Framed at My Own Wedding, She Married My Brother

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On our wedding night, the big screen suddenly lit up with a video of me holding a woman and kissing her.

There was nothing I could say that anyone would believe. My father-in-law hauled me out of the room to make me account for myself.

By the time I'd proven the video was an AI fake, my bride had already gone off with the family's adopted son and, out of pure spite, consummated her marriage with him instead.

My mother sighed without a flicker of change on her face.

"What's done is done. Whatever was going to happen has already happened. All you can do now is accept it and never bring it up again."

After that night, something curdled between me and Freda Harding. Every time she tried to touch me, I found some excuse and pushed her away.

She was miserable for a long time, and I couldn't stand watching her cry. So I made up my mind to take her back.

But outside the door of the private room, through the crack, I heard every word she said to her friends.

"Freda, you're basically a love expert at this point."

"To think it was all because you saw Sid Delgado come back home and wanted to fix that old regret between you two. So you had someone use AI to fake a cheating video of Duane Dickerson and frame him, just so your dad would drag him out of the room, and then the two of you could go for it!"

"Genius!"

"Your whole family was in on it, even his own mother. Only that idiot Duane had no idea about any of it."

Freda laid a hand on her stomach. "And now I'm even carrying Sid's baby. I don't even know how I'm supposed to tell him."

...

She must not have been sleeping well; there were dark shadows under her eyes. The pregnancy had come out of nowhere. Even she hadn't seen it coming.

Her best friend Pat Delgado came over and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Freda, you've only got two choices now."

"One, you split up with Duane. Or two, you get rid of the baby and keep your distance from Sid for good."

Two choices, and somehow they stumped her. Freda had always been decisive, quick and clean about everything. She'd never wavered like this before.

She kept her hand pressed over her belly for a long time, unable to let go.

"No. I'm not getting rid of the baby."

"He's what came out of the regret between me and Sid. I can't be Sid's wife, so I'll have his child instead. Something to hold on to."

Outside the door, everything in me went cold.

So the cheating video that framed me was Freda's doing all along, done for one reason only: to give her an excuse to get me out of the way so she could smother that old regret with Sid.

Their regret was that they'd never ended up together? I couldn't help a bleak little laugh.

What I hadn't imagined was that my in-laws and my own mother knew too. They had all banded together to deceive me.

I thought back to when that video of my "affair" was playing on the screen. My mother-in-law slapped me across the face. My father-in-law grabbed a fistful of my hair and dragged me out.

My own mother apologized to everyone, red-faced with shame, and called me an animal.

Freda cried and said I'd wronged her, and swore she'd pay me back for it.

My nails dug into my flesh. Something was jammed up in my chest, aching and airless at once.

I slumped back hard against the wall and stood there sideways, gutted, half out of my body.

Freda had already made her choice.

"I'm not splitting up with Duane, because I know love and marriage are two separate accounts."

"Duane loves me. He goes along with everything I want, and he never drags his feet about anything. He's the most suitable one to be my husband."

"Please. As if Sid doesn't do all that too?"

Freda picked up her juice and took a sip.

"Sid's a bit of a chauvinist, the domineering type who has to have the last word. He's better suited as a lover."

The whole room burst out laughing.

"So you're saying Duane's the one wearing the horns!"

"How can you bully the poor guy like that?"

"Hahaha!!"

Then Pat's teasing dropped away and her voice turned dead serious.

"Then I've got to wonder about something."

Everyone perked up at the sudden shift in her tone.

"There's no way you got pregnant with Sid's baby in a single night!"

"It had to be more than a few times, right!"

Freda's face went red in an instant, like some naive girl fresh out into the world.

Every head at the table turned toward her, and they all leaned in to listen.

"There's no way it was just that."

"Every time Duane was out of the house, well, you can imagine..."

"No way!"

"You two are unbelievable!"

"I'd love to ask Sid what he's been taking to have that kind of stamina!"

"No wonder Freda's practically glowing. Poor Duane, footing the bill for all of it, and now he's about to play daddy to another man's kid."

Freda's friends were all sneering at me, and not one of them thought there was anything shameless about what she and Sid had done.

Birds of a feather, exactly. Like draws to like.

She didn't have to spell out the whole history with Sid. I already knew.

They'd done it in my own bridal suite and left their traces everywhere.

In front of everyone, Freda would put on her guilty, remorseful little act toward me, but behind the scenes she'd already worn herself out with Sid and dropped straight into sleep, with no intention whatsoever of apologizing or making anything right.

A dull ache rolled through my chest in waves, enough that I nearly came apart on the spot.

In the end I walked out on heavy feet, without ripping into her to her face.

Outside the bar, the wind cut right through me.

That was when my partner called.

"You jerk, Duane. Does Freda understand you the way I do? Is she prettier than me?"

"Is she richer than me? Boo-hoo, you've got no heart. GC made the Fortune 500, and you dropped all of us to run home and marry her."

Ellie had to be drunk, because she was always quiet and reserved, cool and composed.

She'd never let herself look like this unless she were truly hurting.

"Ellie, wait for me!"

"I'll cut ties with Freda as fast as I can, sort out the family business, then come back for you."

Just like that, the drunk woman on the line sobered up.

After I hung up, I walked along the roadside for a while.

A bright red Ferrari tore past me.

That was Sid's car. Looked like he was on his way to Freda.

I didn't care about her anymore. Whatever the two of them did from here on wouldn't stir a thing in me.

The moment I got home, my mother was waiting in the living room.

"Duane, where were you all off to so late?"

I looked coldly at that kind, gentle face of hers, and remembering what Freda had said in that private room, whatever last scrap of feeling I had for her turned to ash.

I was the one she gave birth to, yet she always favored Sid a little more.

The year we were poorest, I wore old clothes patched over and over while Sid got new ones.

He got a cake on his birthday. I got two eggs.

I never imagined that even now, grown, she'd still take Sid's side and join the outsiders in deceiving me.

Now that I knew all of it, there was no way I could keep my temper with her.

"Drink up!"

"I thought Freda was home, so I made chicken soup. Since she's not here, you have it in her place."

I smashed the bowl of chicken soup to pieces.

My mother stared at me, stunned, unable to understand why I was so furious.

"What's gotten into you? Is this still about last time"

"Is it because you know she's carrying Sid's child? Is that why you were kind enough to bring chicken soup over to help her recover?"

I cut her off before she could finish.

My mother went pale with alarm, staring at me like she couldn't believe it.

"How did you find out?"

I didn't say a word. I bore down on her step by step, all that rage rolling off me.

"I could never figure out your favoritism as a kid. I was the one you gave birth to, yet you always loved the son you shared no blood with. Later I found out why."

"It turns out Sid is the son of your first love. Love the man, love his boy too."

"She'd wound her own son without a second thought, if that was what it took."

The secret I'd dragged out of the ground left my mother speechless for a moment.

"Duane, I hope you can understand why your mother did what she did."

"You and Sid are both good children to me. My own flesh, both of you. I would never take one side over the other."

"Get out!"

Because I honestly didn't want to hear another word of it. It would only waste my time.

She had exactly one child she cared about, and it was Sid. Where did I fit into her "own flesh"? But she made no move to leave. She stood there with the look of someone carrying something she couldn't quite bring herself to say.

"Say it, then."

She only ever came to me when she wanted something. I already guessed it was about Sid again.

"Duane, there's something I need from you."

"Sid's startup failed. He wants to start over, but he doesn't have the capital."

"I can see you're doing well for yourself. And he is your brother. Could you put up a million dollars"

"The door's right there. Don't let me keep you."

I'd shown her out. I had no interest in discussing it further.

That was when Freda came back in, holding Sid up on her arm.

She must have heard the whole exchange.

"Duane, how can you talk to your mother like that? She's only worried about Sid."

The words had barely left her when my mother crossed the room to stand with them.

The three of them together looked exactly like a family.

From beginning to end, I was the outsider.

"If she's so worried about Sid, she can go borrow the money from a bank."

"Duane, that's your brother"

"Brother? Ha. That's rich."

"If he really thought of me as his brother, would he have slept with you?"

"And even my own mother takes his side, every single time."

"Tell me. How much bigger a person do you people want me to be?"

For a moment no one dared say a word.

This house choked the air out of me. As I turned to leave, my mother spat the words through clenched teeth.

"Wasn't the last time just a misunderstanding?"

"They're both innocent. Why can't you let it go? Why do you have to drive a knife into every single one of us?"

I turned back and looked at the three of them, cold, and the retort stuck in my throat lost all its interest.

One mouth couldn't win against three.

In the end it was Sid who stepped in to smooth things over, quick to play the good man.

"Duane, I'm sorry."

"That night I was drunk out of my mind too. That's the only reason I committed such an unforgivable thing."

"I'm apologizing to you. Please, can't you forgive me?"

"This is your home. If anyone's leaving, it should be us."

My mother and Freda watched Sid deliver his devout little apology, aching for him.

When I still didn't open my mouth to accept it, Freda's face went hard at once.

"Sid apologized to you himself. What more do you want?"

"I don't want anything. I just want them gone, out of my sight, now."

Hearing that, Sid dropped his head, wearing the wounded look of someone hard done by.

My mother stepped up to defend him and shot me a glare.

Just as she was about to speak, Sid rushed off, all grief and heartbreak.

He ran too fast, and the whole of him went tumbling down the stairs.

"Sid!"

"Sid!"

Freda screamed, then turned on me with vicious words.

"Duane, why are you pushing him like this? You're more poisonous than a wolf."

"Whether you forgive him or not doesn't matter anymore. We don't need your forgiveness."

"Get out. I don't want to look at you right now."

My mother said nothing, only kept those cold eyes fixed on me.

I'd told myself I would let them go and walk away for good. But when the wound was torn open again, all my chest could do was hurt, and hurt, and hurt.

My own wife, my own mother, both of them forever loving another man.

Only now did I finally understand: love or blood, I didn't want either of them anymore.

"Freda, let's end it."

Freda's grip on Sid's arm tightened, and for a moment she froze.

Sid, for his part, let a flash of triumph cross his face, quickly hidden before anyone could catch it.

"Duane, why are you suddenly saying this?"

"Is it just because I won't help you now that you're"

"No."

I cut her off.

"Because the child in your belly isn't mine."

"Better I step aside and let the two of you have each other than have the three of us tangled up like this."

With that I turned and walked out without looking back.

Her furious screaming followed me. I let myself not hear it.

Out of the house, I took a deep breath.

Only then did I realize how good the air was out here, no suffocation, no misery.

I checked into a hotel nearby for the night.

When I came out of the shower, I saw more than thirty missed calls on my phone.

Every one of them from Freda. I cleared them like junk.

Just as I was about to rest, Sid called.

The second I picked up, that swaggering tone of his came out with nothing held back.

"Duane, you're pretty pissed right now, aren't you?"

"Your woman still isn't over me, and your mother still treats me like a priceless treasure."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. You really are pathetic, you know that? I've been beating you down since we were kids, and all I have to do is put on a little wounded act in front of them, and they choose me without a second thought."

"Say I'm heartless if you want, but really, those two are lower than each other."

"Your mother loved my father, so she drove my mother to die with a grudge in her heart. I swore to myself back then that I'd destroy your happiness. But I never expected Freda to come throw herself right at me. Maybe she just can't forget how I had her three years ago. Seems she's still savoring it."

The veins stood out on the hand gripping the phone, a fire burning in my chest.

His goal, I'd known it all along.

But those two just kept courting their own ruin, and no matter what, they wouldn't believe a word I said.

After a stretch of wrestling with myself, I let out a sigh.

"You came all this way to tell me things that don't matter. That woman Freda, I don't want her anymore. And as for blood, blood can be cut too."

"Ha ha ha, Duane, there's no way you'd actually cut ties with her. Don't lie to me."

"Let me give you a hand, then."

And he hung up.

I didn't know what he was planning next. All I knew was that I'd seen through this so-called love and this so-called blood, and they'd never wound me again, not by an inch.

I slept straight through till morning. After I washed up, I went down to the restaurant to eat.

But when it came time to pay, my phone wouldn't go through.

"Sir, there's no money in your account."

"Do you have a card linked or anything?"

"I do."

I had exactly a million dollars in cash in that account. There was no way it was gone in two days.

Then it hit me, what Sid had said.

I froze for a beat, then quickly called Freda.

"Did you take my card and clean out all the money?"

"Yes."

"Sid needs capital to start his business. He can't do it without seed money."

"I hope you'll understand"

"And who understands me? You emptied out everything I have, and now I don't even have the money to pay for a meal?"

"Do you really have to be this furious?"

"It's just a million dollars. If you can't cover your bill, borrow from a friend. But money for Sid's startup, that's something I'm duty-bound to give him."

Before I could get another word out, she hung up on me.

What chilled me most was this: only my mother knew where I kept that card.

Numb, everything in me gone cold, I called Ellie Head and asked her to transfer money over so I could pay.

Walking out of the restaurant, I passed a baby store.

Through the glass, I saw Sid with his arm around Freda, the two of them picking out baby things, my mother trailing behind to carry it all.

In that moment, I decided to let them go.

I took out my phone and called the police. "Hello. I want to report a crime."

"Someone stole my bank card and withdrew a million dollars."

"The woman who took the card is named Freda Harding. The man who took the million is named Sid Delgado."

"And if Freda claims she didn't steal it, that she was just taking her husband's money, then you tell her this: we never got a marriage license. There's no such thing as marital property between us."