Chapter 4
I really deserved to die, a constant, gnawing thought that plagued me, but I couldn’t let them be happy. I couldn’t allow my father, a man usually so discerning, to be blinded by a woman who was constantly under the knife, each surgery a desperate attempt to recapture lost youth or perhaps, something more sinister.
How many times had she gone under?
Three?
Four?
Each time emerging a little less herself.
Take what my mother worked hard for, the small import business she painstakingly built from nothing after arriving in the country.
Did she get pregnant from him, trapping him with a child while he had another family?
Fail. This man will be impotent, his seed as barren as the desert. That woman will be trying, spending countless hours and dollars at fertility clinics, that man will be trying for a son, a male heir who will never appear from all those blanks he shot, a cruel twist of fate for a man obsessed with legacy.
Sister wants my man? My fiancé, practically my husband after all the arrangements were made.
Have him. Take him, and the burden he carries.
I’m sure, super sure, that I can find better, so the subpar man, the one who couldn’t keep his zipper up around my own sister, I, Yumna Falala, born in Chkemen, , to an Afmiko father, a quiet but strong man from Nigeria, and a mixed mother who died from heartbreak, a slow, agonizing death that hollowed her out from the inside, refused to live again like that.
So when I was reborn, when I resolved to take control, just before I left the meticulously decorated room, a room bursting with red and gold for my impending nuptials, to get married to the man who had made my sister pregnant and, I suspected, would never even bother to show up, I caught a taxi after slipping out the back entrance of the family compound.
I took the papers, carefully hidden in my clutch, to the house that was supposed to be our marital home, the house legally in my name, called the moving company, Atlas Van Lines, and took out all of his meticulously tailored suits and Italian leather shoes. And the sleek, black BMW X5 that he drove, officially in my name, I called the rental company, Avis, to pick it up and cancelled the payment. I also cancelled the Amex card I had foolishly given him access to.
Then, still in my elaborate silk wedding dress, I went to some hotel, The Golden Dragon, checked in under a false name, and went drinking at the hotel bar. Ordering one expensive cocktail after another, numbing the pain and the shame.
Somehow, though, the next day I did not expect that I would wake up, head pounding, limbs aching, sore and with a heavy, black and gold ring, intricately engraved with a dragon motif, on my left ring finger.
When I woke to empty my stomach in the toilet, the metallic tang of bile burning my throat, then took a quick, scalding shower, followed by picking up my scattered belongings, I didn’t even spare a glance for the probably still naked man on the bed, a stranger whose face was already fading from my memory.
Well, if I did something so shameless, fuelled by rage and heartbreak, I suppose the normal thing would be to get away as fast and as far as I can. Time to disappear.
Comments1578:
[Zoelovesherself: you go, girl!]
[Asherahesah: wow not bad for this type of book]
[Xysyyyyyyyyyyy: Yumna Falala, author again with the names!]
[HAYHEY: I made it without giving it!]
[Qqqqqqwwwww: @HAYHEY, you know it’s only c75, right? If you are an old reader wait until around two hundred before the urge to cough blood arises. .]
[ZenzanZoom: Hey reader Qqqqqqwwwww, don’t break us so early. I remember in one of her more popular books the one with the multiple leads she broke our heart in c30.]
[AquAiq: Haha, yeh it was quite funny in that one. It took me almost a year to finish that book.]
C210
Today was an extremely busy day. I finally sold my thirty percent stake in Dad’s company.
Thankfully, the sale was done privately, bypassing all the corporate bureaucracy. With the company still showing a healthy profit margin and projections looking stable for at least the next twelve months — though silently I wish it would crash in three — but anyway, I managed to negotiate an exceptionally favorable price. Flush with cash, I immediately reinvested most of it—buying shares in a diverse portfolio of ventures, mostly tech-related. After brokerage fees and taxes, I’m practically tapped out, but I made sure to squirrel away enough cash to cover living expenses for a year or two.
Sigh, revenge is a bit exhausting, but I could not let those who did me wrong continue living a life of ease.
With the funds transferred and the paperwork finalized, I went straight to the bank and cancelled my accounts. Next on the list: getting this monstrosity of a house, the one I inherited, on the market, there is no use keeping it. I already contacted a realtor and scheduled a listing appointment for tomorrow. My plan is to use the proceeds to buy a smaller home in some secluded area, maybe up north near the mountains.
The dream is to have a proper garden, a real patch of earth to grow my own vegetables and herbs. And perhaps, just perhaps, open a little general store, something charming and quaint. The thought of his face when he realizes I’m not some helpless heiress anymore, that his meal ticket has vanished into thin air, makes me want to sing. Oh, the look his face, the leech who plans on marrying my step-sister!
I swear, I might actually die of laughter. The best part is, he’s footing the bill for the entire lavish wedding! Useless bastard. He won’t be extracting a single penny from me ever again!
Father, you always preferred the fair-skinned daughter with the perfectly straight hair and delicate, lily-like complexion, didn’t you? Fine. Continue, you useless, pathetic bastard! See how far that gets you!
Comments 1097:
[Ashleybaby: wow with that type of father what you did no one blames you.]
[Cherries_ and/ strawberries : yes, you did good he better not come crawling back!]
[Jollyrancher: wow she was a stupid one glad she had been enlightened.]
[Sillybilly: a round of applause for the fl being enlightened, ah the author had mercy.]
Lolipops2Marsh 