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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Unhappily Ever After

is a long, novel-length story that relates the story of a veteran who returns to civilian life and pursues a career path begun before joining the Australian Defence Force. He is forced to resurrect his 'stay alive' skills when he is betrayed by his wife, whose lover puts a hit order out on him.

---oooBJSooo---

As with many of my stories, this one started out as an idea for a short story. Unfortunately, the characters took control, and it became my version of War and Peace. In an attempt to encourage those with an aversion to long stories to read it, I have broken it up into two books. This submission is Book One.

Book Two has been written and is currently in the editing stage. Each book tells its own story, but I'd recommend reading Book One first to get a handle on some of the characters.

Hopefully, those who didn't like the absence of gratuitous retribution in my previous submission,

Happenstance

, will find

Unhappily Ever After

more explicit. Doncha hate it when you've got to work things out for yourself?

Be warned, however. If you start this journey, be prepared for a long ride. Book One contains ten chapters, which will be submitted in seven parts. All seven parts have been submitted simultaneously, with a request to the moderator that they be published on consecutive days.

I trust you will enjoy my offering, but I will be happy to receive your comments either way. It should be noted, however, that I have blocked anonymous comments. I know that might inconvenience a few of you, but my philosophy is that 'better one commenter be inconvenienced than ten trolls be allowed to spew their vitriol'.

Please Note:

The right of Black Jack Steele to be identified as the author of this work - Unhappily Ever After - Book One - is asserted under worldwide copyright laws. All rights are reserved.

UNHAPPILY EVER AFTER

BOOK ONE

Copyright © Black Jack Steele 2022

CHAPTER TWO

Saturday, December 16 - Sunday, December 17, 2017

The Eviction

Assuming there was some semblance of truth in what Helen Wheeler had told me about Sam's schedule, I started removing all trace of her presence from my home on Saturday morning. By that afternoon, all her clothing and belongings had been transferred to a nearby storage locker, and only her car containing a suitcase loaded with a range of slutty clothing and a few other things she'd need for work remained on the property. I planned to leave it in the parking bay off the circular driveway with its keys in the ignition so she could make a quick getaway when she realised she'd been cut off from my life and evicted from my home.

To ensure there could be no misunderstanding about my intentions, I also planned to replace the Christmas wreath that adorned our front door with an envelope containing a short letter and the keys to the storage locker. The note would advise her of the change in our relationship. It was succinct and said everything I wanted to say:

"Obviously, 'Hell on Wheels' didn't pass on my message; either that or you chose to ignore it,"

I had written.

"That's understandable. You were probably too wrapped up in your farewell celebrations with your fellow partners at the time. She, like you, probably had her mouth full.

I had asked her to tell you that 'you're dead to me!'. As is the case when there's a death in a family, I've removed all traces of you from my home.

That being the case, I never want to set eyes on you again. The keys are in your car, so fuck off back to whatever hole you crawled out of.

I suggest you ask one of your fuck-buddies to put you up for the night. Maybe he, she, or they can arrange for another orgy to keep you entertained.

Oh, and tell your new bed partner that he made a fatal mistake in having me met by a couple of messengers in the hotel's carpark on Friday night. While the message came through loud and clear, it will, as I warned you would be the case, end up being one he will regret having sent."

I hadn't bothered to name her as the intended recipient. Nor had I signed it. She's now a junior partner in a prestigious law firm. Surely she's smart enough to know who was the intended recipient and who had written it.

The tag on the key I put in the envelope with the note had the unit number, the name, and the address of the storage unit where I'd thrown her personal effects; thrown being the operative word. I'd made no reference to the meaning of the key in the letter.

'Fuck her,'

I'd thought - I seem to be using that phrase a great deal lately.

'She keeps telling me she's the one with all the brains. Let her work it out for herself.'

I had no idea how she'd be delivered home and knew she'd need her car to get to wherever she was planning on sleeping that night. It was a given that she would never sleep in my house again.

To prevent her entry into the house, I changed all the locks and reset the garage door codes. Once she'd gone for good, I also planned to reset the gate codes.

During my clean-up of Sam's stuff - or should that be, 'clean-out'? - I'd contacted my farm manager, telling him that under no circumstances was my wife to be allowed onto any part of the property. I asked him to pass that instruction on to his permanent stockman. I also told him that he wasn't to pass his gate codes on to her.

Both men resided permanently on the property, living in the existing houses on the two adjoining farms I'd purchased. Other cowboys were employed on an 'as-needed' basis from the pool of local, casual-hire stockmen.

---oooBJSooo---

With all the heavy lifting done, I made a few phone calls. While I had no doubt that I could carry out whatever tasks needed to be done to exact revenge on the people who had destroyed my marriage, I didn't have the expertise to gather the intelligence I'd require to properly plan my mission. I needed both information and evidence. Information about the people involved and what drove them. And evidence of their involvement in whatever was going on.

Of one thing, I was sure. Going by the smooth way my public humiliation had been orchestrated, my cuckolding and the destruction of our marriage wasn't a one-off event. From what I had gleaned from Helen Wheeler, it had been going on for years and was a well-established rite of passage within the firm. If so, there must be other husbands - two at least - and wives who'd had to suffer being humiliated and cuckolded at the hands of these sexual deviants.

I knew that, due to its submissive nature, cuckolding was - in both its male and female variants - a fetish that was closely tied to BDSM. What I wondered, however, was how far down that path the people at Moreton City Law had travelled. I also wondered how Sam had come up with the idea that I would ever go along with being her and her boss's wittol.

My first call on Sunday morning was to someone I thought would be able to help with the intelligence-gathering part of the problem.

Tommy Jones, one of my former commando mates, was not only a good soldier but was also a computer whizz. In fact, that's how he'd ended up in the Army. He'd been caught hacking into a high-security site, and the judge had given him the option of jail or the military. The proviso was that he couldn't go anywhere near a computer for anything other than sending emails or communicating with his family during his enlistment period.

As he got seasick and he hated flying, he joined the Army. Of course, Military Intelligence, the Military Police and the Signals Corps wanted him as soon as he had finished his basic training, but he was limited by the court order. Through some convoluted pathways, however, he ended up in the Third Commando Regiment.

Of course, being an elite Special Forces unit, the Commando Regiment didn't give a rat's arse about court orders and immediately put him to work in the Intelligence Section of their Headquarters Company. Like me as a sniper, however, his specialist skills didn't exclude him from participating in the odd patrol from time to time, which was how we'd crossed paths.

Commando structure is fluid. It works on the principle that it takes what it takes. Depending on the task, a patrol group may consist of five men or fifteen. Quite often, it might even require a full platoon. Tommy - who earned the callsign, Prancer during a firefight with a group of Taliban insurgents - joined us quite a few times while playing in the sand of Iraq and Afghanistan's dirt. So often, in fact, that he was adopted by our platoon.

Unfortunately, he donated a lower leg to ISIS when a vehicle in which he was riding hit an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan. While some military arms might keep a one-legged specialist on board, that was not the case with the Commandos, where every man must be able to do what a commando must do. After being repatriated to Australia, he was given a pat on the back and a new titanium leg before being discharged as medically unfit for duty.

One of the things he missed the most, he told us at one of our irregular gatherings of comrades - SitRep meetings, we called them - was jumping out of a perfectly good aeroplane.

"I hated the flying," he told us. "But I couldn't get enough of the free-falling and the floating after that sudden jolt. It was so liberating."

Once he came out of rehab, Prancer used the DVA's transition package to gain formal qualifications in his chosen field. In his case, that was Information Technology. He came out the other end with a Bachelor of Computer Science degree. These days, he specialises in all forms of data manipulation - including the detection of cybercrime - and electronic surveillance.

He sounded pleased to receive my call and invited me around to his place that same afternoon. After I suggested we get together somewhere a little more private, he agreed to meet me at a little coffee shop in a suburb between his place and mine.

"I wish you had come to me earlier," he said after I told him about my problem. "We could have had this almost wrapped up by now."

"I would have done had I known just how serious the situation was," I responded. "But the fact is that I didn't know how dedicated to achieving his goals this Kingston bloke was until Friday night. Perhaps my continued support for her career gave her and her bosses the impression that I was willing to play the part of their happy little cuckold.

"Well, they are about to discover that that wasn't the case."

Tommy sat in thought for a few minutes.

"Okay," he said. "I'll give you a few things that might help with the intelligence-gathering part of the exercise."

He left me and went out to his car. As he walked through the café, I couldn't get over how well he managed to get about. If you didn't actually see his prosthetic lower leg, you wouldn't know he had one.

When he returned, he handed me four packets.

"The largest one is a GPS tracking device. If you splice it into the power source in her car, you'll know where it is at any given time. It'll start tracking as soon as you turn it on. With power coming from the car's electrical system, you'll never have to go near it again; ever. I'd suggest you wire it into the tail light cavity and clip it onto the red wire on that circuit.

"If she parks it somewhere where it can't send out its location, it has enough memory to store that information. It will send it out to the cloud storage vault as soon as it acquires a signal.

"The two smaller packets contain remote audio recording devices. They're quite sensitive. I recommend putting one in each of the purses or handbags she is most likely to carry with her. Like the GPS tracker, they will transmit to the cloud. They have a twelve-month battery life, so we shouldn't have to go near them at any time during the operation.

"The last, smallest packet contains a miniature recording device. It's designed to live under the battery in your wife's phone. If she's anything like most professionals - and most women, in general - she will have her phone with her wherever she goes.

"This device will record everything said in the vicinity of her phone. Like the other items, it will send everything to the cloud for retrieval. It has a certain amount of storage but has no power source. It draws its power from leakage from the phone's own battery."

He reached across the table and drew my phone towards him.

"I should have done this as soon as you arrived," he said, shutting it down before removing the rear casing and the battery.

After pulling a jeweller's loupe from the pocket of his cargo shorts, he examined every part of my phone's innards. Once he'd finished his inspection, he put it back together and closed it. Turning it back on, he passed it to me, asking me to punch in my password. With that done, he fiddled with it for a few minutes before handing it back to me.

"All set," he said. "You'll have to change your plans a bit when you get home. I've just downloaded a cloning application onto your phone. While you don't have to get your hands on your wife's phone to download it, you will have to get hold of it to insert the listening device.

"The cloning app will transfer everything on her phone - including her address book, texts and webmails - to your phone and then on to your cloud vault. It will also send the content of her phone calls into storage. You will also be able to listen to her calls in real time. I've set up a new ringtone and vibration pattern, so you'll know when her phone is active.

"Finally," he said, pulling a flash drive from his pocket and sliding it across the table, "this little message stick contains a key-logging program. You'll need to install it on her computer. Once it's on there, it will tell us everything she does on that machine and send it to our vault every time it's booted up. It's almost undetectable as it hides in the systems folder disguised as a .dll file.

"It will also attach itself to every email she sends from the infected machine. All she has to do is send a message to one of her firm's computers, and we'll have access to their whole network. Once we're in there, we'll have all their passwords and will be able to access every part of their system.

"Of particular importance to us is the information contained on their servers. I wonder what we'll find in there? Hopefully, we'll find something relating to what is going on with Sam. If so, you can be sure it will be buried deep in the bowels of their holy of holies.

"I'm looking forward to bringing out a few of my old tricks and letting them have a bit of a run around in the sunlight."

"Just don't get caught," I said. "I don't want you ending up in jail. With that gammy leg, they won't give you the same option a second time. Besides, you're getting a bit long in the tooth to be crawling around in the weeds covered in camouflage makeup.

"And let me know how much I owe you. I don't want you to be out of pocket on this. I'm not so short of a quid that I can't afford to pay for services rendered. And no mate's rates. I don't expect my friends to go hungry just because they're doing a job for a former comrade."

"If my memory serves me correctly," Tommy said, "you pulled me out of the shit once or twice; including the day I put the down payment on this tin leg. If you hadn't dragged me out of that shit fight and into cover, my goose would have been well and truly cooked.

"I'll do anything I can to help you sort through this mess. The only thing I won't do is go on one of their cruises in an attempt to find out what these bastards get up to while they're away from home. Anyway, this should be well and truly over before their next cruise is due.

"If not, I have someone I can send who will fit into that scene more easily than I ever would.

"I don't know why they can't get up to their hanky-panky at a flash, up-market resort. I'd happily be 'Our Man In Palm Cove' at the drop of a hat.

"You'd be surprised how a good-looking, one-legged war hero like me can pull the chicks at an adults-only resort. That pulling power only increases when I recount how I lost my leg while pulling my closest friend out of harm's way during a firefight with a mob of drug-crazed Taliban or ISIS insurgents in some God-forsaken part of the world.

"When they ask me what part of the world I was fighting in, I explain that I couldn't possibly tell them because I was in a special black-ops task force and was sworn to secrecy. After going through the 'If I told you...' routine, I let it slip that the only way to find out would be if they overheard it if I talked in my sleep.

"You'd be amazed how many of them want to know where I lost my leg."

We both laughed uproariously. It was a story he'd never told me before.

"So, what happened to your best mate?" I asked.

"Poor Aaron was pretty badly shot up," he answered. "Fortunately, I'd got to him just in time. The doctors were able to patch him up pretty well; although he still carries a few scars. The big thing, I tell them, was that they were able to save what he carries around in his trousers.

"Now, they're dying to meet him. I've told them I'd ask him to come up there with me one day. "Don't be surprised if he doesn't come, though," I tell them. "He's very shy and is a bit embarrassed about trotting around in public in his Speedos".

"Shit," he said. "I wasn't going to tell them that he's happily married - at least I thought he was - and that he wouldn't even think about cheating on his wife. Besides, I don't want anyone around who might interfere with their hero worship."

"But, speaking of what's in your trousers," Prancer said when we'd stopped laughing, "why would Sam go looking for a bit of strange when she had that at her beck and call?"

"I've been thinking about the answer to that question since Friday night... well, for the past few months, really," I answered. "The truth is that I don't believe it's anything I've done or haven't done. And, if our last bedroom session was any indication, I'm certainly not lacking in any ability to fulfil her needs.

"I'm pretty sure I've not neglected any of my other husbandly duties, so it's got me beat. I can only put it down to a desire for power and recognition. Despite her actual rank within the organisation - she became a junior partner last Friday night - her appointment to the position of the managing partner's personal assistant - his chief of staff, if you like - makes her the second most powerful person in the firm.

"From what I learned the other night, she's been fucking her way up through the ranks since she first started working for them... and that was long before we met."

"Do you want me to give the lads a head's-up?" Tommy asked as I stood to leave. "It'd probably be wise in light of the attempted ambush on you in the carpark. They'll be better prepared next time."

"I don't think the next attack will come from the same people," I said. "But it probably wouldn't hurt to have someone watching my back. Thanks for the warning. My mind's a bit overloaded at the moment. I haven't been getting a lot of sleep since Friday night. And I don't see tonight being any different.

"It now looks like I'll have to let her into the house for at least one night so I can access her phone and computer. Any sleep I might get will be done with one eye open. I'm sure she'll come home with instructions to reinforce the message about my cuckolding."

After saying our farewells and sharing a bro-hug, I headed for home. I had a couple of changes to make before Sam arrived; assuming she was coming home that night. Truth be told, if it wasn't for the need to set up her phone and computer, I wouldn't have cared if she never returned.