Eye for an Eye by Dwayne S. Joseph

winter, Rebecca realized that her husband had been an eloquent bullshitter. Bruce wanted to have her for his wife, yes, but not for the reasons he’d stated.
    Rebecca quickly found out that Bruce needed to have her at his side. He wanted to move up in the order, and while his delivery and the following and money he’d amassed would help, having Rebecca as his trophy was the last and most necessary rung in the ladder he needed in order to ascend.
    Bruce wanted to be famous. He wanted to be the next T.D. Jakes, but bigger. T.D. had the skill, but he didn’t have Bruce’s looks. Now add to that a woman who every man wanted to see and he had gold. They quickly became the black Brangelina. People adored, envied, and wanted to know about them. Their combined looks, along with his charm and oratory gift, made them marketable, and they soon became the face for a booming religious movement throughout North Carolina. With Rebecca by his side, Bruce became so popular that eventually North Carolina became too small for them, and so they moved to New York City.
    To those looking in from the outside, their union was a blessed and devoted one. But Rebecca knew better. While Bruce appeared to be the perfect husband, she dealt with the fact that he had been using her. He’d been as unfaithful as he had been before they’d exchanged vows, if not more so, because he knew that Rebecca wasn’t going to leave him. She was the first lady. Her background didn’t matter. No one cared about her GPA, and no one cared that she’d brought essentially nothing to the table. She was simply the pastor’s adored wife, and all doors were open for her.
    Marriage to Bruce was complete security. She wanted for nothing. What more could she have asked for? Just play the good wife, keep her mouth shut about his extramarital trysts, and give him a son to carry on his fucking name.
    Those were the things he’d say as he became physically and verbally abusive.
    â€œEnjoy your stature, bitch, because without me you ain’t shit!”
    Rebecca endured Bruce’s punches and kicks below the neckline until she’d become pregnant and then had a miscarriage three months in. Bruce blamed her for losing the baby. He said her ungratefulness brought about God’s punishment.
    The verbal and physical abuse had been hard to deal with, but the loss of her child–a child she’d seen as a lifeline–broke Rebecca’s spirit, and for the next three years, she did as her husband commanded. She played her role. The only order she couldn’t follow was to conceive another child–something her husband blamed solely on her.
    For three years Rebecca endured. But one day she received an anonymous phone call from someone who said they knew what she’d been going through and that they knew of someone who could help her if she was willing to pay. They gave her Marlene’s number, and a week later, after Bruce punched her in her belly because he’d had to make a solo appearance at a speaking engagement, she made the call. Two days after that, she met Lisette. Two weeks after that, Lisette handed her a manila envelope with photographs inside of her husband having sex with her. Rebecca’s plan had been to use the photographs to force a divorce, but during their final meeting, Lisette had opened her eyes.
    â€œYour husband’s right,” she said evenly.
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œThe life you have, the things you can do. They’re all because you’re the first lady.”
    Rebecca slammed her brows together. “I . . . I don’t understand.”
    â€œWhat I’ve just handed you in that envelope is a live grenade. You can use it to get your divorce like you want, but in the process, you’ll blow up not only your husband, but you’ll blow yourself up as well. Now your husband may survive. He’ll probably pull the “Lord has helped me to see the errors of my ways