In His Hell

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.