New life

"I'll make sure I find you."

Those words kept ringing in Mae's ears even after seven years that she had eloped with Aaron and started a new life. Seven years after Damian had last spoken to her in that park and encouraged her to run for the sake of her her child.

Three out of those years, she spent as the wife to the third in command of a mafia group.

After her last talk with Damian in the park that day, Mae had risked everything and gone to find Aaron with the money Alexander had given her the night before.

That evening, the couple fled the small town and didn't stop till they got to Aaron's family house.- more like family mansion if we are being fair-.

"You never told me that you came from a rich home!" Mae had softly gasped when the taxi that carried them from the airport finally rolled in through the third and last gate that brought them to a large fountain in front of a very gigantic house.

Aaron had sighed.

"This is the life I've been running away from, I told myself that I wouldn't want my child to grow up in a place like this but at the first sign of threat I'm running back home."

"Your family is important, there is nothing greater than family's love. let's just put it that this baby wants us to reconnect with your family okay?" Mae had spoken gently to him, intertwining their fingers as she spoke.

Aaron had just given her a wry smile.

"My family is not the type that you just reconcile with babe, my family is not really a healthy place to nurture a child. You'll see why, I'm only here because they are my best shot at protecting you and my child."

After three years Mae finally understood what her husband had meant and knew it was time to break it off with her inlaws while she and her husband and daughter find a new place to start life over again.

SEVEN YEARS LATER

“Christiana could you pass me the chopped vegetables?” Mae asked.

“Here mom,” Samantha jr slid the tray over to her mom.

“Hey Sam, when did you get back?”

“A little while ago, I was bored upstairs. Hey Christiana.”

“Hey pumpkin! Is Noah not upstairs?” Christiana called her by the nickname she had given her since she was a little girl and Samantha jr squeezed her face.

“Ma’am, the chicken is ready.”

“Please take it out of the oven and place it over there.”

“No, Noah took my brother out and I’m no longer a small child Chris! I’m Sam!” She whines and both her mother and Christiana chuckled.

“You are just fourteen.” Christiana continued, obviously enjoying getting a rise from the teenage girl.

“Almost fifteen!” She retorted.

“You have five months to go honey.”

Sam did not reply, instead she stuck out her tongue and brought her phone out, deciding to ignore the adult women.

When they had moved from her father’s family house as a toddler, Christiana had come to live with them.

Mae looked over at her daughter and she couldn’t help but smile at the striking resemblance she had with her father.

The resemblance made it easier for her to be hidden, Mae had named her daughter Samantha jr after her own alias. The name she had to change to after running away from Alexander, she remembered her husband’s family kicking against the idea of her choosing her husband’s alias as the surname but Aaron was solid behind her decision of naming her daughter Samantha Aaron jr.

A shiver ran down her spine as she thought about the name Alexander. Even after fourteen years, he still held a fearful place in her life.

She named her daughter Samantha because of what she had told Damian years ago.

‘Should in case something happens to me and her father, he’ll find the other Samantha and her brother hopefully.’

Christiana was an ex mafia member, she was only able to leave the gang after their leader got hit and they all had to scamper away for their safety.

Christiana had fled with her son and found refuge in a busy town where she started an underground business as a protection detail.

It was this same town that Aaron and Mae with their baby, had sought refuge too.

Aaron had met Christiana in a bar where she was doing a one off job as a protection detail. He had immediately sensed the kind of person she was and did not hesitate to offer her a long term contract.

“I’m only accepting this job because of the benefits and also because you have a child too like me.” Christiana had told him and that was how she moved into their home, she was supposed to be as an undercover house keeper.

After Sam’s twelfth birthday, her parents alongside Christiana had carefully explained to her the kind of family she came from and the circumstances surrounding her parents marriage.

Everything was explained to her and she surprisingly took it all well with a grin.

“Thank God this family is not boring then! I knew the intense self defense classes daddy enrolled me for was not just against boys.” “So when do I start proper training?” She had replied to the bewildered adults in front of her.

Christiana took Sam in and began training her, showing her what to do in terms of emergencies, where the emergency bags were stored in the house and also showed her different rendezvous points which she had mapped out.

Sam’s parents also took her on trips to show her different secret cabins including a private beach house they had bought in her name should there be an emergency that requires her to disappear with her brother.

Samantha learned how to drive but until she was sixteen, she could not take a driving test.

Now, Mae looked over at her daughter as she stirred the sauce she was cooking. A feeling of dread came over her as she also remembered something.

“Chris?”

“Yes ma’am.” Christiana replied automatically.

Usually, Mae would complain about the formality she had developed even after eleven years of living together but today she had a gnawing feeling that something wasn’t right.

“I received some gifts yesterday..”

Chris frowned slightly, she had known about the gifts of course.

A big bouquet of Mae’s favorite flowers and some gift bags which contained expensive gifts, she was sure.

“I know it’s not unusual for Aaron to send gifts like that but it’s unlike him.”

“What do you mean?” Chris asked, fully interested now.

Even Samantha was paying full attention now.

Mae dropped her voice down a notch.

“The note that was attached to the package, doesn’t sound like Aaron.”

“Show me!” Chris said with urgency and Mae looked at Samantha.

“Sam could you go up to my room? It’s on the bedside drawer, the side I sleep on.”

Samantha quickly rushed out of the kitchen and up the stairs, running as fast as she could.

She knew her mom never panicked over nothing, so this must mean something for her to be so anxious like this.

She got the note card and did not even glance at it till she got back to the kitchen, she met both adults in talking in low voices.

“Here is it,” she said announcing her return and handing the card to Chris.

Chris looked at it closely and shut her eyes.

“You think it’s him?” She asked Mae who nodded.

“I think Alexander has found me at last.” She said in a whisper.

Samantha’s blood ran cold, she felt a shiver run up her spine. She was very familiar with that name and the story attached to it.

“When last did you talk to Aaron? If those flowers came from Alexander with what you’ve told me about him then he should not know your favorite flowers.”

“True, I spoke last with him the day before yesterday. He told me he was going to be busy and might not call me.”

Mae shut her eyes closed and sighed.

“When the gifts arrived, I thought it was his way of saying I was still on his mind until I read the card,” she paused. “Do you think he has Aaron?” Mae asked with a shaky voice.

“I spoke with dad yesterday.” Samantha spoke out and both women’s heads snapped to her direction.

“How was he like?”

Sam shrugged, “he sounded like dad, just very tired.”

“What kind of tired and what did he say?” Chris probed.

“That he would be home soon? He misses me and he will always love our family. We are the most important thing to him and he’s blessed to have us.”

“He said he was coming back home today.” Sam said as she looked at her mother’s face.

“He always tells me when he’s coming back home, we have been through a lot for him to keep me unnecessarily worried.” Mae said quietly.

“Honey, I think your dad is being held hostage. Alexander never forgives.” She said with a voice void of emotions and Sam felt herself starting to panic.

Chris face turned blank and she reached into a drawer in the kitchen, opened a secret compartment and brought out a ziplock bag and emptied the contents on the kitchen island, arranging the parts of her gun together.

As she was busy doing that, Mae brought out some thermo flasks and began filling them with the food she had just cooked.

“Now listen to me honey, remember all the drills we’ve been through in case there is an emergency?”

Samantha nodded as she could not find her voice.

“Now we don’t know if this is an emergency but we have to be on alert. Call Noah now and tell him not to come back home with your brother not for anything.”

Sam immediately dialed Noah’s number and quickly relayed the message to him, before she was done her mother had packaged all the flasks with some disposable plates and cutlery into a picnic bag and zipped it up securely.

“Next I need you to go pack up stuff, you know everything. Go to the secret underground garage and load everything into the black sedan.”

“Also here,” Mae reaches into one of the island drawers and brought out a purse, Sam always sees her mother with this purse.

“This contains necessary documents you need and contacts but I need you to also get everything we’ve taught you in case of a scenario like this. Above all Samantha, I want you to remain calm.”

Samantha nodded her head and with a flash she left the kitchen with the picnic bag, carrying out the orders she had been given.

She stopped by her younger brother’s room and picked out necessities like she had been taught.

By the time she finished getting everything set into the car, an hour had passed.

Sam ran back into the house and to the kitchen.

She met a pained expression on both women’s faces and she saw that her mom had a gun in her hand also.

“Your father called.” Chris simply said.

“Did not sound like his usual self though, he was trying to convey danger to me through his voice. We’ve practiced that drill a lot of times.” Mae said slowly.

“Listen to me, if that gate opens and you see anything unusual, run to that garage and drive out. The way out is hidden, no one will find you.” Chris began dishing out instructions to Samantha.

“I hate to do this but here,” she said while handing Samantha a gun.

Samantha took it gingerly, she knew how to use it. Her father always took her to a shooting range and she loved it.

“Don’t use it except it’s necessary, do not let anyone see this.”

“The car you’re taking is in my name, the gun is registered to me. Should anyone stop you, show them this.” Her mother added while giving her a card holder.

Sam opened it and leafed through it, she saw the gun license and some other stuff she had no time to try to understand, she also saw her mother’s black Amex card.

Mae opened her mouth to say something else but her phone rang, interrupting her.

“Hi babe,” she said into the receiver with fake cheeriness.

“Mae.” The voice simply said and Mae froze.

Samantha watched as the blood drained out of her mother’s face and Chris swung into action immediately.

“Surprised?” The voice mocked her.

“You should at least come out to greet your husband.” He stressed at the last word with disgust.

Mae took a deep breath in.

“Alexander.”

“Ding ding! You thought I would never find you? You ran away with my money,” he said with a sinister laugh.

“I said come out!”

Mae looked at her daughter, she knew Chris was already upstairs gathering up their children things in their rooms to put on fire.

That was always the plan and that is why they never got a bigger house than this.

Put together the children’s stuff and burn it in their rooms, to remove all evidence of them existing in that house.

Mae knew she might not make it out alive so she turned to her daughter after hanging up on Alex, ‘he will be furious but I don’t care’ she thought.

“If you don’t hear from me in forty eight hours, Noah knows what to do. Hide Sam and protect your brother with your life, just like how your father, Chris and I are doing.”

Sam choked up, she felt tears running down her cheeks.

Her mother hugged her tight, “I will always love you and your brother, but get out of here fast! Find Noah and your brother Sam, take care of them. We owe that to Chris at least.”

Mae let go of her daughter and they both made their way through to the living room.

Chris appeared on top of the stairs and called out to Mae.

“Fire?”

“Fire.” Mae replied with full assurance, Sam understood what that meant.

Mae hugged her daughter one last time and walked out of the house through the front door.

Almost immediately she stepped out, Samantha heard her mother scream in the most agonizing way she’d never heard her.