UNWANTED WIFE | UNCONDITIONAL SERIES

2 | M E N A C E

I reached the dining room to hear a loud gunshot. It wasn't from me.

Then, I heard the worst deafening scream ever. It was my mother. I still remember her words.

"NOOOOO! MY BABY! NO PLEASE! MY SWEET BABY!" My mother wailed for what felt like hours. I was frozen to my spot, my stomach filled with dread. I felt my blood drain out of my body as I heard the most terrifying voice. His voice.

I tried to look at what was happening when I saw my sister on the floor...naked.

I slid down the wall hiding me from the attacker and my own mother. I couldn't take my eyes off the black figure standing in front of my mother.

He threw my mother on the ground. I heard yells, screams, pleas, wails, cries...every single sound my mother made as she was being assaulted. Then the gunshot sound. I heard his cold icy chuckle and I raised my gun. I faced it toward the man...unfrozen from my shocked state. Now I shot him in the head.

A perfect shot.

But I was too late. I was shocked, I was afraid. I couldn't save my sister and mother. I slipped to the ground.

My loud wails echoing the empty house. I was the only one alive. I was...I was alive.

"NO! Please! Mom! Gia! Please! Don't leave me! Please! Please! Please! Please..."

I kept muttering, while my family had been shattered in front of me. I felt hands on my shoulders, my father hugged me as we both cried for the two people we loved and swore to protect. He swore to protect us all. He lost my mother, his wife. He lost my sister, his daughter. And when I shot that man, I lost myself. I could have shot him sooner. If I had shot him sooner.

If I was down here before he got the chance to hurt my sister.

If I had not been so shocked.

My sister and mother would still be alive.

Iris helped me understand that a fifteen year old boy, who had seen his sister in a position no brother ever should, it was traumatizing. It is traumatizing and shock was a feeling anyone would feel.

She made me realize I was just a boy. I was a kid. And the worst of it is the nightmares of that night never left me.

I told her because I killed a man, I was in juvenile jail for two years. And then six months later I found her. My sole reason to believe in good and stay for her.

I introduced her to my father who for the first time in five years genuinely smiled and I felt as if she was the angel this family needed. And she was.

She was so much more. Iris was stronger than the winds of the ocean, stubborn as a rock, gentle as the clouds. She was everything I needed and wanted and wished for.

Three years passed in a blur and I proposed to her. I was 23 and she had turned 23 a few weeks back. We both were 23 and had graduated college and were going to start our lives. She had in more ways than one healed my heart. She, with her pure heart had healed me. Even healed my father when she told the both of us she was expecting.