CHAPTER TWO
976 Words
Princess sank into the couch slowly, her hands still trembling from what she'd just discovered. The documents—now snatched away and clutched in Bernard’s hands—felt like a part of her soul had been ripped out. Her breath caught in her throat, but not from pain. From disbelief. From betrayal.
Jason was gone—led away like a piece of luggage by two people who had just ripped her world apart.
Her eyes stared blankly ahead, but her mind was no longer in the room.
It drifted... backward. To a place she thought she’d buried.
This can’t be happening again…
She was ten again. That night was supposed to be joyful. Her father’s newest business had flourished—he was now a billionaire. They were all dressed up, headed to dinner. Her brother had promised her ice cream. Her mother had kissed her forehead and said, “This is just the beginning, my Princess.”
But the beginning ended that night.
The crash still echoed in her head sometimes. Twisted metal. Shattered glass. The sharp scream of her mother. Then darkness.
When she opened her eyes again, her whole family was gone. Forever.
And then came the second crash. The one nobody talks about.
Her father’s relatives circled like hawks. Sold the mansion. Claimed the cars. Split everything he owned. And left her with nothing.
They said she was “just a girl.” That she wouldn’t be able to handle her father's legacy.
Even when she got out of the hospital, broken and silent, they shoved her off to her aunt—Mrs. Nicer. A woman who smiled only when others were watching.
At first, it felt like safety. Until Mr. Nicer died suddenly… and Mrs. Nicer turned on her.
“Witch!” the woman spat. “You killed your family. Now you’ve come for mine.”
She tried to throw Princess out of the house that used to be hers. But people intervened. Reminded her that the house belonged to Princess’s parents.
So Mrs. Nicer let her stay—but made sure to turn her life into a slow, cold punishment.
No food unless neighbors pitied her. No school—until one of her mother’s old friends paid for it. Every day after school, she’d sell sachet water at the market. Every night, Mrs. Nicer would search her bag, beat her if she had even a little money.
And now, after clawing her way out of that pit, after finally finding some kind of peace in her marriage—this.
She blinked back the tears that threatened to fall again. Her chest rose and fell slowly as her eyes shifted to the empty hallway Jason had disappeared into.
They want to take him from me. Just like everyone else was taken.
Now, here she was again. Bruised. Broken. Betrayed. By the one person she had finally dared to trust.
Was this her fate? To be used, discarded, and blamed?
She placed a trembling hand on her belly, eyes full of tears. Not this time. Her child would not grow up in pain. Not like she did.
She managed to walk in quietly into her room she sat on the edge of the bed, her hands trembling as she stared at the phone in her palm. It wasn’t the phone she used to own before the wedding. That one had mysteriously gone missing just days after the ceremony. Bernard had shrugged and handed her a new one, saying, “Let’s upgrade you, my queen.”
Back then, she had smiled, thinking it was love.
Now, she wasn’t so sure.
She scrolled slowly through the few contacts she’d managed to save in her small journal—those she’d memorized before the old phone vanished. Her heart pounded as she tapped on the number Mrs. Gloria had once pressed into her palm years ago, whispering, “Only call this if things ever get really bad.”
This was bad.
She pressed call.
Network error.
She tried again.
Still nothing.
A rising panic took hold of her chest.
She moved to the next name—Aunty Nicer. Then Ruth. Then her cousins.
All the calls failed.
She redialed. Switched SIMs. Tried again. Again.
And again.
Each failed tone stabbed deeper than the last.
She had asked Bernard so many times before—“Can we go see my aunt?”—and he always had a reason.
"he’s not feeling well."
"They traveled."
"The doctor said you shouldn’t be stressed."
"I don’t want you around people who remind you of your past pain."
She thought he was caring. She thought they were protecting her.
She thought wrong.
A cold chill spread across her skin. Her fingers loosened around the phone, and it dropped beside her with a soft thud. She stared at nothing.
So they never wanted me to reach anyone.
They cut me off...
She reached for the phone again. Redialed Gloria.
Nothing.
Tried Ruth.
Nothing.
Tried them all, again and again.
Each second felt like a hammer on her chest. Hot tears slipped down her cheeks as her breathing quickened. Her lips trembled as she whispered to herself, over and over, “No… no… no…”
She didn’t stop dialing. Somewhere in her heart, she kept hoping—just one ring, just one voice—but the silence was a scream.
And when her strength finally gave out, she curled into the edge of the bed, her arms around her belly, and wept. The kind of weeping that drains the soul. That hollow, aching sound only God hears in the dark.
She cried until her pillow was soaked, until her voice was gone, until the night itself seemed to fall still around her.
Her baby kicked once, gently, as if sensing her pain.
That small movement was the only warmth left in her world.
- Writer
