Chapter 3 The Heroine

Taking a deep breath in and out, he put his hand on the knob and unlocked the door quickly, pointing his gun in the open and ready to fire.

He pushed open his door wider but suddenly saw Juls, his bodyguard, standing before him,

"Juls, it's just you!" he heaved a breath of relief,

"Yes Sir, we've taken care of the intruders, I used a silencer to avoid alerting the neighbours,"

"Good!" Chris sighed as he walked past Juls and ran down the stairs, heading towards the Kitchen,

"And the girl?" Chris asked, praying she was unhurt,

Suddenly, he saw one of his other guards pulling Raina with him from the kitchen as she fought and struggled to let go of his grip on her arm,

"Let me go!" Raina yelled,

"Let her go, immediately!" Chris commanded as the guard let her go,

"Sir? what's going on?!" she asked looking at two lifeless bodies of the huge men on the floor,

"It's none of your business!' Chris tackled angrily, " do you care to explain how these men got in?!" he demanded,

Raina shrugged regrettably, "I let them in"

Gritting his teeth, he asked word for word, "why would you let anyone into my house without my consent?!"

"I...I.." she stammered, "I was only trying to..."

"you were only being a busy body!" Chris spat in anger,

She tried to explain but he was too furious to listen, "get your things and get out of my house!"

Raina gasped, he was furious,

"But the food..." she protested,

"It can as well burn into ashes! Out!" he yelled at her,

And for a moment, she looked like she was about to cry,

taking her purse from the counter near the door, she walked away.

"and you better not say a word to anyone out there for your sake!" he yelled after her,

"Stupid girl," he muttered to himself as she closed the door after her.

"Ahem!" Juls cleared his throat first, "Sir, they were three of them, the third man escaped!" he informed,

"Any idea who it was?" Chris asked,

"not really Sir, right before we came in, we heard him escape through the windows, so we didn't get a good glance at him, and we can't identify these bodies either,"

Chris nodded thoughtfully as Juls quickly asked, "Boss, do you think it was..."

"Jack Triffling?" Chris finished, "I'm not sure, I'll look into the CCTV footage,"

Juls nodded, "anything else, boss?"

Chris turned around and stared at the lifeless bodies on the floor in disgust, "Clean this up!"

Juls nodded as Chris rushed back up the stairs, he rounded up his meeting, and by the time he was back down with his laptop, the whole place was spotless and clean, though there was the smell of bleach probably used to wipe off the blood stains on the shiny tiles.

The only odd thing was his missing Chinese piece from the centre table, it was a gift from his late grandmother who had a love for expensive Chinese wares,

Sighing, he thought, it was probably the clatter he had heard upstairs which had alerted him, if not, he might as well be a dead man by now.

He was most grateful that he never kept the vase holding his late father and sister's ashes in the sitting room, as that might have been the piece that would have been broken, and that in return would have shattered his heart beyond measure. That was the only thing he had of his late father and sister.

"How dare she unlock my door without letting me know?!' he muttered in anger,

He never made such silly mistakes, his house was built a certain way to keep invaders out, matter of fact, all doors were made of iron, and also, no one else had access to his apartment from the outside except its inhabitants,

And apart from him, Juls and Lucinda were the only ones who had that privilege. The former, for security reasons, and the latter, for exotic or business purposes.

"That silly girl, she almost got him killed," he thought,

He needed to watch the footage to identify the third man, he had so many enemies and couldn't guess which one had just made an attempt on his life this evening.

Sitting on the dining with his laptop, he clicked on and went on to rewind and watch the CCTV footage from his apartment, he saw the three men walk into the house, the man who had escaped looked like Bruce, Jack Triffling's right-hand man,

He paused the footage and zoomed in clearly, it was certainly Bruce, He could see the ugly scar that ran through Bruce's face and neck, Jack must have sent him to assassinate him.

Jack Triffling was a competitor in the pharmaceutical industry, he had been a threat to Chris' father and was now a threat to Chris, Matter of fact, Jack had murdered Chris' father in cold blood many years ago, but had left no subsequently evidence for Chris and his family to indict him with, and ever since, Chris had sworn to get vengeance for his father, but without involving the police this time, they would settle it man to man.

He would someday take life away from Jack Triffling in the same slow and painful way in which Jack had taken his father's life, it was the least he could do for his late father.

And after then, he was sure he would forgive himself for not being man enough to protect his family when they needed him to.

Chris continued watching the video again, he watched it carefully, and it was then he saw it for himself, it was then he saw what she had done to save his life, how she had saved his life by putting hers at risk, if she hadn't taken the risk of alerting him by breaking that Chinese ware, he might have been a dead man by now, not only him but even her as Jack's boys would never have made the mistake of sparing an eyewitness, they knew how to clean up properly after their dirty works.

He sighed, that crazy woman, first she puts his life in danger and then she puts hers at risk to save him.

He couldn't bring himself to say it, but he knew that he owed her his life.