walking stick,” the officer enquires.
“I had my back on him, it would have been impossible for me to see him,” I respond. It is tempting to lie and say I saw him, but a good lawyer can figure that out very fast. I have already stated that I was leaving the elevator when all this happened.
“You could have tripped,” the other officer suggests.
“Or the only person I was in the elevator with, the one who has assaulted me before, set me up and tried abducting my wife most likely did this,” I say firmly. I know that their recorder is on, so they can’t outright deny my allegations. Everything on record is all I need.
I immediately call Brian after the officers.
“Get duplicates of my case and those recordings.”
“Already done, Sir. It seems that Captain Swart was shot a few hours after you were released. He is in the intensive care unit,” Brian responds. That explains a lot. The only cop who could have kept James in prison just had to be shot that very day. It is too much of a coincidence.
“Get someone to probe into his shooting,” I instruct. I can bet on my life that James and his crooked cops had everything to do with that.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to get someone to take this guy out?” Brian asks. I frantically shake my head. That will be too easy of a way out for that scoundrel. I plan to make him suffer and wish he was dead for his sins.
“I am certain. How’s the investigation into my car going?”
“Nothing yet, but Paul has some ideas of how it might have happened. It’s the first breakthrough we have had in months.”
Paul is my late housekeeper’s son I meet in prison. I had Brian find him a lawyer and hired him. It turned out that he had some mechanical background which he was using to steal cars.
“Okay, keep me updated and have my wife protected by every means.”
“Yes, Sir. I have skilled professionals watching her twenty-four seven.”
“Don’t spook her,” I warn and he laughs.
“We won’t. You just have new neighbours on every floor of the apartment and new church members,” he says.
“You already had this in place,” I accuse, his silence confirming it.
“You were assaulted and arrested, I had to do something,” he explains himself, sounding guilty as charged. “Yes, I have the footage from the elevators and every floor,” adds while I shake my head. This man is more than an employee and friend. He is a brother I never had.
“Good. Get eyes in his apartment. I need to know what he is planning.”
“Done, Sir. Nothing on your wife yet, but a lot of criminal activity. This guy is evil, dirty, and as crooked as they come. He is trying to steal the company funds.”
“Send me what you have, but don’t act on anything until I give my go ahead,” I advise.
“But, Sir, he can go to prison for this and keep clear of you until we solve your accident,” he objects.
There is no middle ground with Brian. He either likes you and will die for you or he hates you and prepared to go all the way to hell to get to you. He hates James.
“Like he went to prison for setting me up and abducting my wife?” I ask a rhetorical question and he gets it.
“I guess he roams free then,” Brian’s dejected tone is unmistakably.
“Look, mate. We have to be patient and thread carefully or we will miss the hibernating snakes that tried to take me out,” I try to remind him why we are doing this in the first place.
I can rest and focus on my recovery knowing that Amari is safe.
- Writer
