The Billion Dollar Plan: Incongruity Series Book 1 Read online

  The Billion Dollar Plan

  INCONGRUITY SERIES, Volume 1

  Thandiwe Mpofu

  Published by Thandiwe Mpofu, 2019.

  COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

  First Edition

  Copyright © 2019

  By Thandiwe Mpofu

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Edited by Jenny Dicks

  Beta Readers: Rika Major, Mitchelle Matipedza

  ~~ “Intro” by Kehlani

  Adpated from SweetSexySavage Album (Deluxe)

  Copyright © Kehlani & WMG (on behalf of Atlantic Records); SODRAC and 4 Music Rights Societies

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Playlist

  Incongruity Series: #1 | BLURB

  Spoken Word

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 | Chloe

  Chapter 2 | Chloe

  Chapter 3 | Chloe

  Chapter 4 | Chloe

  Chapter 5 | Chloe

  Chapter 6 | Chloe

  Chapter 7 | Chloe

  Chapter 8 | Chloe

  Chapter 9 | Chloe

  Chapter 10 | Gideon

  Chapter 11 | Chloe

  Chapter 12 | Gideon

  Chapter 13 | Chloe

  Chapter 14 | Chloe

  Chapter 15 | Chloe

  Chapter 16 | Chloe

  Chapter 17 | Gideon

  Chapter 18 | Chloe

  Chapter 19 | Chloe

  Chapter 20 | Gideon

  Chapter 21 | Chloe

  Chapter 22 | Chloe

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Sign up for Thandiwe Mpofu's Mailing List

  Dedication

  To Mama & Baba,

  Thank you♥

  Playlist

  “Intro” by Kehlani

  “Photograph” by Ed Sheeran

  “Hello” by Beyoncé

  “Remedy” by Adele

  “Take Me” by MISO

  “Sad” by Maroon 5

  “Storm Warning” by Hunter Hayes

  “Resentment” by Beyoncé

  “Just Let Go” by Joyner Lucas & Chris Brown

  “Wanted” by Hunter Hayes

  “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child

  “You Should Be Loved” by Hunter Hayes ft The Shadowboxers

  “Fading” by Rihanna

  “All I Could Do Was Cry” by Etta James

  “The Man Who Never Lied” by Maroon 5

  Incongruity Series: #1

  BLURB

  ARE YOU READY FOR THE Incongruity Series?

  NOT EVERY PLAN WORKS out the way we want it to. Sometimes, it needs to be snatched for the gods.

  "Pain is a strange company keeper. It brings the oddest people together. It transcends every other difference we might have between us" ~~Bishop T. D Jakes

  There is nothing more appealing than an amazingly confident, self-assured man.

  A man who knows exactly what he wants. Knows how he is going to get what he wants. But most importantly, knows how he will include you in the mix of things.

  It was my plan initially. Tirelessly and gruesomely orchestrated over a long period of time. It was just me alone against this crazy world. Then, unbeknown to me, other plans were in play and circumstances happened.

  I thought we met on the dime of fate but I couldn't have been further from the truth. Fate doesn't bring you a green eyed Adonis out of nowhere. I’m too well versed with fate to understand that much. Men like Gideon Black don’t just pop up in your life, unless of course, they planned to be in it. For their own selfish reasons.

  I can’t believe I hadn’t seen that.

  Honestly, he is simply a god within his own right. So, what couldn’t he do?

  What did I think would happen when I bumped into him, literally? It sure wasn't this.

  The thing that I’m most furious about is that he knew.

  He knew all along who I was, what I carried within myself. And he also knew what I wanted, what I desperately needed. Revenge.

  And now he has the audacity to tell me something different.

  Blind siding me, making me feel the sting of betrayal. Lying to me when we made an oath to each other.

  He was the last person on earth that I expected would lie to me. But then again, was Gideon Black, with all his charisma and appeal; an ally or a foe?

  How else will this multi-billion dollar plan work without trust or at the very least, honesty?

  How will we both get revenge without burning each other?

  THE BILLION DOLLAR PLAN is the first installment in the Incongruity Series.

  Spoken Word

  “I’m afraid you are under the impression that I was made to please you,

  I was under the impression you understood me better

  The truth is, I’m a superwoman

  And some days, I’m an angry woman

  And some days, I’m a crazy woman

  For still waiting

  For still loving hard even if I’m aching,

  For still trusting that I’m still worth the most

  For still searching

  For someone to understand me better”

  ~~”Intro” by Kehlani

  Prologue

  There is blood everywhere.

  All over the floor of our trailer. All over Dad’s favorite chair and Mama’s coffee table.

  Where did all of this blood come from?

  I can taste it. It’s in my mouth. I can smell it. It has soiled my crimson night dress.

  I can feel it covering me. I feel like I am drowning in it.

  But where is Mama?

  I want to shout her name. I want to hear her voice, maybe then I can be reassured that she is still here.

  The red covering me is definitely blood. I know it’s blood. The stench also adds as another facet of the truth.

  This isn’t paint. It doesn’t have the same smell or feel as the one Daddy bought for me the other day.

  Where is Daddy?

  “There is no one else here, boss. We have checked everywhere.”

  My ears peck up when I suddenly hear the unmistakable, unfamiliar voices of strange men coming from somewhere close to where Mama told me to hide. She told me to get in the bottom of the cupboard and not move at all.

  She had that look in her eyes. The serious, determined look. The one she wears whenever she was not happy with me and I would know I was in deep trouble. That kind of look. So, without another word, though I had plenty that wanted to tumble out, I quietly did what she instructed. As soon as she closes the back board after me, our trailer door flew open.

  “You better be right.” Comes another deeper, ominous voice. Strange and menacing to the ear.

  Chills break forth up and down my spine. The hairs at the back of my neck stand up on end and I almost want to pee myself.

  Who is this man?

  “I would hate for there to be any witnesses.” The strange voice booms again, louder this time, as if directly speaking to me.

  Can he see me? I wonder.

  The voi
ce of the man who first spoke comes through again, this time with ill-veiled hesitation and a pinch of fear as he responds. “We checked everywhere, Mr. Demetri. There is no one else here, sir.” the man confirms, his voice shaking slightly.

  Next, I hear grunting, then the sound of heavy footsteps leaving the trailer, leisurely. As if still checking for something or someone. Searching for me?

  And just like that, I’m all alone.

  Left with silence and the putrid, unmistakable stench of blood and rotting flesh. The warm blood seeps through from under the cupboard, reaching where I am hidden. Like a thick flood washing away the life of my parents.

  I don’t move though. I stay there where Mama told me to stay.

  Mama said not to make a sound and not to move at all.

  I stay there, at an awkward angle, my muscles cramping but I don’t move an inch. My eyes are dry, my stomach is rumbling with the evidence of hunger. But I don’t move, nor do I make a sound.

  I have no sense of time or any realization of my surrounding. I just sit there, covered in blood that the police later told me belonged to my parents.

  I sit there; but the one and only thing I know is, a certain Mr. Demetri killed my parents.

  And one day, one day soon, death will have his day for him.

  Only this time I will make sure it’s public and not cut off from the rest of world like the way my parents met their end. . .

  Chapter 1

  Chloe

  I wake up screaming. Again.

  I feel the wetness of my sheets, soaked through with cold sweat produced by my tortured mind, extending to my body. Again.

  For a moment, I’m disoriented and don’t know where I am. But then I remember. I remember everything.

  The echoes of my nightmare are still with me, as my heart rate slows down to a normal tempo. The previous pounding still echoing in my eardrums, making sure to keep me in the residue of yet another nightmare featuring the rotting bodies of my parents.

  I kick the sheets away furiously as if trying to physically fight away the painful memory of the night my parents were snatched away from me prematurely.

  Each morning it’s the same routine, the same torment that drowns me, pushing me into a state of depression that I can’t shake. It’s been like this for years, eventually I got used to it. Coming to a point where I feel lost without the familiar ritual.

  I stand up from the small, unbelievably uncomfortable double bed I sleep on, or rather try to sleep, and stretch as much as possible. I didn’t mean to sleep for that long. I always do my best to keep my mind in the present and not to fall into the trap of sleep unless absolutely necessary. Sleeping sounded like a good idea a few hours ago, but now, I curse myself for it.

  I never really sleep. I’m simply and constantly tossed through every possible hell of nightmares. Breaking me even further than I am already when fully awake.

  I guess a nightmare is exactly what I needed to get me going, to remind me of the reason why I’m about to do this.

  Gosh, I haven’t had this specific dream in a long time. Haven’t thought of my parent’s death in a while. I wonder what triggered it this time.

  It’s been years now.

  Thousands of days have passed, yet hour upon hour that passes I berate myself for not doing what I should have done the day the police found me.

  I should have told them right there and then. I should have told them who was responsible for killing my parents. I should have shaken the numbness away and say it out loud. I mean, I had a name as evidence and really there can’t be that many Demetris around that have motive and resources to kill my parents. Killing them without batting an eyelash.

  But even then, at a young tender age of nine years old, I suspected what I know for certain now as a grown woman; the so called police force that is supposed to promote justice and protect all people, wouldn’t have done a damn thing about it.

  I highly suspect that they would have dismissed my statement as one of those ‘under stress and shock’ kind of claims. They would have gone about their day, enjoying the benefits that came with being in the back pocket of a dirty businessman.

  Contributing their own share of corruption to a grossly dilapidating justice system. Encouraging injustice and corruption at the expense of precious human life.

  The perils of injustice are far reaching than anything else in this world, creating a vicious cycle that is too strong to break. Especially when they are people who will do everything in their might to see it thrive.

  At least that’s what I’ve heard on T.V, on that show, Dr. Phil.

  I really don’t care.

  Unless your parents were murdered in cold blood a few feet from where you were hiding, then you don’t know what I’m going through. You have no right to tell me that wanting vengeance will only destroy me in the long run or that I’ll only be stuck in a ‘vicious cycle.” I’ve heard it all before, but my parents were murdered.

  Murdered!

  I can’t just go about my life acting like there isn’t a big gaping hole where my soul and humanity is supposed to be. I can’t just ignore it. I wasn’t wired that way. Unfortunately.

  It’s been approximately fifteen years since my parents were murdered in our trailer.

  We didn’t have much in our small trailer, which makes me question each day that passes why they were murdered.

  My parents were not wealthy or anything.

  On some pretty tough days we had one and a half meals a day. All I knew was Salvation Army donations as my source of clothing and playing with the younger kids around the trailer park as a form of babysitting just so I could save up on money to buy some ice cream on a scorching July day.

  What we did have in our small trailer, was love. A lot of love.

  I close my eyes and allow myself to see my parents as I would love to remember them. Ribbing each other, laughing while making spaghetti and meatballs for dinner by the small hot plate.

  God, they were so in love with each other, it felt like pure magic to be around them and witness that kind of passion and devotion between two people that society didn’t particularly deem worth of belonging to each other.

  It was the type of relationship that made me swoon and dream about a time that I would also have that, experience unconditional love as I witnessed it. Treated like a princess in a world that didn’t deserve to have them.

  Daddy always said that about my mom. He would say she was royalty and he hated having her live in the kind of conditions that we had our livelihood in. I could always tell by the frustration he always had day in and day out; working hard to get my mother and I out of the trailer park.

  My parents would have late night conversations in which my mother would try and pacify my dad.

  “It’s alright James. I’m perfectly happy here, with you and the beautiful angel we have.” She would say to which she would get a heavy sigh in response.

  “This is not what I intended for you, Sandra. You are worth much more and God knows why you are still here, with me.” My dad would respond, with an unmistakable note of heavy sadness in his voice.

  “Do you regret any of this?” My mother would ask, trying to keep her voice down but even she can’t hide the fear in her voice. Fear of vulnerability.

  “Regret?” My dad would say with alarm, “How could I regret anything that you have given me so willingly. The happiness you shine in my sad, lowly life. The love and devotion that shines in your eyes? How can I possibly be so selfish as to regret that?” He would question.

  “I don’t know. It’s just. . . you are pushing yourself so hard for materialistic things that I didn’t ask for, James. I just want you to stop working yourself so hard.” She would respond with relief.

  I can just about imagine the shining emotions in my mother’s eyes that only came out whenever my father was present. Only when he was there and no other time. It was magical.

  “I only work hard because I know that you are not used to this hard life. Charlo
tte doesn’t deserve any of this either.” My dad would whisper lovingly to my mother in the still of the night.

  “We are fine, James. I am fine, and happy.” She would respond.

  “That’s all I ever hope and pray for my love. To see that smile of yours that radiates brighter than the full moon.” And cue in the sounds of kissing.

  “I choose you. All day, any day.” My mother would whisper.

  “In a crowd with billions of people, I would still find you. I love you, Sandra. With every breath in me.”

  Of course, I don’t think I was supposed to hear that particular conversation or any of the stuff that followed. But the thing about trailers was, no sound could go unheard. What more a highly emotional conversation between my parents? I heard everything and it was both weird but sweet at the same time. Go figure!

  To this day, I don’t fully understand what he meant when he said my mother wasn’t supposed to live a hard life, but I agreed with him wholeheartedly.

  Mama was regal.

  She had a sophisticated air about her that commanded attention even when she wasn’t trying to be noticed. The way she carried herself, the way she spoke and taught me, it was all bred of some kind of high class that I was grateful for.

  I believed then that my mother was part of a royal family. And that my dad was a king. Noble and awe-inspiring, with his hearty laugh, wise words of advice and his ability to put his family first.

  I knew one other thing too. My parent’s status would inevitably make me a princess. My friends around the trailer park were not really happy with me whenever I declared that tad bit to them. Kids.

  Truth is, I was happy then.

  I was free to dream and fantasize about my life and everything I wanted to do. With all the endless possibilities right in front of me, patiently waiting for me to explore and just be. . . normal.

  I had the undivided attention of both my parents. They were the cheerleaders of my wildest dreams. Encouraging and motivating me, from a tender age, to never give up but to fight the good fight. To find something I’m passionate about and care deeply about it.