"So, I just have to get my dad to sign this document and then get it back to you?" I asked the lawyer as he handed me three pages held together by a blue paper clip.
"Yes." He replied. He did not look happy about this.
"Thanks." I told him. "Can I get your card? I'll phone you once my dad signs it."
"Sure." He said pulling out his wallet from his back pocket.
I looked back at Finn. He fixed his shades and then returned his hands behind his back.
The lawyer handed me his card.
"Thanks... Steven." I said reading his name on the little card. "I'll call you soon. Please stay close to your cell."
Steven nodded slowly. "Why do you want to drop the charges against him, miss Genesis? Do you know what he did?"
I looked at him, then looked towards the door and then at him again not sure how I'd explain myself. "Steven, let's just say that some things are more important than others."
"I don't get it."
"I don't think you ever will." I told him. "See you soon."
I left the courtroom with the documents in my hand. When we got to the car, I opened the back seat before Finn could do it. I entered and he shut the door. I started going through the documents.
"Where to ma'am?" Finn asked looking at me from the rear-view.
"To the office."
He nodded and started the car. I finished reading the document but couldn't get my eyes off the last section:
I... hereby grant the release and dropping of all the charges that my company... have charged against... on....
Signature...
How was I going to get my father to fill out this form? Would he agree? I didn't think so. Steven even told me so. But there was no other way, unless I forged his signature. No. I can't do such a thing. Steven would surely find out because he is our company lawyer. He probably knows my father's signature very well.
"Can you hand me a pen in the glove compartment?" I asked Finn.
After much scratching, with his eyes darting to the compartment once every while and then back at the road, he finally recovered the pen. He handed it over to me.
Pen against paper, my hand began to tremble. I wrote. I filled in the form with my father's name and stopped by signature. I had to get my dad to sign this document. I had to. I had to think of some way. Nothing was coming. Surely my dad would never sign the form without reading it first. Unless I got him drunk. But how the hell would I do that? And on a Thursday?
This was frustrating! I put the documents down on the seat next to me and held my head in my hands with my curls falling over my shoulders. I tried to think hard but was disturbed by my phone ringing.
I dug in my pocket for it. It was Nathan. 5 missed calls. Oh my... How could I... What was I going to tell him now?
I picked up. "Hello?"
"Genesis where are?" He was asking. "I called you like 6 times, but you wouldn't pick up."
"5 times." I found myself correcting him and then grimaced.
"Does it matter? Fact is, I called you many times, but you didn't pick up. Your phone was ringing but you were not picking up."
"I... I'm sorry." I bit my bottom lip.
"Just... Where are you anyway? Penny told me you went to make some copies, so I went back to my office. When I came back after 20 minutes, she told me you went to the bathroom. I decided to wait for you in your office, but you are still not back. Where are you?"
"Uh..." I looked around. "I'm downstairs, just went to get another coffee."
The car in front of us honked twice.
"Are you driving?" He asked me.
"Uh... Yeah, I didn't feel like Rob's everyday coffee."
"Oh..." Nathan sounded a little not convinced. "Sure, come back soon."
"I will, babe." I said.
He hung up.
"Please drive faster, Finn." I told him.
"There is a speed limit here ma'am. Can't go any faster than this." He said.
"Ugh..." I groaned leaning back against my seat.
***
When we arrived at the company I took the lift past our floor. I went up to the last floor where my dad's office was. Finn stayed in the car.
Holding the documents tightly against my chest I left the elevator and began walking towards my dad's office. When I got to his door, I touched the handle but paused. The plate on his door read: Manager R. Roseburg
I was about to turn the handle when I heard Trisha's voice behind me.
"Excuse me. You can't go in there, Mr. Roseburg is having a meeting right now."
I turned around and saw her standing in front of her desk with a hotdog in her hand.
"Oh!" Her face turned into a beam. "It's you Genesis. Sorry."
I tried to return her smile but failed miserably. "Can I go in?"
"No." She shook her head. "Your father is in a very important meeting right now. But he'll be done in about 45 minutes to an hour."
"I can't wait that long." I told her. "You see, the thing is, I need him to sign this document for me."
"Sure thing." She smiled going to sit behind her desk. "Just give it to me, I'll read it and then when he's done, I'll ask him to sign it and then get it over to you."
"Uh no... It's confidential."
"I'm his secretary so it's totally cool." She assured me taking a bite of her hotdog.
"Nah... I'll hang on to it." I gave her a tight smile. "I'll just wait over there."
She frowned for a second and then wiped it away with a professional smile. "Okay."
I went to take a seat next to the vending machine. I couldn't stop staring down at the empty space my father's signature would soon be scribbled on.
Danlie Forbes... Yoké... I still didn't understand this. It didn't make any sense. But it didn't matter right now. I'll find out everything once I get him out of there.
An idea suddenly popped in my head. I smiled and got up from my seat. Trisha smiled back at me as I approached her. When I passed her desk, her smile turned downwards.
"Where are you going?" She asked me.
I opened my father's door and stood at the door post. The people in the room looked my way blankly. There were two Chinese men seated next to each other by my dad's desk. My dad, seated behind his desk frowned at me.
"Genesis?"
I waved the documents and gave him my sweetest smile. "I'm sorry to disturb. But I kind of..."
My dad got up and tried a smile. "Sorry about this."
He came towards me.
"What are you doing here?" He looked behind me. He was whispering. "Where's Trisha? Didn't she tell you I'm in a meeting?"
"Yeah, she did, dad but..."
"These are very important clients."
"I know dad..." I said. "The thing is, I can't do my work, I need your signature."
"What do you mean?" Raphael asked me.
"You added the article department to my job description. The board don't know that. Apparently, they need your signature on this that states that I have full authority to have the last word." My phone began ringing. "I'm sorry."
I quickly hung up.
"Ugh..." Raphael groaned looking back at his clients and then back at me quickly. "Give it to Trisha, I'll sign it once I'm done."
"The thing is, I'm getting behind with my work. I can't do anything without your signature on this."
He looked behind me impatiently for Trisha. She had the telephone to her ear but looking over at us nervously.
"You know what..." He tapped his pockets. "Where do I sign?"
I held out my pen to him. "Right here, dad."
I pointed to the empty space and tried to cover as much of the statement that I could with the rest of my hand.
He put the pen down on the paper. Ink already making a mark on the paper, he stopped and looked up at me. My heart began beating so fast that I thought my dad realized it too.
"We have nothing left because of him." Dad said, staring at the ground. "I can't believe I trusted him that much.""Who is it, dad?" I asked."None other than your very own half brother, slash cousin, slash no relation at all, Francis.""What?" I asked. "What is he looking for? He wants to make money out of Toko Village meanwhile he is stealing from us and still gets a basic salary on top of that. How can someone love money this much? So much that you'd steal from your own..."Alice and Yoké joined us, they had heard the news too."I knew that that sneaky guy was dodgy." Alice said as she stopped behind the couch Delilah was sitting on and leaned on it.
Uma was awake, and as soon as we entered his ward and he saw us, he smiled, looked away and began sobbing. He covered his hand over his eyes and sobbed. "Aww." We chorused in unison, as if we had planned to. "Don't cry babe." He's girlfriend, Esther said, quickly walk-runned to him. She sat on the side of his bed and hugged him. She hugged him for a while as he continued crying. "We are here..." She told him, she looked sad too. "We love you and we'll always be here for you." Yoké stood behind next to his bed, the opposit side to where Esther was and placed his hands on the cotside. I came over to her side and she stood up to let
I stopped at the door way before entering the living room. He was in a navy blue suit, standing next to the couch, instead of sitting. Rosalie had just brought him his drink. He briefly pointed towards the table where she was supposed to place his drink. I went to sit on the couch opposite the one dad was standing next to. Yoké stayed at the room door post and leaned against it.Dad paced to and fro and stopped where he had started."So we've lost more than half of our clients..." Dad said, voice still powerful although the sad message.I kept quiet and watched him."We've lost most of our projects we were busy with, the clients asked to cancel their contracts or else they'd take us to court. Most of our employees, has resigned because they see the downfall. They know that we won't be able to pay them. Only the loyal ones remain."He then shrugged. "Maybe they're not even loyal. Maybe they are just
We stopped a block away from the motel just incase there were people put in place by Nathan to watch Yoké. But we could see the motel from here. It was a cheap old building. So cheap that the light of the ‘M’ in ‘Motel was flickering so bad that you’d think it would just die any moment. “So what will happen is you’ll give me Nathan’s phone so that when I get in, I can ask him which room number he is at.” The woman half turned to talk to me.“But I’m going in with you.” I told her.She shook her head. “I may not have been entirely loyal to your father but I’m not bad enough of a worker to put your life in potential danger.”“What do you mean danger? I’m—”“I have a gun. Although I’m going in there alone, I know how to defend myself up to a certain point. We don’t know whether Nathan’s men are in there, or around here, in some building, possibly watching us right now. What happens if they fire at us?”“They’ll never fire at me—”“You d
"Yoké...""Gen— Genesis is that— oh my, are you okay?”“I’m fine Yoké. I’m fine.”“What— how did you— Did Nathan put you on the phone with me?”“No Yoké. You don’t ever have to worry about Nathan ever again. He’s in custody…”“Nathan is in custody?”“He’s gone. He’ll never stand between us again. It’s all good now.”“No, no, no Geny. You don’t know Nathan, he’ll never be ‘gone’. You have to hang up right now and never call this number again.”“I’m telling you, my love. It’s over for him. The police have him and my dad knows about him—”“Look Nathan can’t be in custody. We have a— Look, I’m sorry Geny but you and I can’t ever be together. It will never work. Just p
I slammed the car door and fell back on the back seat. The woman, who was supposed to shut the already shut door for me gave me an unbelievable look and then got into the driver's seat."So what happened to your twin? Isn't he going to come with us?" I asked, bitterly."I understand you're upset that your father won't help you with your boyfriend but you don't have to take it out on me, or the car door." She told me looking back at me.We maintained eye contact for a while until she turned back and fastened her seat belt. She started the car and we were on the road again after a few minutes.I was too angry to care about how much this woman was looking at me in the rear view mirror."What?" I suddenly asked after a while of more rear view eye contact.She suddenly stopped the car causing me to fall forward and hit against her seat."Hey!" I shouted as I sat back in my seat. "Are you crazy?""Look, I'm not sure whether or not Mr