It was 1:06. Christmas morning. The crank phone call was no crank. But the man poured out his soul. Browne listened patiently until he became irritated. “I am going to do better than throw you out of my house. I will call the police and have you arrested. First you plan with your bunch of idiots to kidnap my daughter. And when they screw you out of two million naira you turn around, here and try to tell me someone in my family planned this whole thing?”

Chollong was undeterred for his soul. “Mr Browne, I know what I am talking about. I drove the getaway car. I was at the church when the wedding…the other wedding was held. Everything was planned, believe me.”

“Why are you telling me this? Your friends turned on each other and screwed you?”

The study door opened. Eman walked in. At the sight of him Chollong froze, his mouth dropped open in shock. “It’s him,” he pointed agitatedly, furious. “You did it all.”

“Yes, I shot your friend,” Eman affirmed. “And I will do it over and over again, you rat. Did you bunch of ninnies think you would get away with it?”

Browne didn’t have time to prepare. The bang shook his frame. But it made a hole in Chollong’s head, leaving a messy red splatter behind him. Browne looked then at Eman. “You shot him?” he cried as realization dawned on him. “Oh, my god, you knew each other. You were the one he was referring to.”

“You don’t take hints fast enough.” Eman sounded full of himself. “Now where were we?”

Outside it was lively, not calm. Christmas eve crackers and bangers let loose into the sky. Children shrieked. CDs blared. Carollers belted their melodies. Despite the happy chaos Eryka heard the distinct sound of a gunshot. She rushed to her feet, hurrying downstairs.

“The whole time, Eman, the whole time I trusted you, loved you like the son I never had, like the son I wanted, gave my only daughter’s life over to you. You turn around and stab me in the back.” Browne was filled with venom.

Eman grinned at the old man. “Don’t be so disappointed. This is business. Just making me a little money. It would have come from the firm sooner or later. Why not sooner than later.”

“For just two million?”

“Two million?” Eman repeated in a mocking drawl. “Nah. How about eighty-three point one four and six zeroes. Does that sound familiar? Of course. It is everything you are worth. Everything Eryka will be worth.”

“You are out of your mind.” Brown spat vitriol. “There is no way in hell I will let my daughter marry you after this.”

“Oh she will.”

“And how do you plan to tidy things up? Take her out too? For twenty-two years how could I have been stupid? I thought you cared about her.”

“I do. That’s why I will let her mourn you. Look at the big picture: after she marries me tomorrow morning she’ll find her old daddy dead. Of course she’ll mourn. But then she’s an only daughter and it will too hard on her, and she’ll be so distraught she won’t be interested in marital bliss anymore. She will harm herself and get out of the picture. Simple. Neat. Problem is: you have gone and brought things a little bit forward. But what has to be done has to be done.” Shrugging, he levered the cocked gun at Browne’s chest and fired once.

He heard two screams. Browne’s was more a groan. The other was from the doorway an instant before the chair slammed into the back of his head. The gun fell from his grip.

His look of surprise passed from father to daughter then turned to scorn. “Just what do you think you can possibly achieve by that?” he asked Eryka. He tore into her with a backhand, making her head follow with a slight spray of blood and curtain of dark hair.

Eryka fell away from him, gasping for breath. Her chest heaved like a swelling sea, her fingers clawed desperately across the rugged floor of the study. The force of his slap had knocked the wind out of her and getting it back seemed impossible.

“What, you can’t breathe?” Eman taunted. “You need inhaler?”

“Don’t…don’t…let…don’t let my little girl die, Eman. I beg you.” Browne’s voice brought Eman around. “For the sake of the friendship I shared with your father. Take everything…anything…you want…I can’t possibly stop you now.” He coughed harshly, feeling blood ooze over her chest, running from his mouth. “But don’t let her die.”

“I won’t, I promise to spare her life until we get married in the morning.” With pleasure he touched the blood oozing from the gash in the back of his head and looked at it like it was a war trophy.

“Over your dead body.” The voice came from behind him, firm and etched with anger. Eman looked around and into the barrel of his gun. Eryka’s hold was firm if anything, but he hardly shook with fear.

“What are you going to do with that, young lady?”

“The same thing you wanted to do to me and my father.”

“Humour me…you don’t have the guts to do anything. You’ve never been able to do anything in your life, so drop the heroics,” he said, advancing on her.

She backed away. “Don’t come near me, or I will shoot,” she warned. “How dare you think you could turn our family friendship into a murder spree and get away with it?”

“That’s a stupid thing to ask.”

“Yes. Because I just can’t believe I have been this stupid to think I was having one hell of a fairytale life.” Tears stung her throat. “For a while there I actually thought I had put you through misery by getting abducted. But you planned the whole thing…One big fat December.” The tears flowed down her cheeks; she wiped some off her face and mouth. “You used them, all of them, and me and my father. And then you took them all out one by one.”

“Stop spouting all that righteousness bullshit and take that thing out of my face. Otherwise pull that trigger if you have the guts, daddy’s little girl.” His face looked forbidding as he came on to her.

“I said, don’t come near me. Or I will shoot.” she warned. She inched toward the phone on the desk and picked it. Dialled a number.

“Then try and stop me.” He advanced further. “Who are you calling?”

She kept the gun at his chest level as she spoke into the phone. Calm. Cool. Without a hurry. Everything well thought out in her head. “My name is Eryka Browne. Twenty Prince Sammy Close. I need an ambulance…my father is wounded…A gunshot wound. Robbers…Hurry. I just shot one of them.” She cut the connection. “Merry Christmas, Eman.”

He lunged at her. Between them a deafening clap sounded, followed by a deathly still. Eman paused in his advance toward her; a red patch formed on his shoulder and began to dribble down his front. The sight of it made him charge at her.

The sound came again. Again. This time fear made he finger stick to the trigger like doing that would stop him coming for her.

Eman stopped totally, his eyes suddenly going pale. His breathing was ragged, tortured by fading light. His knees seemed to buckle. He pitched forward under no force of his and sprawled out on the rug at her feet.

Her breathing returned with the thud of falling body. She heard the groan that came from Browne. It brought her back to earth. The gun dropped from her hand. She knelt down, cradled her father’s head in her arms.

Browne spoke through the blood in his mouth. “Are you all right?”

The tears spurted to her eyes. Hate. Relief. Shame. Disgust. “Daddy, I am sorry,” she sobbed. “You’ll be okay. The ambulance will soon be here.” She rocked his head like he was a baby, tears streaming down her face uncontrollably, dripping into his. The torture was unbearable while it lasted. His difficult laboured breathing pricked her ears. Then she wailed suddenly into the calm December morning air. “Somebody, help me.”

Outside, the Christmas eve fireworks continued.

THE END.