Chapter 3 - The Mistress and the Scissors
|
Brandon raised his hands, and the murmurs of the crowd died down. The music was turned down to a low, pulsing hum.
"Tonight," Brandon announced, his voice echoing off the high ceilings, "my stubborn, ungrateful wife is finally going to learn who really controls everything in this family."
From the shadows of the hallway, a woman stepped forward. It was Melissa. She was a junior executive at Brandon’s firm, the woman I had recently suspected he was sleeping with. I had found her perfume on his coats, her late-night texts on his phone, but he had always gaslit me into believing I was just being paranoid. Now, she stood in my living room, wearing a stunning red dress that I recognized from my own closet.
She wasn't holding a drink. She was holding a pair of heavy, silver fabric scissors.
Melissa walked toward me, her heels clicking sharply against the floor. She knelt beside me, her eyes flashing with a toxic mixture of jealousy and triumph. Without a word, she grabbed a thick fistful of my dark hair, pulling my head back so sharply that my neck popped.
"Please don't," I whispered, tears of absolute terror welling in my eyes. "Melissa, please."
May you like
Snip.
The cold metal slid against my scalp. A long lock of my hair fell across my face and drifted onto the polished floor. Melissa kept cutting, methodically butchering the hair I had spent years growing out. Several guests actually lifted their cell phones, the flashes blinding me as they recorded the humiliation. I looked up at Brandon, begging for mercy, but he simply watched with the satisfaction of a man finally showing me what our marriage had always meant to him.
