The Grasp of Vengeance

We were having dinner when Jeff’s phone rang. He said it was a work call and rushed to the living room to answer it. This had been happening for weeks and I found it strange. He said it was because they were working on a big project, but I wasn’t so sure. He had similar long-term projects before, but he never acted this way. Over time, it seemed like he was more and more detached.

In the weeks that came, he started hanging out with his friends till late every now and then, saying they were getting drinks after work, but I suspected there was more to it than that. One night, I took his phone while he was asleep and carefully grabbed his hand to unlock it with his fingerprints. I felt my heart sink and my stomach wring when I went through the many messages between him and Anne, my sister!

The phone shook in my hand so much that I had to grip it tight before it could fall. I sat there on the floor and leaned against the wall as tears began to fill my eyes. How could they do this? What was I to do? My heart was racing, and so were my thoughts. I felt like grabbing Jeff’s gun and shooting them both. No, I couldn’t act rash. I held back my seething thoughts and decided to wait. In their messages, Anne had made plans with Jeff to spend the following day at our parents’ old cabin in the woods. An opportunity for vengeance was in my grasp.

The next morning, I called Anne’s husband, Paul, and asked him where Anne was. He said she was on a business trip. Jeff told me he was going on a fishing trip. I asked Paul if he could meet me at a park in the town limits. He was concerned and asked me what this was all about, but I assured him I’d tell him when we got there and asked him not to tell anyone, even Anne, that we were to meet. He was on-edge when we finally met.

“What’s wrong, Bianca? Did something happen?”

I took a deep breath and handed Paul my phone, on which I had saved several screenshots. “Jeff and Anne are having an affair.”

Paul went pale the second he opened the folder and almost dropped my phone. “Wh-what? Are they… Right now?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe this. All this time, they’ve been stabbing us in the back.”

“And it’s time we stab them right back.”

Paul furrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”

The two of us then devised a plan. Later that day, Paul called Anne and told her to meet him at our parents’ cabin, saying that he felt like spending the rest of the day and the weekend away from the town’s noise. Anne asked him whether he was already on his way. He said yes. Little did she know that we were already hiding behind some trees and waiting for Jeff to drive off in a hurry, which he did a few minutes later.

After Jeff left, Paul and I walked into the cabin. Anne was shocked to see the both of us.

“I-I thought you were still on your way.”

“And I thought you were on a business trip.”

Anne didn’t know what to say. Her eyes began to well with tears as she fell back on the sofa and covered her face, sobbing as she apologised. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“Save it,” I said. “You’re only sorry because you got caught.”

I pulled out Jeff’s gun and handed it over to Paul. He cocked it without hesitation, startling Anne who had hid her face until then. Her eyes widened as she stared down the barrel of the gun.

“Paul, please… Bianca, I’m your sister!”

I looked away. “I have no sister.”

Paul fired three rounds into her chest and three more into her head before handing me the gun. His hands were shaking, and tears rolled down his cheeks. I felt my eyes well with tears, but they didn’t fall. Paul and I were wearing gloves, and we brought a change of clothes to dispose of the ones we had on, once the deed was done. Our presence there would go unnoticed. We went back to our homes and I put Jeff’s gun back where it belonged, along with Anne’s phone which I had switched off.

That night, Paul called the cops and reported Anne missing, telling he had last heard from her in the afternoon when she said she was on her way home. Around two hours before Paul’s call, I made sure to call Jeff and feign being sick to have him come home early. The pieces were in place and our plan was in motion. It didn’t take long for the police to discover that Jeff and Anne were having an affair, and before we knew it, he was being arrested for murder. Paul and I made sure to stick to the outskirts of town where no cameras could catch us and trek through the woods to get to the cabin since I knew the area well.

The affair, Jeff’s gun, and Anne’s phone were evidence enough to pin the murder on Jeff. He was sentenced to life in prison and I divorced him and left that town behind me. Paul did the same and started a new life in a city far away, but we still stayed in touch.