Twisted Vows of Seduction

by N’Tyse

  “Nadine?” Jeff shot.

  “Yes, Daddy. She said that Nadine was going to be her maid and that she would get to hold her dress as she walked down the aisle.”

  “She lied to you, Deandra, and she used you for information!” He was furious.

  Deandra appeared saddened. “Daddy, please don’t be mad at me. She told me to pinky swear not to say anything because it was supposed to be a surprise.”

  Jeff shook his head and walked over to hug his daughter. “Daddy’s not mad at you, baby. I’m mad at myself because I should have never brought her here.” He kissed his daughter on the forehead. He wished like hell that he had seen this one coming. He was upset with himself more than anything because he’d given her the benefit of the doubt. He thought he was helping her. Now he wondered if she really had been robbed or if it was all part of her scheme to rob him.

  “Go on and do your homework,” he said. “I need to handle some business.”

  “Okay, Daddy.”

  Jeff picked up his phone to call Nadine. He needed to fix this because she was the last person he wanted to believe this nonsense. Not so much that her input would have mattered had he chosen to walk that path again, but she deserved the truth. And the truth was, he wasn’t marrying anybody. Not today, not tomorrow, or years to come.

  “This is Nadine.”

  “Are you busy? I had something I needed to straighten out.”

  “Actually…yes.”

  “Here, baby, let me get that for you,” the male’s voice in the background called out.

  “Thank you,” Nadine said, obviously switching her attention from Jeff to whoever she had been conversing with before his call.

  “Ma Ma…”

  Jeff froze in his steps. That was his son.

  “Nadine, where are you?”

  “Jeff, can this wait until later?”

  “Where are you with my son?” He didn’t mean to sound as angry as it came out.

  As if muffling her voice to speak, she asked, “What’s so important that you need to talk to me right now?”

  “I’m coming over.”

  “We’re not home.”

  “I want to see my son!” Jeff could hear the rounds of laughter in the background and it made his stomach churn.

  “Leonard, I’m going to step out for a minute, baby. I’ll be right back.”

  Jeff could hear her heels patter across the floor. There was an echo as she moved from one area to the other, but even in the distance, Jeff could hear his son laughing, playing, and enjoying, this other man.

  “What has gotten into you?” Nadine lit into him. “It’s only Monday, and all of a sudden, you want to see your son.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Don’t do what? Tell you how I really feel for a change?” She didn’t give him time to respond. “I’m sick of you playing part-time daddy to Canvas when it’s convenient for you! He needs a father, Jeff. A father! So why don’t you, Deandra, and your new fiancée, go on with your happy lives, and let me do what’s best for my son. You can clock back in on Friday!”

  The only reason Jeff knew Nadine had hung up the phone in his face was he no longer heard his son’s laughter. And the only reason he realized how bad he had hurt her was because he could feel his own heart beginning to break as her words echoed in his mind. He could feel that double-edged sword being shoved deeply down his throat. That quickly, she had diabolically cursed him with her anger and pain. Jeff could feel it in his bones. Every fucking ounce of it, he could feel. And the only way he knew the feeling consuming him was the real deal and not a false alarm, was when Deandra walked up to him with her homework in hand. Instead of asking for the help she was seeking, she said, “Daddy, why are you crying?”

  30

  Five hundred pounds of weight had been lifted off his chest. Greg had been delivered from all the sneaking around and lying he’d found himself doing in order to keep his dirty little secrets safe. It had gotten to the point where he found himself lying to Vivian about almost everything. From his whereabouts, the lipstick print she’d found on his collar last month, right down to his wedding band. It had been one untruth after the other, time and time again. He had lied so much that it was beginning to feel normal. At times he didn’t even trust his own tongue out of fear of what lie would roll off of it next. Therefore, when the perfect opportunity came for him to relinquish, he did. Feeling as though he’d perjured himself enough.

  After she’d splashed hot coffee in his face, Greg was surprised that when Vivian did finally calm down, she didn’t so much as rebut or ask questions. It was as if she had known about his latest affair all along, and his admission had only been to clear his own guilty conscience. They’d talked like civil adults and eventually she agreed that they were no longer good for each other. She’d said they had lost all the fundamental components that were essential in keeping a marriage together. He’d told her flat out—people change. They’d outgrown each other, he had said bluntly. He’d felt the need to remind her how they wanted different things out of life, figuring that would lessen any hurt, but he’d refrained. Vivian wanted to move back to Connecticut to be near her father while Greg, on the other hand, had other endeavors to pursue. He wanted to settle in California, venture back into the restaurant business, and most importantly, he was ready to start the family Vivian had refused to give him.

  The conversation had ended well and they’d promised to remain good friends. After all, he did still care about her. That wouldn’t change.

  Leonard, on the other hand, had advised Greg wait to tell Vivian that he was seeing someone. He informed him that adultery could have a substantial influence on the outcome of the divorce settlement. But Greg had been bullheaded when he’d admitted to Vivian that he was having an affair. He wasn’t thinking about the financial ramifications. He only wanted instant reprieve. Besides, he had taken her through enough already, he could at least be a man and fess up to his wrongdoings for once.

  So as Greg killed the engine and jumped out of the car, he couldn’t help but imagine the smile he would put on Naomi’s face when he’d tell her that he’d told his wife about them. It was official now. He could now make the move to Los Angeles with her so that she didn’t have to keep traveling back and forth as she had done for the past few weeks. This would be his first time seeing her this week because she had been so busy, she had told him in a text message. They had agreed on a Friday night date at her place, but he needed to see her now.

  He walked anxiously up to her doorstep. Instead of ringing the doorbell as he would have normally, he used his key.

  “Baby!” he called out, shutting the door and locking it.

  Traces of Chanel perfumed the air. It was the sensuality of the fragrance that always aroused him. Took him places only his mind could go to in 0.2 seconds.

  “Naomi, baby!” Greg called out again. He walked farther through the living area, noticing how everything was still neatly arranged and in place. She hadn’t packed anything from what he could see. “Baby, you in here!” he called out again. The closer he got to the bedroom door, the closer his hound dog was to being awakened.

  He thought she might would have been napping after her usual Friday spa and shopping splurge, but when he walked into that room, all he found was an empty perfectly made-up bed. The bathroom door was slightly cracked and he could feel the steam seeping out as she showered. A John Mayer track played softly. Of all the songs in the world she was playing, “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.” He hated that damn song with a passion. His wife played it all the time, mostly when she was upset or depressed about something. But that’s not why he hated it. He hated it because it was sad, tragic, and bleak. Sounded like funeral music for a dead relationship. Then again, maybe that’s why Vivian loved it so much.

  He walked over to the bed and picked up the folded sheet of paper that had his name written across it in black ink. Was she expecting him to come this early? He read it, then followed the instructions on it,
all while wondering what Naomi might have had up her sleeves. The television had already been set. All he had to do was press “play.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the video to come on. Suddenly, a smiling bride and groom appeared on the screen. It had been forwarded to the part where they were reciting their personalized wedding vows.

  “I give you my hand, my heart, and all of my love.”

  “I will always support your endeavors.”

  “I vow to love you through good and difficult times.”

  “To be there in your time of need.”

  “To hold you when you’re in pain.”

  Greg began to tense up. He thought his lungs were going to collapse.

  “To protect you.”

  “Provide for you.”

  “And I vow…to never…ever leave your side.”

  Greg’s heart began to race. He shot up and stormed to the bathroom to see what kind of sick joke Naomi was playing. How in the hell did she get a copy of his and his wife’s wedding video?

  When he forcefully pushed the door open, he was greeted by a .45 Automatic Colt pistol. Stainless steel with gold highlights and a wood grain handle. It gave off eight rounds plus a lucky bonus if he’d missed his target the other eight shots. He should know because it was his gun. His gun and his wife holding it.

  Greg’s hands shot up. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Vivian, what are you doing?” Somehow, he still remembered her name. Still remembered how to breathe as his words nearly strangled him.

  “Back up!” Vivian ordered. That polished piece of metal in her trembling glove-covered hand was aimed directly at Greg’s torso. “Back over by the bed!”

  Greg took tiny steps backward. He didn’t stop until the back of his legs bumped against the iron rail.

  “Sit!”

  He sat back down on the bed. The bed that had witnessed his infidelities. If she peeled back those sheets and held up a black light, she would find all of the evidence she needed to write this off. It would have been settled in court. She would end up with everything and it would be the end of their story. But the psychotic look in her eyes, the coldness he felt coming off her body, scared him. It scared him to death.

  She looked over at the couple in that wedding video. Neither of them would probably admit now that they knew who they were. They seemed so in love. So naive and predictable. But here today, Vivian and Greg had made fools out of them.

  “To have and to hold, from this day forward.”

  “For better, for worse.”

  “For richer, for poorer.”

  “In sickness and in health.”

  “Until death…do us part,” Vivian mimicked.

  Greg had thought his confession had been enough. He thought they had agreed on moving on.

  She picked up the remote and paused the video. That couple was about to kiss, about to leap into holy matrimony in front of hundreds of people that had been sitting in that cathedral.

  “Do you remember that day, Greg?”

  Greg only nodded as he sat there riddled with fear.

  “You said you loved me and that you would never leave my side.”

  “I’m…sorry,” was all Greg could muster.

  Her eyes seemingly turned gray. “You’re not sorry. But you will be.”

  Greg would be a damn fool not to believe her. She had a gun in her hand. That was more than enough to make a believer out of him.

  Dressed in black pants, a long-sleeved hooded black shirt, and a short black wig, Vivian looked more like an Asian MMA cage fighter than a wealthy white blonde. Her drunken eyes flared with anger as she wrapped her fingers tightly around the grip of that pistol. Her index finger idled along the curve of its trigger.

  The mystery behind her madness revealed itself with every nervous breath she took and the pungent smell of Vodka began to clash with the fragrance he’d smelled earlier as it leaped from her tongue.

  “You’re drunk, Vivian. Let me get you some help.”

  “Fuck you! I don’t need you to do a damn thing for me.”

  He needed to calm her. Needed to help her regain her sanity before she did something stupid—like shoot him. But his nerves were getting the best of him. Afraid to move an inch, he coolly paced himself.

  “What did you do to Naomi?” he asked, hoping she hadn’t been hurt.

  “Acgh-kch!” Vivian’s laugh sounded more like a single cough. “You’re staring down the barrel of a .45 and all you can think about is Naomi? Ha, ha, ha.” She shook her head sideways. “Either I did a damn good job picking somebody to screw your double two-timing ass, or you’re being awfully thoughtful.”

  Greg narrowed his eyes. “What did you just say?”

  “Ooooh…his head’s really spinning now,” she taunted. “You heard right. Naomi was a decoy that I hired!”

  A voice inside persuaded him that he would have a fifty-fifty chance of surviving that bullet that she would unleash right before he wrestled his gun out of her hand and emptied that clip into her. Fifty-fifty were the odds of him escaping that with nothing more than a scrape.

  Clenching his jaw, he looked on stone-faced. His breathing grew labored as he sat there feeling so lightheaded, he thought the room was actually spinning. Vivian had set him up—that he might get over someday. But Naomi’s deception had his stomach in twisted knots. She was his walking cash vault. He’d transferred stocks, bonds, and several bank accounts, in her name. He put his $5 million house, in her name. A two-karat diamond on her finger. She was, and is, all he had left! And to find out that she was a part of his wife’s gambit, infuriated the hell out of him. It was like watching his money burn in his face. At that moment all he could see was red as every drop of blood in his body, rushed to his head. He bet he looked like a vicious pit-bull, ready to attack.

  “The look on your face right now is priceless.” A conniving grin tugged at Vivian’s pout and Greg wanted to smack it clean off. He felt nothing but a rage of fury and every piece of him split in two. He couldn’t mask his pain any more than he could his anger. Therefore, she was enjoying the benefit of watching him bear all. Again, he asked himself if he was ready to catch that bullet, or ready to catch that case.

  Greg calculated his plan. He had to be precise. Not a second off.

  “If you wanted out, I would have given you out,” he said calmly. “It doesn’t have to end this way.”

  “You don’t tell me how this is going to end, I tell you!” She started laughing again.

  Greg inhaled. His eyes begged for mercy all on their own while his soul cried for redemption, and all he could do at that moment was hope and pray that God was listening.

  Vivian stared at him for a short while. A half-moon smile effortlessly carved in her ruthless face. She looked like one of those women on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

  “You know, I thought tipping off those auditors to your old whore’s firm felt good. Ha, ha, ha. I was dead wrong. This, my dear, will be the best climax I’ve gotten all year.”

  “What do you want from me, Vivian?” Greg asked in a low uneven tone.

  “Justice,” Vivian said as she cocked the gun.

  Vivian had an advantage over him. She was standing, he was sitting. She had a weapon and all he had was his strength to rely on. He wasn’t afraid to die, but dying at the hands of his wife hadn’t been how he wanted to go out. He always thought he’d die of old age or natural causes like his grandparents and great-grandparents had. A life of longevity was in his blood. So he thought.

  She took a couple of steps back. “Tear off a piece of that paper,” she ordered.

  Greg reached behind him and grabbed the note on the bed. He slowly ripped off the lower half. She tossed him a black pen.

  “Now I want you to write this exactly how it comes out of my mouth.” She paused and dictated what she wanted the letter to read. As Greg wrote the five-line letter, which had been his suicide note, a nauseous feeling swarmed over him.

  “Now lay it there on the bed.”<
br />
  They were inches apart so if he was going to take that gun from her, now was the time to do it. It was the only chance he had. She pointed the gun to his head. He held up his hands. “Please don’t do this?”

  “I was never enough for you,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter now because I’m going to reunite you with that home-wrecking cunt of yours. Although I feel I should get some kind of award for trying to resurrect her black ass for you.”

  Vivian had lost her mind, Greg concluded. His face tightened as his chest heaved from the pressure pulling at it.

  “You have to admit, I did a really good job with your girlfriend.” Vivian chuckled. “I knew it couldn’t have been anything more than the sweet call of justice because she looked just like that slutty whore of yours,” she spat angrily.

  “Stop!” Greg said.

  Vivian acted as though she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. “So I cleaned her up, got her a few nips and tucks, then I put her in this nice lavish condo that you leased in your name.”

  “I didn’t lease a damn thing, Vivian, and you know that! You did all of this to set me up!”

  “All the checks have your signature, honey. Every last one of them.” She smiled. “Don’t you get it? Neither of those women gave a damn about you. You were nothing more than a paycheck to them, but you were too stupid to realize that. That was my money and you had no right!”

  “It was ours!”

  “No, it was mine!” Vivian lashed out. Greg nearly lost his composure. “But I’ll be reimbursed for my troubles once the life insurance pays out, which by the way, I increased after learning of that slut, Denise.” She bestowed upon him a twisted condescending smirk.

  Greg detested her. The love and compassion he once felt for his wife, seemingly deserted him. He felt nothing. Only saw her for the true evil bitch that she’d always been. The raging veins that protruded from his neck looked more like tiny snakes. His breathing became unsteady as his anger intensified.

  “You’ll never get away with this!”

  “Correction. I already have.”