His Sister-in-Law, My Hell

Su Liao

Romance | Completed

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The church doors opened, and my wedding day shattered. My groom, Colby, turned from me at the altar, his eyes fixed on his pregnant sister-in-law, Camryn. He led her down the aisle as if she were the bride, leaving me a statue in white lace. He begged me to stay, promising his love, claiming duty to his dead brother. Foolishly, I believed him, only to find Camryn' s suitcases already in our new home.

Betrayal Revenge Pregnancy Divorce Drama

Chapter 16

The day before yesterday 21:35

Chapter 1

The church doors opened, and my wedding day shattered.

My groom, Colby, turned from me at the altar, his eyes fixed on his pregnant sister-in-law, Camryn.

He led her down the aisle as if she were the bride, leaving me a statue in white lace.

He begged me to stay, promising his love, claiming duty to his dead brother.

Foolishly, I believed him, only to find Camryn' s suitcases already in our new home.

Chapter 1

The church doors opened.

Sunlight streamed in, catching the dust motes dancing in the air. For a moment, it was beautiful.

Then Alexandria Dunn saw the figure standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the light. It was a woman, also in a white dress. A very pregnant woman.

It was Camryn Wiggins, her sister-in-law. Her widowed, pregnant sister-in-law.

A murmur went through the guests. Alexandria' s hand, holding her bouquet, trembled. She looked at the man standing beside her at the altar, her groom, Colby Sheppard.

His face had gone pale. His smile vanished.

His eyes were fixed on Camryn.

Without a word to Alexandria, Colby turned and walked down the aisle. He didn't run, but every step was filled with a purpose that ripped the air from Alexandria's lungs. He walked straight to Camryn.

He reached her, took her arm gently, and began to escort her down the aisle as if she were the bride. The guests stared, their whispers growing louder. Alexandria stood alone at the altar, a statue in white lace. The bouquet felt heavy, then worthless.

Colby led Camryn to the front pew, reserved for family. He settled her in, his hand lingering on her shoulder. He looked at her with an expression of deep, painful concern.

Then, someone in the crowd, a Sheppard family friend, started to clap.

"Good for you, Colby! Taking care of your brother' s widow!"

The applause spread, a wave of validation for his action. They saw a hero, a man honoring his dead brother. Alexandria saw only the man who had just publicly shattered her. He was being celebrated for her humiliation.

She turned and walked toward the side door of the church. She couldn't breathe in here. She needed to leave. This wedding, this marriage, it was over before it began.

She heard his footsteps behind her, fast and desperate this time.

"Alex, wait!"

Colby grabbed her arm, spinning her around. His eyes were wild, pleading.

"Don't go. Please."

"Let go of me, Colby." Her voice was flat. Dead.

"I can' t! I can' t lose you." He did the one thing he knew she couldn't fight. He dropped to his knees, right there on the polished floor. He clung to her hand, his head bowed. "It' s my fault. My brother... he died saving me. I owe her. I owe his child. Please, Alex. Don' t make me choose."

He was crying. His shoulders shook. He looked pathetic and broken, and she hated that she still loved the man he was supposed to be. Her resolve wavered. The image of his brother, brave and gone too soon, flashed in her mind.

"I love you, Alexandria," he whispered, his voice thick with tears. "I swear, it' s only you. Just... just give me time to do right by him. By his memory."

He was a master of using his guilt as a weapon. He explained that Camryn was fragile, lost, with nowhere else to go. He said it was his duty, his penance for surviving when his brother hadn' t.

And like a fool, Alexandria believed him. She chose to trust the promise in his eyes over the betrayal she had just witnessed. She let him lead her back to the front of the church, her heart a cold, heavy stone in her chest.

They finished the ceremony. The kiss was hollow.

The real shock came when they returned to their new home. Camryn' s suitcases were already in the guest room.

"She' s staying with us," Colby announced, not as a question, but as a fact.

"Colby, we just got married. This is our home."

"She has no one, Alex! She' s carrying my brother' s child. I can' t just throw her out on the street. It' s just until the baby is born." He looked at her with that same pleading, guilt-ridden expression. "Please. For me."

So she endured.

The following months were a quiet, insidious hell. Camryn played the part of the helpless, grieving widow perfectly. She' d need a glass of water in the middle of the night, and only Colby could get it. She' d have a craving for some obscure food, and Colby would drive across town at midnight to find it for her.

Alexandria would sit in their living room, a ghost in her own home, while Colby massaged Camryn' s swollen feet. They would talk in low voices, sharing memories of his brother, a world that Alexandria was pointedly excluded from.

One evening, Alexandria was at a formal dinner for Colby' s firm. She was seated at the main table when Camryn called Colby' s phone.

"My back hurts," Camryn cried softly over the speakerphone, her voice just loud enough for the table to hear. "Colby, I' m so scared. What if something is wrong with the baby?"

Colby was gone in an instant, leaving Alexandria to face the sympathetic, pitying looks of his colleagues. He left her to make excuses for him, to pretend this was normal, that she wasn't being slowly erased.

Then, one morning, everything changed. A wave of nausea hit Alexandria, and a fragile, terrifying hope bloomed in her chest.

She was pregnant.

The test was positive. For a moment, joy eclipsed everything else. This was the answer. This would fix them. Their own child. A reason for Colby to finally see what was real, to finally choose her.

She planned to tell him that night, to make a special dinner. She came home early, her heart light for the first time in months.

She stopped in the hallway. She heard voices from the master bedroom. Their bedroom.

"Oh, Colby, right there," Camryn moaned, a sound of pure pleasure. "It feels so good."

Alexandria' s blood ran cold. She pushed the door open.

Camryn was lying on their bed, her shirt pulled up, her pregnant belly exposed. Colby was kneeling beside her, rubbing oil onto her skin. His hands were moving in slow, intimate circles.

"What the hell are you doing?" Alexandria' s voice was a raw whisper.

Colby jumped back, his face a mask of guilt. "It' s not what it looks like. She had stretch marks. The doctor said oil would help."

The excuse was so absurd, so insulting, it broke something inside her.

"Get her out of our bed, Colby. Get her out of our house."

"Alex, don' t be like this," he started, his voice taking on a weary, patronizing tone.

"I want her gone. Now." Alexandria' s voice rose, shaking with a rage she hadn' t known she possessed. "I am not living like this anymore."

She turned to leave, to pack a bag, to get away from the poison in this house.

Colby moved to block her path. "We can talk about this."

"There' s nothing to talk about!" she screamed, trying to push past him.

"Alex, stop!" he yelled, grabbing her shoulders.

From the bed, Camryn let out a small, theatrical gasp. "Colby, my stomach... it hurts."

Colby' s head whipped around. His focus shifted instantly from Alexandria to Camryn. He saw Alexandria as the threat, the source of the problem.

"Look what you' ve done!" he snarled at her. He shoved her, hard, to get her out of his way.

Alexandria stumbled backward, her heel catching on the rug. She fell, her side hitting the edge of a wooden dresser with a sickening thud before she crumpled to the floor.

Camryn sat up on the bed, her face pale and her hand on her belly. "Colby, I think I' m okay. I' m sorry, Alexandria. I didn' t mean to cause trouble."

Colby didn' t even look at Alexandria on the floor. He rushed to the bed, his face etched with panic. "Are you sure? Does it hurt anywhere else?"

He scooped Camryn into his arms, cradling her as if she were made of glass. He carried her toward the door, his steps sure and swift.

As he passed, Alexandria looked up from the floor. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. His were cold, accusatory.

And over his shoulder, Camryn' s eyes met hers. The fake look of concern was gone. In its place was a flicker of pure, triumphant victory. A small, cruel smile played on her lips.

Then they were gone.

A sharp, cramping pain seized Alexandria' s abdomen. It was a vicious, twisting-knife feeling. She looked down. A dark stain was spreading across the light fabric of her dress.

Blood.

"Colby," she whispered, her voice a faint, desperate plea. The sound was swallowed by the empty hallway. He couldn't hear her. He was already gone.

She felt the warmth spread between her legs, a tide of loss.

"Colby," she called out again, louder this time, a sob catching in her throat. "Colby, please!"

The only answer was the sound of his car starting in the driveway and speeding away.

Her vision started to blur. The last thing she remembered was the feel of the carpet against her cheek and the faint, sweet smell of the oil he had been rubbing on Camryn' s skin. The memory of their first date, of him promising her the world, flashed behind her eyes before everything went black.

She woke up in a sterile white hospital room. The world was fuzzy and quiet. A doctor with kind, sad eyes told her what she already knew in her bones.

The baby was gone.

A hollow, aching numbness settled over her. It was a pain so deep it was silent.

"Can I see it?" she asked, her voice raspy.

The nurse hesitated, then nodded. They brought her a small, clinical photo. A sonogram. A tiny, flickering ghost of a life that was supposed to be theirs.

She stared at it for a long, long time. This was all she had left.

And in that moment, she knew. There would be no more chances. No more forgiveness.

She would not tell Colby. He did not deserve to grieve a child he had helped kill. He did not deserve to know it had ever existed.

But she would make sure he received a gift. Something to remember her by.

She carefully placed the sonogram picture into a small, elegant gift box she' d bought for his birthday. A permanent reminder of what he had thrown away.

Then, with a resolve forged in the deepest pit of betrayal, she picked up her phone. She scrolled through her contacts to a name she had blocked months ago, a name Colby had always been jealous of, a name that now felt like her only lifeline.

Brandt Sheppard.

She pressed the call button.