DOPE Episode 9 by Erasmus Ugochukwu Okafor

DOPE Episode 9 by Erasmus Ugochukwu Okafor

**Ramon returns**

Stone was judicious and clever enough to reactivate the chip implanted on Hugo by Gustavo few months after the computer programmer deactivated it. For all the years they were running the business together, Hugo never knew that a higher version of the technology was in his body and even Gustavo couldn’t detect it amid his technical prowess. He was actually tracking Hugo, and not the chip fixed to the safe because he was assured that as Hugo tracks the money, it’s easy to locate the cash through him.

Before taking off to Florida, he, first of all, located Larissa to use her as a bait to lure Hugo out of hiding.

As Stone was about to take off from the Brazilian airport, he got a strange call from a lady’s voice. He didn’t talk but listened because he was naturally the suspicious kind of guy. As he listened, the woman said: “I think it’s better for you to give up this fight or you stand to lose everything. Allow the girl to be freed and fight like a man, meanwhile, the money you’re going after isn’t yours. I know everything and I know it is Ramon Fuentes’s money, not yours,” After that warning, she hung up.

Stone never got such anonymous call that got him wondering who the lady could be. He was just so surprised and worked up even when he tried to conjure some confidence and act like it was nothing. He just had to play along to know if he could recognise the voice of the caller and outsmart her with his gift of wisdom.

“Hey, who are you. Show yourself if you’re as strong as you sound,” Stone barked to the cell phone but the call was already hung, so he was just talking to himself without knowing.

“Sir,” Anderson, one of his bodyguards, called, “who’re you shouting at?”

“A lady who claims to know everything we know,” he answered and left with a heavy tread to his car. “Let’s head to the airport and fight for our rights,” he commanded.

In the white limo, the call came again from the lady. Stone was eager to take the call to know if he could run a trace but the phone line was encrypted, so it wasn’t easy trying to decrypt it.

“I’ll soon show myself,” The caller barked, “but I assure you that you’re fighting an already lost battle because I have something that can crush you and your men without having a close contact with you. This isn’t a threat, man but information being passed to make you tighten up your methods and security,”

This was just an enormous threat that throbbed Stone’s heart into dilemma and uncertainty. At first, he thought it was an empty threat but the caller was being so assured of her methods and I pending victory that made the hardhearted man to start nursing some fears even though he didn’t want to admit it.

“Reveal yourself now or you stop calling me on the telephone!” Stone warned. “You’re a coward!” he howled angrily.

After laughing scornfully at Stone because she knew that he was would be busy trying to track her location, she got so serious and said: “I have your entire telephone lines, so you don’t need to worry about that. If you must stop getting my calls, then you’ll switch off your entire mobile phones including your business cell phones and internet connections. Listen, I’m your worst nightmare,”

Stone really felt threatened but was so angry that he couldn’t just crush the enemy in the wink of an eye because he couldn’t trace the call.

“You’re a punk ass,” he mewed and hung the call abruptly.
Stone was as infuriated as he was bedevilled because he couldn’t just understand what was happening to him for getting a ghost and anonymous call from a stranger.

At the airport, Stone contacted his gang members in the US to be prepared for war. He promised them large sums of money just to work with him. He even suggested the recruitment of more men, to help in the fight.
Getting to the US, Stone kept following the tracking device that led him to Hugo and discovered that it kept hovering around the warehouse which made it obvious to him that the location of the money was at Washington Avenue.

He sent Anderson to check out the location of the money. The loyal guard went incognito disguised as a fruit seller and discovered heavily armed men around the warehouse and sent back his report to his boss that the money was discovered but it wouldn’t be easy to take over the warehouse due to the impregnability of the area.

It was time to use his plan B to make it work. Stone made a call across to Hugo’s phone but by then, Hugo was at the beach undergoing serious training with Andre to be prepared to meet Stone and his men whenever they would come.

Hugo was surprised getting a call from a strange number which made him hesitate before taking the call.

“Hello, who is this?” he asked knitting his brow as he listened to the background to pick any sound he could.

All of a sudden, he heard Larissa voice: “Leave me out of this mess and allow me to go back to Brazil,”

“Stone why did you bring Larissa into this?” he asked feeling tensed.

“I’m glad you’re still intelligent to understand and recognise voices of loved ones,” Stone jeered, “Let’s go straight to the point…”

“Allow the girl to go. You heard her, so don’t hesitate,” Hugo retorted, “This is between me and you, so don’t try to score cheap points and man up,” he added in a deep angry tone.

“What happened to Gustavo Paulo is about to repeat itself if you don’t start talking now,” Stone threatened and laughed sheepishly and angrily, “You already know my methods. I’m not a very patient kind of guy and I don’t bat an eyelid when I’m slaughtering baits.

Where is the money? The phone is on loudspeaker, so your girl listens to everything you’re saying; therefore, choose your words wisely if you don’t want her to feel that you’re as hardhearted as your daft dad,”

Hugo was really pissed when he heard Stone insulting his dad, but at the same time, he remembered what his dad told him about women being a hurdle to a man’s progress in business which was exactly what was happening because if he had no emotional attachment with Larissa, she wouldn’t have been used as a lure.

“You won’t get this money, no matter what you do,” Hugo boldly replied.

“I guess I’ll kill her since you just made her feel heartbroken,” Stone said and gnarled.

“I don’t care. You can go ahead and kill her but you won’t set your eyes on the safe let alone touching the money. You succeeded outwitting my dad, but you can’t succeed the second time. Not on my watch,” Hugo hollered.

Larissa felt so bad when she heard what Hugo said because she actually thought that Hugo was in love with her but she ended up being disappointed by his responses.

“Can you now allow me to go, since you just heard the heartless guy say that I’m not important to him?” Larissa tearful wailed, “Even on his birthday, he left me and went for his money which he considers more important. Can you see that I’m not useful here? Why bringing me into this mess?”

“Shut up, woman, let me think!” Stone blackguarded, “he’s simply shamming indifference, even though he is seething with fear and I know it,”

“Let’s watch and see if I’m feigning this or not. To hell with you and your bait,” Hugo said and hung the call.

It was then it dawned on Stone that Hugo was serious, which made him angrier but still couldn’t kill the girl because she meant nothing to him anymore.

Andre was surprised because he almost thought that Hugo who claimed to be so much in love with Larissa could give such response without a second thought. He was deeply encouraged to stand by his boss in that resolve even though he didn’t want anything to happen to the girl. At that point, he felt that Hugo could be more hardhearted that his dad.

“Did you mean that she’s nothing to you?” Andre asked, looking surprised to be sure that Hugo was being real.

Hugo took a deep breath and patted Andrew’s broad shoulder as he thought about everything. He was confused but did what he had to do to buy some time.

“I care so much about her but Stone shouldn’t know about that she could be my weakest point,” Hugo revealed, “You already know how this works,” he reminded him, “Once he knows that I’m emotionally attached to Larissa, he’ll kill her the way he killed Gustavo and my dad. Anyone dear to me is an enemy to him, therefore pays for this vendetta between us. I don’t want that for Larissa,”

“But don’t you think he could angrily annihilate the girl since she’s no more useful to him?” Andre asked.

“I’ll feel damn hurt if he does, but I can live with that,” he angrily answered and left the beach to Jose’s house because he got a call from him to come quickly.

Getting to Jose’s house, he was surprised that he didn’t work for that day but waited for him at cool city bar to arrive and meet with him there.

Jose already made up his mind to fight for Hugo, which made him take back his old looks for the meantime. He barbed his hair and beard completely the way Ramon does, making him look exactly like his twin brother without anyone knowing the difference between them.

When Hugo entered the Bar, he was so stormed to see that Jose was the exact replica of his dad in everything which made him feel as if he was just seeing a ghost. This brought back memories and made him rush towards him and embraced him. “Dad, you’re back,” he voiced as he wept on his shoulders.

Andre who was never moved by emotion had a tear announcing its presence in his left eyes but he wiped it off immediately so that no one would notice that he was moved with pity for his new boss, and nostalgia for missing his former boss.

“I’m not him but from now on, I’ll be the better and fatherly side of Ramon for you and ensure that I take care of you as my own. I have a family, though; a wife and a daughter, but you’re now my own son too and I’ll do everything possible to make you feel like your dad is still alive,”

“Thanks so much, uncle…dad,” he faltered. “One day, I’ll be glad to meet with your family,”

“Let’s start by deactivating completely the chip implanted on your left arm that leads Stone Antonio to you,” Jose said and brought out a syringe.

“But wait, Gustavo already did that. How was it reactivated again?”

At this point, Jose just had to reveal his real talent and professionalism to the young man. “Whatever Gustavo knows, I thought him. I was the one that trained Gustavo when he was first employed. Ramon wanted to fire him but I saw more potentials in the young man and helped him bring out the best in him” Jose answered, making Hugo so surprised as he began to understand Jose’s computer and technical prowess, “The chip was deactivated but not removed completely. Stone knew about the chip because he was privy to that information which made him reactivate it using his computer experts. But right now, I’ll not deactivate it as Gustavo did, so that Stone will still keep tracking it but completely remove it from your body and send it to another location to redirect and fool him,”

“You’re very smart, Jose,” Andre said and smiled the second time.

“Wow, he smiles? That’s cool and interesting,” Jose wowed with his lips forming an O.

“I do smile,” Andre said, “but since after losing my family, I lost appetite for humour, but what just happened here between you and my boss tonight made me feel that I just found a part of my family back. Thanks for being there for us,”

“Come here,” Jose said and pulled him into a hug, “one day, you’ll raise a new family and be happy too,” they parted and went back to the business of the day.

Jose injected Hugo with an analgesic injection to ease the physical pain before manually removing the chip from his body. With a robotic drone, he took the chip to the roof an abandoned building in Miami and left it there for the meantime, so that Stone would keep following the drone, thinking that he was being led to Hugo.

To be continued…

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