Chapter 1: Returned.

“Are you prepared, as you follow the path of marriage, to love and honor each other for as long as you both shall live?” The priest question ripple through me like a two pledged sword, my heart swelling painfully that I want to rip it out.

“Yes, I do.” My Husband Enthusiastically replied, A radiant grin etch on his face. His eyes staring passionately at the woman before him.

Throughout the years I spent behind prison bars, I counted down to this day when I would come home and feel Derrick’s arms around me again.

But Derick slapped me so hard with the cruelest shock of my life. Imagine getting freed from jail expecting your beloved husband to welcome you with a grand welcome party. Only to meet him wedding another woman and worst, it’s being Live throughout the whole country.

My chest palpated, every inch of it hurting so bad. My feet feels ice glued to the ground of the hall’s entrance where I’ve been watching the ultimate betrayal unfolds. watching my husband promising Forever To Another woman at the Alter.

And What makes it all so heart wrenching is that I’ve been standing here for the longest I could remember yet no one had noticed my presence. It’s almost as if I’m so invisible… A Ghost from the past. I mean I’ve been five years… five whole years confined in prison suffering for a crime my husband committed.

So… how can I even absorb the fact, that he’s the same man here taking vows with another woman? A huge part of me wants to believe that isn’t Derrick. Maybe his twin somehow rose from the dead or something? Maybe…. But as if shoving the cruel reality on my face, the priest voice rings through my thoughts like a cruel mockery. “With the power vested on me, I now pronounce you, Derick Robinson and Florida…”

“No!!!” My voice goes out before I can stop myself. Not only does my scream knocks out the priest proclamation, it sends everything in the hall halting in place.

Heads turn, Gasps follows and shock mares the battalions of eyes that are now shooting at me. As if I’m a ghost resurrected from the dead but maybe I wouldn’t have been affected. Maybe my heart wouldn’t sink down somewhere below my knees if Derrick doesn’t look stunned as hell. His expression, though from that far, vividly describes that of someone whose staring at someone they never expected to see so soon… or forever.

Ignoring them all, I match fully into the hall, walking the distance aisle till I’m right in front of the celebrated couples.

“Natasha?” Derrick is first to break the brief silence, shock laced in his voice. The bliss radiating in his face couple seconds ago wearing off.

“How could you?!” My voice is surprisingly too calm compare to the amount of rage rippling through me. “How could you do this Derrick?”

I feel so much like a hypocrite asking that after judging the countless women who throws dumb questions at their cheating spouse?! Like what happens to slapping them! Plunging a knife through their heart!!!

But here I am… unable to even breathe. Barely holding back my Tears.

Maybe it’s because I had always thought Derrick to be different. I mean He loved me… hell he did. I did too with all my heart and even sacrificed my freedom for him.

“Natasha, what…” Derrick trails off and takes a deep breath before speaking “I don’t know why you’ve to come down here but let’s not cause a scene right now!”

My blood boils over. Not exactly for what Derrick said but the way he said it so casually. His eyes void any guilt or remorse. He looks rather irritated … by my Appearance. The intense passion he use to stare at me is no longe there…

Holding myself up together, I manage a bitter scoff. “cause a scene? I just got released from prison and I’m welcomed with the wedding of my husband to another woman, yet I’m causing a scene?!”

“Nat…”

“No, why don’t you tell me in front of these people why you are getting married to someone else when you’ve a wife who’s still fully alive?!” My voice blast loudly in the hall, not caring if I’m being live nor if my vocal would burst. “You said you would wait for me Derrick, so why the hell…”

“Wait for you?” Derrick’s bride finally speak for the first time and instantly my eyes swings towards her to meet a taunting look on her face. Her extreme makeover making her look bitchy.“You think a high profiled man like Derrick, would wait a criminal and stay married to her? Tsk, you didn’t strike me as dumb.”

A criminal?! I’ve never meant Florida once but she’s like this one popular actress that I’ve natural disliked and now she just gave me more reason to hate her.

How dare she call me a criminal when she don’t even know the full story?

Suppressing my rage, I throw her a sharp response. “Sure call me a criminal all you want but does it change the fact that you are shamelessly wedding the husband of a criminal?!”

Between the gasps that gyrates round the hall or Derrick’s reaction, I don’t know which is more upsetting.

His brows flare up defensively as he attacks me, “Look natasha, Don’t do this here. I’ll explain things to you…”

But someone else cuts in before he finish. Not Florida. A deep grunting voice from the audience. The voice I hated with every fiber of me and somehow I’ve forgotten he would even be here.

“No Derrick, I won’t have you banter words with that worthless woman while ruining this blissful occasion!”

Flipping my head sideways, I’m met with the man that has done nothing but hated me for absolutely no reason. He still has that fierceness and disdain glistening in his deep gray eyes as they lands at me.

Derrick’s father. My supposed Father In law.

“Just how shameless can you be Natasha?!” he insults me as usual, his voice laced with bile.

“You dare come here, to my son’s wedding, and cause this disgrace? You should have died in that prison!”

The furry in his eyes are glaring but for the first time, his rage doesn’t match mine. On a normal ground, I’ll shun myself up and not talk back. But not anymore… especially not right here. So fixing him with a glare, I retort.

“I am his wife… legally” I spell out fiercely even though I clearly know he doesn’t needs the information. “In every way that matters, He doesn’t have a right to place a ring on another woman’s fingers in the presence of the entire world when he has a ring on another woman’s finger!”

I angrily throw my mindless finger before my view, Sampling the shiny Diamond ring Derick exchanged with me exactly seven years ago.

But as if finding me funny, an hysteric laugh cracks out of Mr. Anthony’s throat. “Really? You still considered yourself a wife?! My son is Divorcing you. No son of mine would have an Ex-convict as a wife. Especially not a flight one!” The veins in Mr. Anthony’s neck popped as his voice booms through the hall. If a baby was here, he would flinch so hard from fear.

I don’t know why but after what Anthony said, my eyes snaps to Derrick, the foolish part of me waiting on him to accost his father just as he’s always done in my defense. Rebuke his divorce demands but the last shard of my heart crumbles as Derrick just remained neutral.

Raw anger consuming me whole. Not exactly for Derrick but for myself. For still waiting on his defense when he was clearly marrying another woman in front of me.

I thought all these is what humiliation feels like until Mr. Anthony orders his guards to throw me out of the building.

Before I get to recollect myself, soldiers in black has encircled me but just as their steel hard hands grips my arm, Derrick orders them to stop.

They obeyed at once. The hall goes dead silence as all eyes bears into Derrick including Florida who has anticipation and confusion coating her face. Her expression literally mirrors everyone else, especially mine as we all wait for Derrick’s next statement.

My breath literally catch in my throat, my hopes uncontrollably raising high as Derrick stare me dead in the eye.

Then his next statement stuns the hell out of me

“Don’t hurt her, just drag her out peacefully.” He said with a cold glitch in his eyes and in that moment, I unable to recognize the man I married.