Standing straight, in Bob Lee's face Ishtar added worriedly:
"I don't joke with our son's safety Bob! With the way things are going, you must give me assurance that that bitch won't at any given chance hurt him."
Accompanying her concern with aggressive gestures, Ishtar faced away and once again added:
"Otherwise, I will have to unlive that hell of a bitch!"
Bob Lee, slightly concerned with Ishtar's serious reaction, he asked:
"Didn't you say you're off the assassin road? That you don't take people's lives anymore? Why again do you think of killing Nadia Browne?"
On a serious note she replied him:
"Well. I said so, but that doesn't mean I forgot my twenty ways of killing a stubborn housefly buzzing around my face destroying my peace of mind. I won't hesitate if that bitch happens to cross the line."
With a look of contentment on his face, Bob Lee sighed deeply. However, he seemed not enticed by the way Ishtar comfortably spoke about killing a person like it was normal to her.
"So, what are you planning to do now?"
Ishtar gave him a cold stare and said:
"You married her. So, it is your cross to carry not mine!"
Bob Lee's looked at her in a mute guilt. All of a sudden, his mobile phone rang from his trousers pocket. He fished it out and looked at the screen. Ishtar watched closely how he didn't show any interest in answering.
"Is it her?"
He nodded with a downcast gaze, very low in spirit.
Then she added:
"Look. Five years ago, as she coldly messed up with my sanity, she warned me that, if she ever sniffs me anywhere close to you again, before she skins me alive, she was to make my son disappear; never to see him again. In a vulnerable state I was in, laying down on the bed unable to move my muscles, she looked at me so tormented by her words and laughed her tears out."
Bob Lee listened attentively.
"Sorry, didn't know she reached that extent."
With sad memories piling up at the moment, jealously kicked in and she said:
"How would you have known? You were already drunk by the diet she was serving you in between her thighs."
Thorned, Bob Lee scratched the back of his head. Looking at how guilty he was haunted by his wrong choices, Ishtar knew she had to stop blaming him because he showed some remorse.
"I know you're regretful. But I haven't yet got over the pain. You will have to give me some time to get over it."
Talking anxiously, she added:
But then, that bitch is stubborn and crazy. If she succeeded in destroying our marriage, I'm afraid she may destroy our son's life too. You have to do something before its too late."
Bob Lee stepped closer and spoke with assurance.
"Don't worry. Nothing will happen to our son."
But to Ishtar, Bob Lee's word alone was not convincing enough for her to put down her guard. She stepped at a zero distance with him, her eyes displaying anxiety.
"In case you need to know, Nadia Browne is my worst nightmare. If not for heavens, who knows....? I would have been dead by now."
Ishtar lifted her hands over her head, gently opened her hair and showed him a part of her scalp with a sharp scar.
"This is how terrible I was injured."
Looking at how deep the scar was, Bob Lee frowned in shock.
"Nadia Browne did this to you?"
Ishtar organised her hair back and sat on the couch.
"Kind of! I mean, if she didn't fight me out of your parents mansion and completely took you out of my life by then, I would not have gone through the worst."
She began to narrate:
"That morning I left home, I went at the care centre for the disabled to meet my mother, the only person I had left to cry to about my troubles. Confounded, on a very heavy heart, with no where else to go to, I sat down on a bench and looked at my sick mother with bloodspot eyes. After some long minutes, as I was still sitting on that bench with my three days old baby, a young lady that I knew so well approached me."
As tears began to roll out, Ishtar added:
"Seeing how depressed, skinny and terrible I was looking with bloodspot eyes, obviously she knew something was wrong with me. Piteously, she asked and I thought I've found a friend in her. So, I narrated to her just a hint on my troubles. Little did I know that she was a wolf hiding under a sheep skin. With love, she carressed my shoulders and proposed to give me a shelter at her parents house, which I hesitantly accepted."
She sighed and added:
"It was the only option at hand and I had to grab it to secure a roof over my head together with my baby. But, after giving us a princess treat for three months, the family I trusted with all of me collided, worked hand in hand to end my life."
Bob Lee got inquisitive.
"Why?"
On rolling tears, Ishtar sighed and sniffed:
"They wanted our son. And after confirming that I was dead, they drove me miles away and dumped me in rough river waters to be washed away completely. Long story short, even the grown-up white beard man who fished my unconscious body out of the river took advantage of my amnesia condition. When he discovered that there was possibly nothing I could remember about myself, he trained me into an assassin."
She sighed:
"That's how heavens gave me a second chance."
Bob Lee's heart was deeply touched.
"I'm so sorry."
"It's okay. I killed the selfish man the moment regained my memory."
"And the vicious family that tried to kill you?"
"Of course you know them. They're the owners of that jewelry store where you bought my diamond ring."
"You mean Pixie and her parents?!"
"Exactly."
"Shit!"
"What?"
"Pixie's mother is Nadia Browne's aunt."
"You're joking, right?"
"I came to know about it when they came in as Nadia's parents the day I was marrying her."
"And Nadia Browne's biological parents?"
"Her mother, after giving birth to her, she went to marry a wealthy man overseas. She didn't want the man to know she had a child at her age and beauty. That way, she abandoned little Nadia home and never returned. Poor Nadia's father had no choice but give the little girl to his elder sister. But then, a few month later, he lost his life to cancer."
"How do you know all this?"
"After our wedding day, Nadia's aunty invited us for a feast at her home. That night, after a few glasses of whisky, the grown-up woman gave me a story."
Ishtar had no kind words for Nadia Browne even after hearing a touching story about her.
"Like mother like daughter."
"Our son Bimbo is five years old now. Do you know by this time I would be pregnant with our third child enjoying my marriage, building a beautiful home with a man I love?"
Ishtar sobbed angrily and added:
"But that bitch stole my life away from me!"
Anxious glances at eachother, Bob Lee had his own pain too:
"Nadia Browne destroyed me too. With her in my life, it has been hell. Until to date, she doesn't know that I know that the child she gave birth to is not mine. The little girl's father is Marlon, her ex boyfriend."
Ishtar blurted unbelievably:
"What?"
After a painful sigh, he added:
"Secretly, she has alway taken the little girl to meet with her father. After sharing a moment with his child, sex is one of the foods on their menu. When I started suspecting Nadia's movements, I hired a private investigator who gave me the painful evidence in picture and video. Then, I had to take the child for a DNA test."
On a downcast face, Bob Lee added:
I've been the saddest, Ishtar. I have always wanted to get rid of Naida Browne, but I didn't know how."
He added:
"Truthfully, I'm only thankful that you did not sign those divorce papers when I ignorantly presented them to you. That has always been the only thread of hope I'm hanging on, knowing that me and you are still husband and wife. All I've always wished for was to get my family back together."
He then took a worrisome deep breath and asked:
"Ishtar, hope you destroyed the photage after killing Nadia Browne's cousin, her aunt and her auntie's husband!"
"Why?"
"Besides police, the last person you wouldn't wish to know about it is Jake, Pixie's elder brother. According to what I heard about him, he is bad news. He lives in Paris, and has a record of dealing with mafia gangs. He won't give up on someone who killed his parents."