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If you’ve read the story starter – a very long Chapter 1 – and you’re ready to dive into the story with me, please continue reading.

About the story: (short description. Click here for longer)

“Let Me Love You” is not just a tale of love and sacrifice but also a poignant story of self-discovery, celebrating the human capacity to find love in the most unlikely of circumstances.

Please enjoy the current WIP of Iris and El. This will be published freely up to a point… like the old days and then the entire book will be posted for the full download. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. And don’t forget to check out the companion stories. (Wicked Chances, Dreams of Reality, The Convenient Wife & Ravenous)

Enjoy, Your Author, Sylvia Hubbard

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Read more: Let Me Love You – Chapter 15✍🏾📚❤️ #SylLit #WIP #livestory 📖💓 #marriedwife #demandedconsensual #darkromance

Author’s Note: There is a touch of violence in here… meaning there’s a lot so trigger warning so I don’t hear nobody mouf!

Enjoy, Your Author, Sylvia Hubbard

While on the way to her home, Iris looked through the list of notes Lester had made for her. El had a lot of quirks, from bringing guests into the office to his after requirements. There were even requirements to be made when he had to travel. El kept a petty cash in a locked box with a password only she would know, where she could utilize the money for his morning tea and other items he might need her to purchase. 

In Lester’s notes, he said to get the password from El because it was recently changed.

El must’ve done this when he moved Lester away from his area.

If they traveled together, she would take five thousand from petty cash and return receipts after the trip. Once a week, an accountant messenger retrieved the copied pages from the ledger. 

Getting to the house, she noted the time—seven o’clock at night. 

There were no lights inside the house, and Dwayne’s vehicle was nowhere to be seen. Breathing with relief, she prepared to get into the house, grab all she needed, and then return to Aunt Rose. 

Walking into the dark home, she listened for anyone and was glad not to hear anything. 

Turning on the front room light, she yelped, seeing her father sitting in the far corner, looking displeased.

“Have you lost your mind, girl?” he growled.

Forgetting herself, she demanded, “What are you doing here?”

Her father shot out of his chair and towered over her. Fear gripped every vein in her body. “I ask the questions, girl.”

Iris almost peed on herself. Her lips trembled, and she could barely form any words. Controlling herself, she recoiled. “I-I don’t understand what you mean, Daddy?”

The back of his hand connected with the side of her face and hurled her across the room. She landed like a rag doll, crashing into the cheap wooden corner table. Before she could get up, he was over her and kicked her twice in her stomach. 

Flashbacks instantly caught her off guard on the rainy night that changed her life. 

Iris, like that night, pleaded with her father to stop, trying to protect her stomach, but when the third kick was deflected by her foot, her father’s fist clocked her across the temple. 

For the first time, Iris heard Dwayne’s voice yelling for her father to stop and even pulling her father away. Delirious, she crawled until she bumped into the couch and pulled herself up by the arm. 

“I didn’t tell you to kill her, Fred,” Dwayne snarled. 

“She fucked everything up!” her father bellowed. “How the hell are we supposed to get the money now?”

“Get the fuck outta here before someone sees you,” Dwayne ordered the old man. 

The blackness wanted to overtake her, but Iris wouldn’t let herself pass out. What could she possibly have ruined?

The front door opened and then slammed closed. She felt a slightly damp cloth being tossed in her lap. As usual, her father was good at leaving marks where she wouldn’t bruise. Her body seemed built for rough treatment. 

It took everything in her soul not to cry. She kept focused on her mission: to get everything she needed and get out of there, so she could get back to Clem. 

“You stupid bitch,” Dwayne growled. “What’d you do to make him deal me out?”

Iris needed help to understand what he meant. “I just did what you wanted me to do—work for him.”

“You fucking liar.”

Her vision was coming back from the blurred state, and she could focus on Dwayne’s grubby face. He hadn’t changed from the awful suit he was wearing. 

“Did you fuck him?” Dwayne demanded to know.

“No,” she said because what had happened between El this afternoon had nothing to do with physical sex, which she knew Dwayne was insinuating. “I’m working like you ordered me to pay YOUR debts.”

“I don’t need your stupid ass to pay shit off for me. I ain’t the one using you, Iris, that half-white ass cracker is.” Dwayne huffed. 

Iris decided to ask questions of her own. “What was my dad talking about? What did I mess up?”

Dwayne sat beside her, looking extremely stressed and ignoring her question. “I didn’t tell your pops that bitch is going to cover the debt. I figured I had more time to get my shit and bounce, but your dad dragged me back over here to wait for you.”

Damn! Why did it sound like Dwayne wanted to get away from her father just as much as she did? Weren’t they buddies? Partners in crime?

“Did he hurt you bad?” Dwayne looked at her face closely. “It’s a good thing you don’t bruise easily. I don’t want no shit from that boss.”

Feeling very upset, he completely ignored her; Iris tightened her face and repeated her question, “What was he talking about, Dwayne?”

“You know how your father goes off. He thought because I was fired, we wouldn’t be able to get the money we need.” 

“What money, Dwayne, does my father need from you? We’re working to pay Mr. Olorun back,” she stressed. 

“We ain’t doing shit!”

“That’s why I’m working for you. I’m doing what you wanted me to do. I’m working to pay off your debt.” 

Angrily, Dwayne shot off the couch and towered over her. “I don’t need you to pay my bills, bitch. I can take care of my own shit. I don’t need to use you like that half-white bitch is doing,” he said as if he had been holding in his upset for a long while. “You need to get the money out of petty cash and bring it to me tomorrow so I can leave town. I’ll text you where to find me.”

Extremely confused, Iris asked incredulously, “What are you talking about, Dwayne? Do you want me to steal from someone we already owe money to? What kind of money do you think we can steal from him that he won’t know right away and put both of us in jail?”

“There’s money in his petty that we need and he doesn’t. Almost fifty thousand! You can get it out easily because you’ll have access to his money by tomorrow,” Dwayne explained.

“How do you know he has that money?” she questioned suspiciously. 

“He won’t care! You’re making him millions of dollars. Fifty thousand isn’t going to matter.”

Frightened, Iris cried, “I could lose my job too, and then I’ll be blackballed out of the business, even out of this city. Clem and I won’t be able to survive.”

Dwayne stood over her with his fist balled up. “I don’t give a fuck about you or that stupid ass child. You bring that money to me tomorrow, or you’ll be sorry, Iris. I’ll make sure you never see your son again. You and Aunt Rose can’t hide him forever.”

Iris looked at Dwayne’s balled-up fist, remembering the many times her face had been greeted with the excruciating pain of his knuckles. Yet, today, she felt different. Strong, determined, and ready to battle for once in her life. “How do you even know about this money in petty cash, Dwayne?” she challenged. 

“Lester told me. Said the big boss keeps fifty thousand just for shits and giggles. But he’s a cheap ass; Barely let Lester spend any money on the damn party. This rich half-white cracker doesn’t deserve the shit you’re doing for him that’s just going to make him richer. Fuck that bitch! He’s going to use you, but before all that, I’m getting the money I deserve out of you through him.” 

A rotting sensation of disgust for Dwayne crawled up through her esophagus, and she wanted to throw up. Dwayne was asking her to steal from her new boss and commit a crime that would clearly give her several decades behind bars, along with a lifetime ban on doing any of the kind of work she loved to do. 

Adamantly, she said, “I won’t do it, Dwayne.’

“Oh, you’ll do it,” he said, grabbing her arm and halfway yanking her off the couch up to his face. “Or I’ll make sure your father comes back here and finishes up his can of whoop ass on you too.”

A chill wrapped around her spine, knowing her father would acquiesce, and by the time the beating was over, he’d take her down another notch. Iris remembered the last time, and she had to wrap her arms around her stomach because of what had happened from the beating.

Dwayne continued with his demands again, “Now you’ll meet me-“

The sound of police cars in the distance could suddenly be heard, but suddenly, glass shattered at the front of the house, and Dwayne grabbed his ear, falling to the ground. Since he was still holding her arm, he pulled her down, and somehow she was under him. 

She screamed, terrified, feeling warm blood on her face. Dwayne was trying to kill her now?

The door to her house burst open as the police entered suddenly. 

Iris was in a flutter as several officers surrounded them, aiming their firearms at Dwayne. Her husband’s face was bleeding profusely, but she knew it wasn’t from the officers. Something had nicked him in the ear prior to them busting in her home.

“No! No! It wasn’t me! Iris tell them it wasn’t me?!” Dwayne yelled at her as the cops pulled him off of her and put him in handcuffs.

Realizing the agreement they’d signed this afternoon now gave her the freedom she needed to get Dwayne out of her life, Iris clenched her lips closed and looked down.

While Dwayne was being dragged out of the home, another female officer comforted Iris and assured her that it would be fine. 

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” the officer inquired.

Desperately, Iris felt all over her face, and although there was blood on her, she wasn’t bleeding. The blood had come from Dwayne over her and dripping on her face. 

“I don’t have to,” Iris answered.

“Are you pressing charges?” the officer asked.

Iris looked over her shoulder at the open door, where she could see them holding Dwayne in the police car. He was still trying to get out of the officer’s hold. 

“Yes,” Iris answered.

The officer relayed this message over her shoulder CB to the officers at the vehicle, and Iris watched as they shoved Dwayne in the back of a police car. 

Iris knew it was going to be okay because now she would be free of Dwayne. Hopefully, this would be the last she would ever see of him. 

Clem and she were free of him!

Yet, now she was beholden to El. The mysterious boss she didn’t mind being owned by.

It didn’t take long for her to gather everything valuable and needed for her new life out of the house. Iris had never unpacked her belongings in the house. Dwayne always wanted to keep Violet’s items in his room, and Iris had to store her bags in Clem’s room.

All of Clem’s favorite toys, electronics, and clothes were always ready to be packed at a moment’s notice. When the officer told her Iris needed to go to the station with them to file charges formally, Iris took five minutes to grab everything and get into the police car with the officer. 

Iris had no intentions of returning to the home. She wanted to leave this past behind her and never have an excuse to return. On the way to the station, she texted Aunt Rose to assure her she was fine and would be there later. 

The officer took her to a conference room and asked her to make a statement. They left her alone momentarily because another officer whispered something in the female officer’s ear.

“Wait a minute, ma’am,” the officer said. “Your lawyer has arrived.”

She was shocked because she had no money for a lawyer and wondered who the hell was coming in there.

The officer left her alone, and Iris didn’t blink as she waited for the door to open again.

End of This Chapter | Post your thoughts in the comment | Let the author know what’s going on in your head

Let Me Love You (c) 2024 Sylvia Hubbard All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
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