REMI

When I tried to swallow saliva, I could not. A lump the size of a tennis ball had settled itself in my gut. My whole body vibrated with tension and a fear so thick and suffocating I wanted to crumble to the floor and become one with the rug.

I was sitting in the chapel waiting room, surrounded by my makeup artist and fashioner. Inside the chapel were over a hundred people.

It was my wedding day with my fiancé, Maverick Isaac. Maverick was the heir to the Isaac George Family, the wealthiest family in South America.

But something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

My makeup artist cast a furtive glance at me, then at his wristwatch.

My mom, for the umpteenth time, ran into the room and cried, “He isn't here yet?”

I nodded quietly and tried to calm the turbulence in my head. “He'll be here.”

“You spoke to him?” She wanted to be sure. “Have you heard what he's got to say?”

I shrugged my shoulders, my confidence rapidly dropping. “His phone isn't…”

“Oh, goodness gracious!” my mom screamed, throwing her hands to her face. “What the hell is this? Why's he chosen to disgrace us in front of all these people?”

“Don't make a fuss about it, mom,” I said.

She fired back. “What the hell you talking about? It's been four hours!”

Whilst she was speaking, a white cassock floated out of the chapel door and charged towards the room.

The Reverend's presence filled up the place. He tried to belly his fury.

“I haven't been subjected to such a heartless experience all my years,” he said. “Why would Mr Isaac keep the whole city standing? He isn't the first billionaire I'm joining. Neither’s he the last. What's going on, Remi?”

I didn't know how to defend him anymore. Maverick and I had been a disaster waiting to happen. Only me knew how long and hard it took me to force him to fix a wedding.

He finally agreed and in fact footed nearly all the bills. He showed signs of being excited, too. Now, where was he?

I looked up to see that people had started flocking out of the church.

And they didn't leave immediately. They stood outside and at the entrance of the waiting room. Their eyes were fixed on me, lined with cold rage.

I was breaking apart, my self-consciousness kicking in. My lips trembled and my heart bled. My mom looked like she wanted to die.

“Now what do you say to all these people?” the reverend barked.

He clearly wasn't prepared to make this easier for me. I took a quick sweep at the anxious and embarrassed faces glaring down at me. Not one of them was on my side.

“I'll call him now, I'll call him,” I blurted, fiddling with my sweat-covered phone. I'd called him a thousand times before, but I needed to tell these people I was lost, too. That I had no hand in this Maverick's stunt.

I dialled him.

The crowd went quiet.

The ringing beeps started.

“Finally,” my makeup artist sighed, palming his face. “Told you it was the from the network provider.”

I almost smiled.

“He's better give a good reason,” the reverend threatened.

He picked up.

The first voice was a shrill female's. “Girl, there's…”

The voice was abruptly cut short by a struggle. Then the line went dead.

“Oh my God,” someone in the crowd said. Suspicion and curiosity hung thick in the air.

The Reverend crept closer. “Dial him again.”

When I did, there was no answer this time.

He straightened his collar. “Okay. That says it all. I wouldn't ask for a refund on my time, and may God bless you.”

He walked away.

“Stop, Father!” I suddenly shouted.

He did, but didn't turn around. All eyes turned to me, wondering what exactly I had to say.

“He… He's just sent a text,” I stammered.

But none of these made sense! Why would I be the one calling Maverick? And whose voice was that? And why a text message?

“A text message?” asked the clergyman.

“Yes,” I said, peering at my phone. “I guess he's explaining why he…” The words got stuck in my throat as I stared at the text on my screen. My fingers began to tremble alongside my knees.

“Read the damn text!” a furious man shouted.

I sat back down, letting the phone fall to the floor.

Now the reverend turned around, his expression thick with ire. “What. Does. The. Text. Say?” he asked, slowly.

My mom picked the phone and read it all out. “Call off the wedding. There was an emergency at the company. Really sorry.”

That was it.

The crowd was quiet for a while, for the situation was too cringe to allow speech. Glances were exchanged.

My mom looked at me and I turned away.

Then she faced the Father and the crowd. “We… we.. erm, we apologize for —”

Hardly had she finished the word that the crowd broke apart. Even though we were in church premise, their anger was real and raw.

Curses were thrown at me. I was a pathetic fool that shouldn't get any good stuff whatsoever out of life, they declared.

My mom and my makeup artist had to shield me from physical attacks. What was supposed to be a sympathetic approach turned the opposite. Partly because I didn't have as much as a stable family background. My mom sold thrifts and my dad was in a sickbed, the hospital bills gaping open. I deserved no pity.

It took over ten minutes before the church was empty, except for us, and already the security man was beginning to hang around.

No words were exchanged as we gathered our crumbs and left in different cabs.

I was sore and shattered. My heart gaped open, filling up quickly with foul air.

What just happened? How had I ended up with a man as inhuman as Maverick?

I clutched my phone just as another message popped in. It was from his closest friend, Mark.

“want to exactly what happened?”

I was burning from curiosity. But just as I wanted to reply yes, my phone died.

REMI

“Hey, man,” I said to the cab driver, imploringly.

He turned, a hint of irritation on his face.

“Have you got a charger on you?” I asked, desperately, shoving the phone in his face.

He was so pissed off I thought he was one of the people in the congregation.

“Please?” I egged him on. My head was twirling wth a new wave. To know the truth.

Mark didn't always open up to me about Maverick's misdoings. He protected him like a thick shell. If Mark was actually willing to tell me the truth, why the hell would my phone go off now?

Now this damn cab driver was making matters even worse!

“Ain't got no such thing in this car,” he answered but didn't stop there. His grammar stiffened. “If that's your criterion to board a cab, I'll drop you off here and you can forfeit your bill.”

I waved my hand in front of my face. “Hello? Has there been an issue between us, sir?”

“My job, I'm just doing my job,” he grumbled, turning away.

I crashed my head back to the headrest. Exhaustion washed over me.

Tears rushed to my eyes. When I blinked they cascaded down my chin.

When we got to my apartment, I leapt out of the car, still in my wedding dress. I tossed the driver his money and bolted through the front door.

I immediately plugged my phone. When it added a single battery percent, I turned it on.

As though on cue, a call came in from Mark. I answered with shaky hands.

"Mark?" I stammered. "Tell me what happened, please. Did anything happen to Maverick? Why didn't he show up?" Who was that female? What the hell are they doing together? I fought to keep my voice controlled.

"Look, Maverick was at the verge of leaving for the wedding..." Mark said, flatly.

"Okay, okay?"

"Can you let me speak?"

Wow.

I went mute. He continued. "Do you know Lily?"

A flash of panic struck me when I heard a lady's name. "No."

"You might have met her sometime. Kinda family friend, too. Thing is, Lily is his business partner's daughter."

He paused and I listened hard, wondering where this was going. What had Maverick's business partner's daughter got to do with our wedding?

"She had an emergency. She's asthmatic. She got an attack while with Maverick and he had to—"

"While with Maverick?" I had to interrupt. "He was supposed to be at the wedding! What were they doing together at that point in time?"

"I once asked you to let me spe—"

But I didn't let this slip. "Mark, what on earth is going on? He abandoned his wedding to care for her? I'm pretty sure, Mark, that there were a lot of people in that room. Why... Why didn't they just take it from there? Why be in the room with a business partner's daughter in the first place?"

My voice inevitably began to rise.

"Does any of this makes sense? I think I remember Lily! Slender, big-eyed."

She was the kind of girl who was everything to everyone. It was difficult for man to not fall on her laps. Worst of all, she was a pretense machine. Chances were she wasn't asthmatic.

I was still speaking when Mark hung up on me. I shook my head, just as a message came in.

It was from the family group chat, and came from Lily.

"I'm so sorry, everyone, but I had a health emergency. Maverick is with me, ensuring everything is okay."

I gripped my phone, incredulous. This had to be a joke, right? That concern was supposed to be for me. Maverick couldn't just cancel our plans for Lily's fabricated drama.

My phone vibrated, and it was an SMS Maverick. "strange of me to act this way, but I had to save a life. A car is waiting in front of your house. Please come with it."

A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts. Before I could stand, a masked man stepped into my house.

I leapt to my feet. "Who the hell are you?"

He raised his hands in mock surrender. "A friendly reminder that to bail out drug dealer dad, you need over half a million."

"Who're you?"

"The longer it takes, the slimmer the chances you'd see him again. Alive. Isn't being with Maverick your only chance of being... a real human being?"

Quietly, he disappeared.

I was disheveled. My breathing began to catch up to my throat. The words of the masked man resonated in my head.

Abruptly I was up to my feet, changed into some clothes and walked outside. A Benz waited. The chauffeur tried his shot.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry that—"

"Philip, please just drive."

When we got to Maverick's mansion, I ran up the stairs, cleanly ignoring several family members who tried to be sympathetic with me.

"Where's he?" I asked a maid.

The latter was taken aback by my forwardness. "You mean Sir Maverick?"

"Whatever the fuck his name is."

"How dare you speak of my son in that manner?" a voice boomed from upstairs.

I turned to see Maverick's father, a formidable man, slowly descend the stairs.

REMI

Maverick's father was more ruthless than his son. His was causticity in its raw form. A mere conversation with him was always a nightmare.

"You're home, sir," I said, half in question.

He slowly spread his arms. "Where else do I be during my son's wedding?"

I stopped. Maverick told his father? Then he didn't show up? What was going on?

"You haven't answered my question, Remi,” said Mr Isaac. “Was it actually Maverick you spoke about in that manner? In front of a mere maid?"

"Sir, Maverick..." A gasp of air. "Today's our wedding day, as you rightly said. We were at the wedding venue for over five hours, and he didn't show up."

I stopped, not because of want of things to say, but because my breath was crashing into itself and because the pain in my heart was growing continuously. My eyes watered up.

Maverick's father fixed his eyes on me for a long while, then shook his head and turned away.

"What's your name?" he finally asked, his voice all shades of condescension.

I told him.

"And whose daughter are you?"

I stared at him, then at the wrinkles around his eyes. I was in for it.

"Is your father's name known anywhere?" he asked, gesturing as he spoke. "Is he mentioned in important places? I mean, you could correct me if he's called upon in somewhere other than the list of broke patients in the local hospital."

I turned to the window and a small, agonized smile played on face. It was a smile that shielded a thousand tears.

"Back to my question." He wasn't done yet. "So I'm guessing that because my ever-busy son was late for the wedding, he's become a fool you can call whatever names you want, yeah?"

He was coming closer now, his breath thick with brandy. This was a man dreaded by most top government officials and prominent personalities in the country. It was impossible to match against him.

"Do you want to get punished?" He was shouting now, his spit splashing all over me. "Do you want me to lock you up until you fall on your knees to beg my son whom you just disrespected?"

Honestly, these words and who uttered them were enough to send the chills down a person's back. In fact, I'd begun to quiver.

But at a point, something began to take form in my heart. A tough armor that hadn't been there.

I turned to look at him. Dead in the eye. "You've not spoken of how inhuman and uncalled for your son's act was—" I said.

"Shut your mouth while I speak, you good for nothing scumbag!" he lashed back, eyes raging. "How dare you speak while I do?"

That trepidation, however, had died. I clenched my fists and told him that that wasn't all.

"There was a lady's voice when I called him at the wedding venue. Your son's cheating on me right on our wedding day. Is this how you'll respond, sir? By threatening to lock me up like some stray cat?"

He shook his head, as though worried for me. "I have not come to banter words with a peasant. Maverick must've been blinded by your body when he chose you. I mean, there's nothing to gain from being married to you."

I had never felt so much pain stabs in such a short time.

I was about to speak when the front door burst open. My mom stood there, hands on her mouth.

"Sir..." she stammered when her eyes met Maverick's father's. "I... erm... I had no idea you were in the city."

She couldn't go on with her fake talk, for the tension in the air soon grabbed a hold of her.

"Sara?" the old man asked, remembering my mom from the few, rare dinners we'd had as potential in-laws, when were weren't allowed to speak unless when spoken to. When our silence, after the dinner, was criticized as signs or slow brains.

"Yes, sir." She bowed. She fucking prostrated.

"You're this scumbag's mother?" was the next question.

"Sir?" She, too, was caught off guard.

"One more 'sir' from you, dear madam, I'll throw you too in my storehouse!" he thundered. "How dare your daughter, whom my son must have picked from the abattoir of pigs, disrespect this family in the manner she did? Does she know, do y'all know where you are in? Or who you're getting married to?"

Nobody could talk. By now, some household staff and guards had crept closer, listening, ready to carry out orders if any.

I looked around me, knowing I had no power to fight this.

"What did you say to him, Remi?" came my mom's question.

I glared at her. I wanted to ask if she wasn't the same distraught woman a few minutes ago, who'd cried her eyes out when the "almighty Maverick" didn't appear at the wedding? I wanted to also ask her how much she reimbursed the enraged event planners. How much much shame she could bear.

Seeing I wouldn't budge, she turned back to Mr Isaac. "I deeply apologise for whatever transpired between her and you, sir. She is just..." An audible, dry swallow. "She's quite not... You know... used to these, erm, these incidents."

"Remi, get down on your knees and apologize," Maverick's father said, coldly.

A "hmm" pushed from my mouth as I took a step back. The bodyguards looks behind and around me.

My mother tried. "Sir..."

"She's sorry, right? Then let her show it."

I stood there, unmoving. A thousand thoughts jumped around in my head. The muscles of my joints tensed up with the crashing knowledge that I was in deep shit, and that I wasn't ready to chicken out.

"She's not going to kneel?" he asked.

Suddenly, there was a hush in the air, like chipmunks sensing the swooping shadow of a hunter eagle.

Our attention was drawn outside, where a sleek Tesla Cyber truck had just pulled over. There was only one man who drove a cyber truck in the family house.

Maverick Isaac.

Much to my dismay and anger, a painful knot of panic leapt up and congealed in my chest and neck. My eyelids fluttered uncontrollably.

The old man flicked up a triumphant corner of his lips. "Well, well, it just gets better."

"Oh God," my mom gasped, rubbing down her face.

We waited.

When the footsteps began to run up the stairs, it was like the worst sounds I'd heard all my life.