Emperor of Mayhem

|74| ( part two)

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BURN IT DOWN
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"Once again, welcome to Nigeria, ma'am." The pale-skinned man in a suit flashed me a tight smile. I snorted, couldn't help an eye roll. Of course, welcome me as though I was a stranger to a country I was born and bred in.

I took in a deep breath, inhaling the earthy scent of my mother's land. It had just been like a year ago that I was last here. But right now, it did feel like a strange place. That was what I wanted anyway, to detach myself from any memory attached to this country. But why did I feel so depressed that I felt like a stranger in my own country?

"Which side are we heading first, Boss?" The man asked from behind the wheel after Mikhail and I had settled in. I still had no idea how he even had people too in Nigeria. Was there a country Mikhail didn't touch?

"What's your name?" I asked, taking off my coat. I forgot how hot it was down here. I was literally melting due to the harsh Lagos weather. It would've been lovely if I had the liberty to make a stop at Tarkwa Bay.

"It's Lucas, ma'am." The man gave me a quick glance through the rear view mirror. 

"Are you very familiar with Ikoyi, Lucas?" I asked, lifting my handbag and fishing out my cell.

"I've been here for six years." His thumb drummed gently on the wheel, "I'm close to knowing every nook and cranny."

"Can you take me to Ebony Vault Cemetery?" I asked, feeling Mikhail's gaze cut sharply to me. 

"Cemetery?" Lucas asked, tone laced with confusion.

"Yes."

"We're going to a cemetery?" I looked at Mikhail and saw that his brows had threaded into a confused knit.

"What?" I raised a brow, "Scared of the dead?" 

He scoffed and turned away from me, his sharp eyes fixing outside the tinted window as the driver pulled out of the rental apartment where the jet landed earlier, and where we planned on spending the night.

I had a feeling this was the same rental apartment he was staying in that day he came to kidnap me from Nigeria. 

As we breezed through the busy Ikoyi road in Lagos, I refused to glance through the window even once. I didn't want to deal with any feeling of nostalgia. I had taken this road many times in the past. Made so many memories. I didn't want those memories to come plaguing my thoughts. But I couldn't distract myself with my phone. So I went to spotify to play some calming music, eyes closed with my Airpods on.

What I calculated to be around twenty minutes later, I felt the car slow until the engine stopped. And when the driver informed us that we had arrived, I was a bit too reluctant to crack my eyes open. 

This was the second time I was here. I never followed my mother's corpse to the burial ground that year. But grandma did take me to see her when I was about to leave Nigeria to Russia a few months after mom's death.

Unless a huge development had been made, I was sure I could still remember the path to take straight to my mother's grave.

Grabbing the white roses I got earlier on the way here, I stepped out of the car. Mikhail came down too, finding his spot beside me. 

He didn't ask any question. He definitely had twenty minutes to put two and two together to figure out why we were here or who we came to see. I heard him release a nervous breath as we moved through the path paved with with trimmed flowers  to the tall entrance gate made of marble and iron wrought.