Chapter 1 #4
“Aht.” He placed his finger onto my lips. “For better or for worse,” he repeated the vow to me.
I nodded. “Yes,” I agreed.”
“Okay.” He guided me up the stairs and into the house. When we entered, I was taken aback because more domestic staff were lined in the foyer as we walked down the aisle like we were the Obamas. They all stared straight ahead as we made it halfway, and I stopped.
The sound of loud footsteps raced towards us as ten children raced around the corner and ran to Syris. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” they all cheered.
My heart dropped to my ass when Syris dropped to his knees and hugged his gang of children.
This nigga had enough kids to fill a short school bus.
The sound of high heels filled the foyer, and I looked up into the angst eyes of the chocolate beauty from our wedding.
This time, a red jumpsuit covered her small, petite frame as she folded her arms across her ample chest and stared me down. I looked from her to Syris.
“You! Syris, you need to explain to me what the hell is going on right now!” I demanded loudly.
Syris kissed his children and signaled for a few servants to take them to go and play. He stood in the center of the foyer then cleared his throat. “Butterfly, this is my first wife, Temi, and those are my children. Our family is officially complete.”
Ringing filled my ears as I clumsily stumbled backwards onto the staircase and took a seat on one of the stairs.
My heart pounded erratically while anger coursed through me like a prescription being filled.
The love of my life was already fucking married and had kids, a classroom full of them muthafuckas!
Syris and Temi stood in front of me, and I glared at them both.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Syris squatted in front of me. “You are now home. We’re your family now. I posed as a music professor until I found the missing link to my family, and it was you.”
My eyes widened. “Are you fucking kidding me? You want me to be on some sister wives shit, and you’re holding me against my will?”
“When you say it like that, it just sounds so dirty and disgusting. I didn’t kidnap you. We fell in love and now that we’re married, and you have to stay here with me as your husband. We took vows, and I take that very seriously.”
“Syris, do you hear yourself right now? How about the vow to remain faithful and loyal? This is also kidnapping for God’s sake!” Tears fell rapidly down my face.
“I didn’t choose this life. I chose love. I vowed to love you through it all, but you played me. All the memories, everything that we built and shared was a complete lie!
“That so-called honeymoon was pure bullshit!” I cried so hard as Syris rubbed my back. “No! Don’t you touch me. I don’t want you. I don’t want you. I don’t want any of this!
“Syris, I want my own husband. Not a man who’s already taken vows with another woman. You’re Temi’s husband! This can’t be real. I have to be still asleep and dreaming.” I pinched myself then slapped myself, but from the pain I felt, I knew this was reality.
“Butterfly, please don’t say that to me.
I’m begging you. You of all people can’t say that to me,” he expressed in a cracked voice.
Temi looked down at Syris with a shocked expression covered her face.
I’m assuming she’d never seen him so vulnerable before.
Tears welled in his eyes while he carried a look of betrayal from my words.
“There’s nothing that you can say or do to change my mind.
You tricked me, Syris! I was bamboozled, hoodwinked, and lied to continuously!
” I screamed through my heartbreaking sobs.
This was horrible. In a blink of an eye, my whole world had changed.
I was once a woman madly in love with a man, now I had to share him willingly with another woman and be held against my will.
Temi kneeled in front of me. “Era, it’s hard to take in now, but soon you’ll adjust, and we’ll all be happy together,” she professed and rubbed my knee soothingly.
My brows furrowed together as I stared deeply into her now sympathetic brown eyes. “I’m sorry that you have to deal with this kind of humiliation. Had I known Syris was already married, I wouldn’t have spared him a second look. But do you hear yourself right now?
“Babe, you’re just as delusional as him. Marriage is a club that’s only for the two people that took vows together. It should not be shared with a third party.” Temi’s face softened as her own eyes watered.
The front door of the mansion opened because an attendant entered, and I saw my chance.
Forcefully, I pushed Syris down and bulldozed over Temi.
I ran out of the house like my life depended on it.
Hurriedly, I zoomed down the driveway. The gates were descending to close, but I could make it since it was moving slowly.
“We have a runway! We have a runway!” someone shouted behind me, but I still kept running. Don’t give up, Era. You can make it. Keep going. I cheered myself on mentally. My arms and legs pumped harder as perspiration dripped from my head and upper lip.
I was almost at the gate, when something pricked the side of my neck, and my body went slack within seconds.
I hit the ground with a hard thud as I tried hard to fight the drug entering my system.
Weakly, I tried to finish my trek to the gate as I army crawled, but my limbs were giving up.
I went in and out of consciousness as strong arms picked me up and carried me away from my freedom.
The smell of Syris’s one of a kind cologne filled my nose before I focused on his voice.
“I’m sorry, Butterfly, but this is how things are now.”
Tears rolled down my face as I struggled with keeping my eyes open.
I wasn’t able to look him into his eyes, but he was going to hear what I had to say.
“Syris Hopes, as long as there is breath in my body, I will never forgive you, and I will always hate youu,” I slurred, before my slumber kidnapped me once again.