Chapter 2: A Vow of Revenge

CHELLEY KENSINGTON

“What? What did you say just now?” I asked desperately, My heart exploding, hurting and bleeding internally, I couldn’t breathe.

“I’m pregnant, two weeks pregnant sister, I’m merely doing you a favour” Cierra said,

“Favour is sleeping with my husband?” My voice broke, that my hands were visibly shivering.

“Oh please, Sister Chelley,” Cierra said with a roll of her eyes, still perched on the edge of the bed,

“Don’t act surprised. You were practically begging him to cheat. Always moping around, crying over your living corpse of a mother, refusing to give Alec Kensington a real family. I just… stepped in to clean up the emotional mess you made. You should be thanking me.”

I staggered back a step, then another. My legs were trembling. The room tilted. I reached for the doorframe, missed; and slammed into the wall.

Still, nobody moved. Not even Alec.

He just stood there, naked, smug, pulling up his pants like nothing had just happened,

“I told you once, Chelley,” Alec finally spoke, slow and deliberate.

“You were never meant to be a wife. You were just an empty barrel, only convenient paperwork, wasting the company’s money on that living dead mother of yours. You are useless.”

My ears rang. My legs gave way that I crouched to the floor holding my aching heart, from Alec’s mouth, my mother is a living dead?

“Don’t be too dramatic Chelley, your sister just helped you and our family from suffering the shame of not being able to provide an heir for the Kensington family after all these years of that lavishing wedding wasted on you… it was due to your barrenness we endured this humiliation… and now your sister accomplished this feat and you tried to kill her?”

My adoptive mother said and my world was spinning. I couldn’t believe my ears.

“She will never care about me or the family and produce an heir but only her zombie mother! Wasting the company’s money on her, I ordered that they remove the oxygen tube… the expenses on hospital bills for a living corpse was just too much for the company!”

I froze, did Alex just admit to killing my mother? After making her suffer for three years in a coma and stealing her treatment money for himself ?

I couldn’t bear this stabbing, I jumped on Alec but he pushed me so hard my head hit the bed frame, bleeding… but there was a bigger pain scarring my chest that I couldn’t feel the pain of hitting my head.

I didn’t feel the blood trickling down my scalp. I didn’t feel the sting of Alec’s slap or the weight of a hundred eyes.

I only felt one thing; the silence.

The kind that comes when something inside you dies for good.

“How could you be an aggressive wife… sister? That's so unlady-like, you even tried to attack your husband over a few words? Where is your manners, where is your moral?” Cierra said lazily, I couldn’t hold my nerve I jumped on her, hurling slaps across her face,

The room went into chaos as Alec dragged me to the floor and hurled a hard slap on my face, my lips bled and my face burned…. That moment I knew I had lost everything.

No one was there for me, no one will defend me.

“You are such a disappointment Chelley, I’ve never imagined you to be this aggressive evil wench, I thought you were as gentle and pleasant like a morning flower blossom, but you are actually as venomous as a snake” My Father-In-law Dr. Kensington said pointing a finger at me, tears were streaming down my cheeks…

Cierra clutched her belly suddenly, gasping.

“Oh my God… something’s wrong…”

“What have you done to my daughter? You wretched wicked witch!” My adoptive mother screamed..

I looked up to see Cierra bleeding, my heart dropped… What have I done?

I hadn’t even hit her belly…. just slapped her face; but she threw herself to the ground, screaming like I’d stabbed her.

“She just killed an unborn child oh my god!” My mother in law, Mrs. Kensington looked frightened as she collapsed into her husband’s arms… dramatically; moving away from me like I was a monster.

“Someone call the ambulance… call the cops too and lock this evil wench up!” My adoptive father screamed and dialed the telephone.

“There has been a fetal homicide at the Kensington’s estate, Mansion No. 4, A jealous woman had just killed an unborn child. Bring the ambulance along too.”

Everyone’s words blurred out, my world was silent… Everyone was pointing at me, yelling and accusing but I couldn't hear any of them…. All I knew was that no one— no one in here cared an inch about me.

The cops soon arrived and I was handcuffed, “You are under arrest for Fetal Homicide and Assault on a pregnant person… anything you say or do now will be used against you in the justice court Mrs. Chelley”

“Take her away! She is an evil wench!” Alec yelled.

I saw Cierra smirked at me, amidst her supposed miscarriage, so she had done this purposely to get me here?

She had twisted her body before she hit the floor — her hands gripping her belly like she’d been shot. I hadn’t even touched her stomach.

And just like that, this family erased me.

No one cared about the truth. Only their version of it.

But I will return. And when I do, they’ll wish I had stayed dead.

….

A week had passed, and I was finally released from the women’s detention center.

No one came to check on me. Not a single visitor. Just silence.

The cell was cold and cruel, filled with angry rogue women who had taken turns assaulting me.

But somehow… I was glad. I hadn’t lost my baby.

I cradled my stomach gently.

“You’re all I have now,” I whispered. “My only blood. And I’ll protect you with everything I have.”

I was handed back my sealed clothes in a ziplock. As I changed, the door creaked open — and there they were.

Cierra and Alec, Hand in hand.

“Hi, sister…” Cierra said sweetly. My heart shattered again.

“What do you want from me now, Cierra?” I asked, barely able to hold back the fury boiling just beneath the surface.

I wouldn’t let her bait me again.

“Will you hit me again?” she teased, fake-innocent. “I just came because I was worried about you. I mean, those filthy prison women must’ve been awful. That’s why I begged my husband to get you released.”

My jaw dropped. “Husband?”

Then my eyes directed at her fingers, seeing the matching diamond rings she was flaunting obviously so I’d see it flashing on their fingers.

“The court of justice granted us divorce, Chelley,” Alec said smugly, tossing a document at me. “Your father’s company has been transferred to Cierra as compensation for the baby you killed. And I… I’m married now. To your sister.”

My knees weakened.

“What? I wasn’t even at any trial! What kind of court does this?” I screamed. Cierra leaned in close to me, her lips grazing my ear.

“The kind the Kensington family pays for,” she whispered, and laughed; hysterical and evil.

Tears poured down my face. Could it get any worse than this?

“You’re poor now, sister. Goodbye!” Cierra said, linking arms with Alec as they turned and walked out of my life again.

I stared at their backs, trembling, choking on my grief and pain. And then I whispered a vow.

“I will burn your world to the ground, Cierra… And Alec?”

“I’ll make you beg for death — in a thousand ways.”