MY EX-WIFE'S GHOST

Prologue

LATIFA's POV

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I lie motionless in the cold sterile bed, my body a prisoner to the last injection. Every word and sound is clear. My heart, the distant voices and footsteps of patients along the corridor, the hum of the ceiling light, but I couldn't resist sitting up. I couldn't move; not my finger, not my lips.

The door creaks open, my heart thudding in my chest painfully.

Every day has been worse than the one before. A step towards my bed. Obviously Lady Joan. Her stiletto heels have never failed to announce her arrival.

"You look dreadful Joyce", her voice cut out dripping in sarcasm. "Worse than the last time"

My heart hardened. My nerves stood firm. I longed to scream, scratch at her face that was beginning to show signs of age, but my body refused to cooperate.

I know you can hear me loud and clear Joyce. The injection this time was to paralyze you, since your mental state is taking too long", she mocked. Her voice was on fire with triumph. "I never knew it would be that effective".

She sat beside me. She pulled out a set of photographs and fling them on my face. My eyes landed on the glinting pictures before me. Each one of them a knife through my heart.

My husband

In another woman's arm. Both naked, in our wedding bedroom.

His arms so long, around her waist. The way he hugged me. His face so calm, like I was with him; his rightful wife

My breath froze.

He cheated

Lady Joan leaned forward, her whisper harsh and taunting. "That's the Ministers grand-daughter. A real woman. Worthy of this role as the Dutchman's daughter in-law. Someone deserving of my son"

My heart thudded, pounding harder.

My vision blur

This can't be happening.

"And guess what", her voice came in clear. My nerves stand out, anticipating her next word. "She's two months pregnant!"

My breath caught, and then hazel. The words tugged at my throat.

Pregnant!

Never Zack will not......

Pain flowed through my veins leaving me helpless. I don't want to believe it, but the pictures were obviously not fabricated. It's real

"what you could not do in two years Joyce.... " Her taunting words cut. The antiseptic walls of the hospital run through my heart. The whirring sound of light hit my heavy brain.

"Ooh... I almost forgot ", her voice raised. "I was behind it. Behind the two years of torture" she sneered tauntingly.

I froze.

My brain processing every single word. She was behind what?.

I gasp. The tears streamed more than ever before. The pain was worse than it should have been.

I wanted to scream, struggle with her, strangle her. But she held me captive. She always did.

All along I tried to become pregnant but failed, was it because of her?

"You have to be shocked, Joyce," she teased. She snorted with laughter. "The Italian tea you had morning and night, do you think I favored you enough to give them to you every month?" she jeered.

My whole body hurts. Anger and rage fills me. My heart is pierced, piece by piece. Pain overwhelmed me. I wanted to burn her to a crisp. To drink her evil blood dry, draining her veins of their vitality. To inform her of what I am capable of, but my body. My body won't listen to me.

My tears ran unabated, the only way I can convey my anger and pain.

What have I ever done to her?

She leaned towards me, "I warned you when you married my son. I warned you to stay away", she spat. Her voice steady, with rage. "But you didn't listen... I can not sit and let you pilfer my husband's toil, you foul wretch".

Her voice rasped, charging the dimmed room. She paced through the room. Her heels tapped and clipclapped on the ground. "Do you see your signature on these divorce documents. I can do anything that I want, which includes your existence" she flashed a mocking grin, brandishing the divorce papers. My signature lay gorgeously signed.

She faked signing my signature? How did she obtain my signature?

Stuffing the documents in her bag, her voice now in a spine-chilling whisper, "Have a good night dear daughter-in-law. I mean my ex-daughter -in-law. We will meet in hell".

She turned and headed towards the door. "I'll get you to die peacefully. You don't have to worry about anything; fire will do its work; your agonies and of course your body "

My stomach was in knots

Lady Joan is going to kill me by fire?

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CHAPTER 1:

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Joyce's POV

"You're going to sign these papers and that's that Joyce!" My mother in-law rose from her chair with an air of authority taking over the room.

I sat across the room, my heart thudding hard enough to bounce out at her sudden action, "But... but I love Zack Mother, and....

Don't you call me that!

She hurled at me, her voice venting fury as she figuratively took steps closer to me. "I am not your useless mother. My son married you over my objection and you are aware a day like this is sure to break, when you failed to bless him with children after 2 years of marriage....shameless!

I swallowed hard but the bolus of her words would not pass. Her hatred for me has increased daily, though I am stuck in this puzzle. "Mother please don't do this, I am not mad please remove me from here!"

My hands trembling, my body in conflict countless times with it's uncontrollable spasms. Whatever they are administering to me is working faster. But I have to fight, fight for me and for Zack. I have to survive this.

"You look too good Joyce" she got down on her knees, her voice thick with disdain, her expression unyielding.

The cold, hygienic walls of the psychiatrist hospital collapsed on me. The powerful torch light beam buzzed around my head, thudding into my brain like pecking minihammers. My finger that gripped the bed sheet, "Take me home, Mother, Please...", voice cracked. Head buzzes, eyes wilden, hair goes unkempt, I know the way I would look... yet still I am not mad.

My mother-in-law looked into my eyes, her own face softened up as if she was pitying me. Her wrinkled foggy hands strodded gently over my messy hair, "you have seen enough dear Joyce, as well as my son. No child and now a crazy wife, sign the papers and let him go, Joyce"

My breath snagged shorter, my chest thrashing faster against my ribs. "No," I snapped, "I love my husband, take me to go see him mother," my dainty eyes welled with tears.

Her lips curled with a look, disgust on her face as she let out a scoff, "I would love to, my love but he doesn't want to see you. He's weary and broken.".

My heart tightened in grip, Zack will not do this to me. He has proven his genuine love and affection towards me all these years. Sharp pain coursed through my frail heart as I shake my head in disbelief.

He never gave a reason not to trust him. Our courtship and marriage years have been nice and definitely lovely. I've witnessed some evenings of gentle tending and mornings of wakeful joy and sweetness. Non has been a nightmare, with the exception of my mother-in-law who never got along with me. She spelled it out to me from the very beginning.

She grabbed my trembling hands smiling, sarcasm edge in her voice, "you poor thing, I heard you talk to yourself all night and you also fight the nurses", she tsks. "Zack wouldn't want to see that scene".

"But Mother...." My voice came in unedited. "They are drugging me, they are driving me mad". I squeezed my aching head more. The lingering impact of the medications eludes me.

Her smile vanishes, her eyes become somber as she glances towards the nurse standing by the door, inclining her head towards her.".

There it was, the syring, tiny but traumatising, rushing at me in desperation. Too late for me, too late to run again for my sanity. All I could do was scream and struggle as always, reaching out in mid-air, but the needle pierced into my arms with no pity.

My vision blurring to the injection's work, my sight fade, my mind ablaze as walls surround me.

My mother in-law sat beside me as she stridd my hair, gripping it harder now, hazel breathing and she muttered to my face

"By the time I'm finished with you, you will think you're crazy".

Darkness enveloped my vision

And the dreams recur, the recollections I did not wish to forget. The new days of my marriage, the days which have sustained me, struggling and overcoming those who thirst to devour what we hold.

My favorite days. The days that my blessings started, I was blessed by the universe. The best gift, my husband Zack Dutchman. Best man a woman could ask for. Lovable, courteous, kind, handsome and ridiculously rich.

I miss him so much, his clean jaw face, his soft touch, his smiles, I miss him. Weeks have gone by, he has not come to see me. Perhaps he is too busy at work. If only I was home, I would have been with him.

The first time I ever laid eyes on him, during my internship period at the Dutchman Land Company, a multi millionaire firm. He had been sitting there in command and composure. His demoneering glance buried itself into my frail body, piercing every single bit of it.

The feared ruthless Mr Zack Dutchman, my boss to be, then husband. We have had our lives full of bliss, But an unknown disease cut our happiness short.

If only my doctor was present in town that day, if only I was airlifted out of the country, I would have survived that sickness. I would not be stucked here today.

I could sense my tears moisten my cheek, but...... what's going on? I couldn't move my body. The sunray finally fell upon my small black room, the cacophonous dialogue of other inhabitants shattered the air, but I couldn't move, why could I not move?

My head is wide awake and my subconsciousness on guard, but not my body. My racing heart, my ears can sense every single blow but I cannot raise my hand.

What have they done to me? What have they put into me? Why am I lying here?

My tears streamed at the world's heartlessness, at the world's injustice towards me. Is love so unjust? Or is it so only to me?

Then came the sound, the second jingling of the keys chain. Flush of fear ran through my body, my heart pounding fiercely, threatening to burst out of my chest.

Who is she? What has Mother planned? Is this the end she has long threatened me with?