Her Substitute Groom

Janice POV

“What would you like to have? You can order anything. Bills on me,” I watched as he puffed smoke from his mouth. The Carl I used to know was not a smoker, but now he was. He reclined on the chair, his eyes not leaving me as though he was monitoring me with his gaze.

“Nothing. I’m not here to eat. What do you want from me, Carl?” I asked him even though he already warned me to stop calling him that. Well, you weren’t expecting me to start calling him the name I didn’t know him by, right?

“I told you to stop calling me that, wife…”

“Point of correction, Carl. We were never married, so you can’t call me that,” I cut him off, and he took a deep breath as he closed his eyes. Silence assumed the atmosphere for the next few minutes and I wondered what he was thinking. I had many questions to ask him. What happened that day? How come he was alive? Where he had been all this while, and how he turned out like this. I was curious to know the answers to my questions, but now wasn’t the time to start questioning him.

“What do you want from me, Carl?” I asked again, and he finally opened his eyes. He puts out the light of the cigarette as he drops it on the ashtray on the small table demarcating us.

“I want us to get married. We need to start from where we stopped. We were going to get married if not for that bastard that messed everything up. I’m here now… Let’s get back together,” He stated with a look on his face that showed he was dead serious about this.

“Ma… married? Are you for real?” I scoffed unbelievably because this was the last thing he should think would ever be possible. No way I was ever going to allow that. Not while I was still breathing, anyway.

“You can’t keep threatening me, Carl. This is not right. You disappeared all of a sudden, made everyone think you were dead and all you could think of was pop out of nowhere and ask us to get married? Who does that?” I was forced to speak up because this didn’t make any sense to me. I knew being here was dangerous, he could harm me, especially with the way I was talking to him, but still, I didn’t care.

“Do you know how broken your family was? You were alive all this while and you think it was fine to hide and…”

“Don’t talk to me about family, Janice. Don’t you dare!” He yelled at the top of his voice as he slammed his hands on the table and leaned forward as though he was going to pounce on me, and I couldn’t deny that fear gripped me at that moment, but I tried to be strong. I needed to stand up for myself, I needed to stop being weak and falling for his trick because I was sure it was never going to end well.

“They did this to me! Those people I called family did this to me. Do you still think they are worthy of being called my family?”

“At least your parents cared about you…”

“And you think I care about that? They couldn’t protect me. They failed as parents, do you still want me to think of them as a family? To me, they are all dead. They died the day I lost my sight! They were all dead to me when my so-called parents couldn’t protect me!” He yelled at me with pain resounding in his voice and written all over him.

“They made me lose everything… And because of that bastard, I lost you too, but that is going to be reversed because I’m back now, and we are getting back together,” He said with finality in his voice, and I scoffed unbelievably. Yes, he had been through a lot, his story was enough to pity him, but not to the point of getting married to him.

“Carl…”

“I love you, Janice… I love you with everything in me. I swear I really do, and you knew it. I was going to fight for us, but…”

“I never loved you, Carl… You were the last person on earth I was ever going to have feelings for…” I shook my head, and his face dropped disappointedly.

“Wh… what do you mean?” He stuttered, his eyes piercing into mine, and I sighed briefly.

“The only reason I agreed to marry you then was because of your money and not that I ever loved you. I only wanted your money, and…”

“It doesn’t matter. We were still going to work out even at that. We were still going to be the best couples ever if he had not messed things up,” He held my hand and squeezed it gently.

“No, Carl. You need to stop this, OK? We really can’t work out together. I’m with your brother now,” His eyes darkened and he scoffed.

“I’m sorry, but I love him. I love Connor, and…” My words were cut in my mouth and my eyes sparked with the hot slap that just landed across my cheek, sending me from the chair I was seated on.

“Say that again, and I’m going to blow off your skull this minute, Janice,” He pulled out a pistol from the coat he was wearing then walked over to where I was lying helplessly on the floor and squatted in front of me.

“Ca… Carl…”

“How dare you say those crappy words to me. You can’t call that bastard’s name where I am, how dare you tell me that you love him? You really want to die, don’t you?” He barked at me, and I flinched fearfully. Tears brimmed in my eyes and trickled down my cheeks immediately. With the gun pointing directly at me, my heart thumped hard against my chest as fear gripped me. I wasn’t ready to die. I still have family to take care of. My parents and brother are depending on me for survival, I didn’t have a child yet so I can’t die, please.

“Yo… you have to put the gun away, please…” I pleaded with him as more tears streamed down my cheeks, but he grabbed my hair and pulled it aggressively, forcing a wince off my lips.

“You are hurting me, Carl… Please let go of me,” coming here was the biggest mistake I ever made, but begging him when it didn’t seem like he was ever going to listen to me was the most stupid decision I ever made.

“I really don’t want to hurt you, but you are going to leave me with no choice if you dare speak about loving him again, Janice. I’m going to really kill you if you dare mention that bastard’s name ever again!” His ear-piercing yell made me almost lose my eardrum.

“Now, listen to me, Janice. You are going to do as I said henceforth,” With the gun held to my head, he ordered me and I could only nod my head affirmatively because I wasn’t ready to die.

“Now, you are going to go home, get your things, and move out of that house first thing tomorrow morning,” He said between gritted teeth, his fingers tightening around my hair every single second. It felt like he was trying to pull it off my scalp and I didn’t even dare scream for fear of being shot dead.NôvelDrama.Org owns this text.

“You can’t tell him or anyone about me, and if you do, I’m going to kill you, I promise. Do you understand?” I quickly nodded and he finally let go of my hair and stood up.

“I’m sending one of my men to come and pick you up tomorrow to your new apartment. Don’t mess things up if you don’t want to swim in your own blood tomorrow,” He stated sternly and finally walked away, leaving me on the ground.

My hand trembled as I touched my broken lip, tears streamed down my cheeks. How did I get into this mess? How did all this start in the first place? I asked myself, but I guess it wasn’t the time to be worried about that now. If I wanted to live, then I needed to do whatever he asked me to do…