1
KATHERINE
My heart was heavy as I lifted the glass to my lips. It was too early for some tequila, but it was the only thing that was keeping me inches away from running mental, from not acting impulsively on the rage that was eating me up from the inside out.
The harder I tried not to think about it, the more persistent the memory was bent on tormenting me. Silas had told me that he would be getting married.
I had instantly laughed so hard that I almost bent over from the force of it. It was my first reaction. It had to be a big joke. Nothing more. It was impossible that it could be anything more or so, I thought.
I had been with this man for three years. Invested my time, invested my love, and invested my future too to the point that I couldn't phantom my future without him in it. There was no future without him.
I had allowed myself to get pregnant twice when he excitedly told me that he was ready to start a family and settle down with me.
I had gotten rid of it when he told me the week after that he was uncertain and a baby wasn't on the top of our priorities for now. He had been it for me.
He was all I knew, all I could see, and then he came to tell me that he was getting married to another woman. He was unmoved by the way I laughed, and after he was done, he paused, allowing the heavy silence to linger between us.
As if he was patiently waiting for it to destroy whatever remaining fragment of love that I had for him and then he went ahead to tell me that he was serious, he told me about the secret relationship that he had been having with her while we were together.
I could have almost sworn that I had been suffocating on the spot. Breathing was hard. Processing was hard, and my vision had been blurred with tears.
“Tell me you're f*****g joking,” my voice wavered a little.
I wasn't laughing anymore. It was no longer funny. It looked real. It was real but apparently he wasn't and I was submerged in a nightmare that I never anticipated happening.
He was engaged to Fontana Dasilva. Maybe it would have hurt less if I didn't know who she was but she was everywhere.
On the billboards in the streets, in the makeup adverts that intercepts my Rom coms. Her face, fierce and alluring, her smile, dazzling, and sultry.
She was the very definition of a man's wet dream. I wasn't so bad when it came to societal standing either.
My art had paved the way for me and had landed me in places that I never thought that I was going to be but I've had my share of high socialite events. I've bumped into her once or twice.
With Silas on my arm. The thought hurt even more. I had been unable to recover from the shock when he admitted it to me. He was getting married to Fontana. He was leaving me for Fontana. Freaking Fontana!
As if it wasn't enough, the bastard had proceeded to tell me that he hoped that I could understand and no bad blood will linger between the both of us and then goes ahead to place an invitation slowly, gently on my table as some sort of f*****g peace offering.
His audacity needed to be studied. He proceeds to walk away leaving me in my state of shock and intense heartache and that was how he succeeded in stripping me of whatever remaining sanity I had left.
I had remained in my bed for days, crying my eyes out, drinking myself to sleep and pondering over what I might have done to make him leave me for her.
I had really thought that we were in a good place. Self sabotage hadn't been enough to keep me down for too long. Regret paved the way to despair, despair paced way to anger and anger gave birth to my intense thirst for revenge.
It was what got me out of bed, it kept me sane. I spent the rest of my time plotting. The fucker really thought that I was going to let him get married to her. I had him stalked and followed, I knew his in and out memories.
Maybe it was something to be frowned at. It was probably bordering on obsessive and vindictive but my sense of right and wrong was blinded by rage for me to give a f**k.
The sound of my ringtone piercing the silence reverted me back to the present. My face was wet with tears and I was angry with myself for shedding them.
My hand slightly shook as I raised the phone to my ear.
“We've found him. He was exactly where you said he would be,” the man confirmed on the phone and my heart raced with adrenaline and sick excitement.
“Of course you'd find him. I didn't pay you that amount of money for nothing, did I?” I huffed under my breath.
I had hired hit men to have Silas kidnapped. I had also had his location traced and had him stalked. He had been buying flowers for his ‘bride’. The thought left a bitter taste on my tongue.
Once upon a time, he had bought me flowers too. I didn't want to let my mind linger on the memory. I didn't want to think of all the reasons I had loved him.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
I was almost breathless from the way my heart was racing. I could feel the heavy judgement in my subconscious but no, this was absolutely the wrong time to develop a conscience.
I had acted on my thirst for revenge and I was going through with it. Not even my conscience was enough to stop me.
“He's at the back of the van. Tied up, face covered, just like you asked.”