1. BROKEN

" Yeah, just like that Alex..." A feminine voice rang out from the master's bedroom, specifically from the bedroom I shared with Alex for five years now.

"You take me so well, not as useless as your sister" my husband's voice rang out from the same and I froze on the stairs clutching the pregnancy results in my palms.

Just a movie, that's just it. I repeated the same words as I climbed up the remaining flight of stairs my hand closing on the cold metal of the door handle heart beating fast,

The door creaked open cracked open, barely making a sound and I peeped in half expecting to see the tv on and Alex sitting on the b d pulling out his watch engrossed in the movie.

My vision blurred and I staggered back whispering one name "Serena...." For a few seconds, I couldn't move, just stood there staring through the narrow opening, my fingers still wrapped around the door handle while my mind desperately searched for something else to see.

Maybe I had misunderstood, maybe my eyes were playing a cruel trick on me or maybe Serena wasn't lying naked on my bed.

Alex isn't the man beside her, right, even the thought felt like a lie sitting only in my mind because the room was real. The bed too and their bodies were real.

The little hope I had been holding onto faded so quietly that I almost wished it had screamed.

The door closed up sealing me out from what was happening inside because can someone explain what my sister was doing naked on my bed with my husband

My feet moved, taking me downstairs with slow hesitant steps, there's an explanation. There surely should be....

I sat on the couch waiting, not really don't knowing how long I sat still.

Ten minutes. An hour. Maybe longer, but the pregnancy results remained trapped beneath my fingers, slowly becoming wrinkled from how tightly I held them.

My eyes kept staring at the staircase while some part of me still believed Alex would come down alone. He would look at me, apologize, and somehow explain everything.

I hated myself for waiting.

But five years of loving someone couldn't disappear just because I had seen something I wished I hadn't.

So I waited.

I waited for the man I loved to give me one reason not to hate him, before the door creaked open followed by soft chuckling and steps, then they both appeared by the stairs,

"You are home" he said coldly not a single look of guilt in his eyes,

Just that...., I closed my eyes then turned to look at Serena beside him tilting my head slightly, " oh dear sister, so pathetic as always. Waiting for an explanation" she purred her grip on his hand tightening

She saw me and let it happen, the realization curled deep in my chest tears stinging my eyes but staying in, it's not flowing now, not when what they want is to see me cry,

"How long" my voice was steady despite the war of emotions twirling deep in me, the hospital test results crumbling beneath my grip as I twisted it into a ball,

"How long what?.." Alex voice called out coldly, the exact same voice that suited me when I was in pain,the same voice I always came back home to but held nothing more than boring contempt now,

I tilted my head fully to the side avoiding their fac a as the tears threatened to fall out, "Alex...." I called voice breaking a little too much "..why"

"You weren't enough, and completely useless" he said and the last hope of an explanation I held dear slowly shattered. The words didn't sound real, why because they had come from him.

Alex had held me when I cried. He had kissed my forehead before going to sleep. He had promised me that I was his family.

And now he was looking at me like five years of my life had been an inconvenience.

I swallowed hard, forcing the tears back, surely if I cried now, Serena would see it. Alex too

And somehow, I couldn't give either of them the satisfaction.

So I nodded, once though, the only thing I could still make my body do properly,

My legs stood firm on the ground as I nodded moving towards the door, "Send the divorce papers over tomorrow, you know where I will be" I muttered and shut the door behind me,

The cold air hit my face the moment I stepped outside, but stopped at the bottom of the steps, staring at the mansion behind me.

Home.

At least, that was what I had called it for five years.

I had walked through those doors as Alex's wife every day. I had cooked there, laughed there, cried there, and built plans for a future I suddenly realized had never belonged to me.

My palm slowly moved over the pregnancy results inside my coat.

I had come home carrying the biggest happiness of my life and guess what, I was leaving with a divorce.

My unborn baby was the only thing I still had left.

So this was it five years of devotion and loyalty all burnt down to a moment with my sister, my feet were slow probably expecting him to call back my name but the silence of the mansion I left behind burning loudly into my ears

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out with shaky hands "can't believe you only found out after four years of me having your husband in my bed, you are so slow sister" I read the message tears finally blurring my vision and running out in ripples..

"Maybe that's why you could never keep a man" the next text followed and I shut down my phone throwing it back into the pocket of my leather coat,

My fingers slowly stretched the medical report open, the same sheet my unborn child sat in, same message I had rushed back so happily to tell him about only to be stabbed over and over again within just few minutes,

"Am sorry baby, mama is just too weak to protect you" I whispered voice breaking and shoulders trembling as I lowered myself into the bench by the road side,

Another vibration from the Godforbidden device in my pocket and I almost threw it away, but the ID on the screen cut me off 'Mom'

My fingers swiped the green already prepared the the mediocre behind the call, of course she is always watching, I don't expected this sooner or later

"I warned you Kiera, but you wouldn't listen" she said calmly and my fingers loosened around the phone " the board of directors won't wait anymore, get back here but not with that bastard child" she said and ended the call.