Contract Bride of the Mafia CEO

“Oh, how the f*CK could I not know?” I broke, my chest heaving painfully with every word. “Clara, I…I trusted you. How could you? Curtis…so this is why you don't even look at me anymore?" I stood frozen in the doorway, my eyes locked on the obscene scene before her. My husband still half-naked, and as for the desperate little slut whom I thought was a friend indeed, Clara, her flushed face and disheveled hair told the full story. Curtis dropped to his knees, scrambling toward me. “Freda, baby, please. It’s not what it looks like. Forgive me. I’m begging you.” His hands reached for the hem of my dress and for the first time in my life, I saw tears stream down his face. “I made a mistake. A terrible mistake. Please, don’t leave. I need you.” Through the haze of shock and rising rage, her voice came out low and trembling. “How long?” Curtis’s mouth opened and closed slowly, then he looked away. “How long, Curtis?” I said, my voice surprisingly calm. He swallowed hard, voice barely audible. “Six months.” The words landed like a hammer. Six fantastic months, wow! The exact time my bed had grown cold and his touches had disappeared. It was the same time I had cried myself to sleep wondering what I had done wrong. A broken laugh escaped my mouth as my eyes returned to him. “Was it just lust?” I whispered, my voice cracking. “Or do you… Love her?” Curtis couldn’t answer. His eyes darted between us, shame and panic, twisting his features as his fingers clung to his belt. Clara stepped forward, adjusting her clothes with shocking composure, one I hadn’t seen in her since we were ten, a small, satisfied smile played on her lips. "I told you I was over him because I thought he'd come back to me. I never imagined he'd marry you" A burned laugh escaped her throat. "How could think that I was ever okay with you taking my man even if I acted like I was.” I staggered back as if I had been slapped. "What are you talking about?" My voice shook. "Curtis pursued me. You told me it was over between you two. You stood beside me when he proposed. You told me you'd moved on with Jason. You even helped me plan the wedding..." Hot tears burned my eyes, spilling freely down my cheeks. Clara's smile faltered for the briefest second before bitterness consumed her features. "And you think any of that erased what we had?" she snapped. "Curtis promised he'd come back for me once he had money" "You? Where were you when he couldn't afford a decent suit? Where were you when I stayed awake helping him prepare sermons? Where were you when we couldn't pay the bills? Where were you when I was building the empire you're about to inherit...where?" I broke because I could really go on and on, the list was endless. "I..." “Enough!” Curtis snapped at Clara, trying to pull her back. “Shut your mouth. This isn’t the time.” But Clara continued barely heeding his word, her voice steadily rising and venomous. “He never stopped loving me. He only married you because you were the ‘proper’ pastor’s wife material. The one who could help build his image. I was always the one he came back to.” Curtis’s attempts to silence her grew more desperate. “Clara, I said stop!” When Clara finally looked me dead in the eyes and said, “We love each other. We always have, even on your wedding night” something inside me shattered completely. Curtis was definitely lying, it wasn't six months, it had been going on even before our honeymoon. I couldn’t breathe or even think anymore. I just couldn't stand another second in that room where I had counseled so many broken marriages. I turned and ran through the rain, making it to my car, cold splashes biting against my trembling body. The drive home was a blur of tears and trying to compose, because I was in front of a death wheel. I screamed at the top of my lungs, shaking my head so violently in utter shatter, my skull banging as I pounded the steering wheel until my palms had bruised. The road swam in front of me. By the time I stopped, I was weak, and my eyes were bloodshot as a speeding truck blared its horn as I drifted into its lane. I swerved at the last second, narrowly missing a collision, my heart racing, but the fear barely registered. Well, it was like they always said, anyway, you find a partner from someone, clearly my best friend had found hers from me. But, my heart had already been destroyed. Back in the empty mansion, I wandered from room to room like a ghost in a place that hadn’t treated me right for nearly a decade now. Every photograph on the walls showed our perfect life, cutting ribbons at church openings, smiling at crusades, posing as the model power couple. Every piece of furniture, every decorative piece I had chosen with care, mocked me. This empire they had built together and the home I had poured my soul into. Why should I be the one to leave? I thought bitterly taking another brief sight of our exquisite mansion, it was my suffering, my nights up for Curtis that built this. Why should Clara inherit everything I sacrificed for? Every moment he rejected me, every coldness he met swung pain violently through me, heartbreak, fury, denial, helpless sorrow. I sprang up from the sofa again, unable to sit still. Another panic attack threatened to rip me apart. My fingers shook rapidly, my face swollen from crying as the world spun in my eyes. Panting, I managed to grab my phone with shaky hands barely able to even press it properly. I opened it and that was when my world collapsed. A video of me and a strange balaclava masked guy having s*x was trending everywhere. The thumbnail showed us in our bedroom, intimate and exposed. The caption: “Pastor’s wife secretly records herself, Marriage counselor caught living a double life.” then hashtag #pretendersdotheworst, to add insult to injury, Clara was live, explaining to the world how she caught me cheating on my husband. I had never seen the video before. I was dumbfounded and I had no evidence myself that she created a fake video so everyone already believed her before it was even too late. The comments floating up under her stream made my heart wrench even more. “Thanks Clara we need more people like you to expose these fakists” “Wrong counselor again” “Pastor Curtis should divorce her, she pretends so much” I had never recorded anything like it. But the internet didn’t care. AI-edited versions, fake screenshots, and vicious headlines spread like wildfire before I could even show up for my truth that might not even be relevant because they already believed what they wanted to. Sponsors pulled out within hours. My follower count, once nearly ten million, plummeted past five hundred thousand and kept dropping by dawn. The comments on the videos and deepfakes were merciless: “Hypocrite.” “She was counseling others while doing this?” “Pastor Curtis deserves better.” Turns out while I was wailing and breaking apart, Curtis and my best friend were burying their secret. No one asked for my side. I spent the rest of the night sobbing uncontrollably, throwing vases, smashing picture frames, and screaming into the emptiness of the house. Curtis never came home. By morning, I was too exhausted to cry anymore. My throat was raw, my eyes burned from a sleepless night, and my voice had all but disappeared. Sunlight filtered through the curtains as the sound of voices outside drew my attention. Reporters and journalists had already gathered beyond the front gate, shouting questions and flashing cameras toward the mansion. I hadn't slept a single minute. I'd cried until dawn, thinking about Clara reaping where didn't sow a thing, and now there was only one thing left to face. Curtis. Then he walked in with Clara clinging to him, her cruel smile widening. The sight twisted the knife deeper. Without a trace of remorse, Curtis smiled coldly. “Thank you, Clara, for helping me see the truth. I’ve been trapped in a marriage with a cheating wife all this time and I didn't know?” He gestured toward my phone. “The whole world can see it now.” He pulled out a stack of divorce papers and slapped them on the table. “Sign it, w***e! I trusted and loved you for years, yet you did this to me!.” I refused at first. I cried. I argued, not because I was foolish but because more important than this drama was losing everything I worked so hard building with him, to a scheming bestie. I pleaded, reminding him of their vows, God he preached about, our shared ministry, the years I had stood by him. But Curtis and Clara tag-teamed me with cold manipulation and relentless pressure until, broken and exhausted, I signed through blinding tears and waves after waves of excruciating aches in my heart. The moment the ink dried, Curtis delivered the final blow. “By the way,” he said flatly, “almost every major asset was transferred to Clara’s name months ago. The houses. The cars. The ministry accounts. There’s nothing left for you.” He called security. Two men I didn’t recognize escorted me out while I clutched only my handbag and the clothes on her back. Completely broken, publicly disgraced, and financially ruined, I realized I had no future left in the city. My reputation was ashes. No one would have me, not even my parents. I was the cheat who pretended to have a perfect marriage, not Curtis, not my best friend who defiled my desk with him yesterday. It had gone so viral overnight, I would be the talk of the town. Using the last funds on one of my remaining cards, I booked the earliest international flight out, all I needed to do was escape this hell. When the time came, the plane taxied down the runway, I stared out the window, tears streaming silently down my face. I mourned it all, my marriage, my reputation and my career, my home, my fortune, my best friend and my future. But beneath the devastation, something new stirred in me as I wiped the final tears from my eyes and swore with a firm resolve to never cry for any man again. Curtis thought he had erased me. Clara thought she had won. The world believed the lies, but they had no idea, it wasn't the end of my story. In fact, it was only the beginning. With my fists clenched in my lap, I made myself one silent promise in the clouds above. I would rebuild and when I did, I would make Curtis feel worse than the guttural wrench I felt. I would make him and Clara bleed and beg with their life in my hands, only I had no idea how.