After Fraud Report I Farm Fish,Wife, Mother Poison Pond

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Someone reported me for cooking the books, and the company fired me and blacklisted me for good.

I went looking for work again and again, and no one would take me.

But life had to go on, so all I could do was lease a big fish pond outside the city and raise fish.

I emptied out every last dime I had, my burial money included, just to make it work.

And I actually pulled it off. My fish got glowing reviews from buyers, and the big orders came in.

With capital behind me, I leased more ponds and hired plenty of people to work.

Then, right before the fish were ready to sell, they all died overnight. Poisoned.

The blow was too much. I coughed up blood and passed out.

When I opened my eyes again, no one was there.

I was getting ready to check out of the hospital when, outside the maternity room next door, I saw that my wife had given birth.

I was so happy I reached for the door, and then I heard it:

"What? You put Rhys Gilbert up to this? You had his mother poison his fish?"

"Yes. Because his mother favors her lover's son, Tristan Henson."

"And back then, framing him for cooking the books so he could never work a white-collar job again, that was his mother too."

"Why?"

"Because Rhys crushed Tristan at every turn, drove him into depression, while Rhys himself was doing better than ever. If they didn't knock him down a peg, Tristan was going to throw himself in the river!"

"And the baby, it isn't even his!"

...

"Don't you think what you're doing is a little cruel?"

"Right! Even outsiders like us feel sorry for Rhys."

Her friends were stunned.

Cara Harding lay in the hospital bed, looking up at the newborn son cradled in her friend's arms.

And out in the hall, it was as though a hand had closed around my throat. I fought just to breathe.

I couldn't believe that everything that had happened to me had come from my own mother and my own wife.

And all of it, for one person. Their adopted son, Tristan.

I remembered that day at the company, everyone pointing at me with those snide voices, calling me dirty-handed, saying that embezzling wasn't enough, I'd cooked the books on top of it.

Before I could even react, Cara hurled a teacup at my head.

The cup split my head open, and every explanation I gave turned into a cover-up. The charge would never wash off.

They say a man carries gold beneath his knees and must never kneel.

But I knelt anyway, explaining again, crying in despair, and Cara fired me all the same.

No one at the company knew we were married, so she said she had to avoid any appearance of favoritism, that she couldn't let me drag her down.

I did as I was told and left. Branded like that, no one dared hire me.

All I could do was take what money I had left and go raise fish outside the city. Why?

Why couldn't they let me go? Why poison my fish too?

I didn't understand. The pain filled me completely.

The tears ran into my cracked lips, bitter, no sweetness at all, the way my whole life had gone to nothing.

Through the gap in the door, their conversation reached my ears again.

"Why does his mother favor Tristan so much? He's just the son of some old lover of hers!"

"Exactly! Rhys is her own flesh and blood, and you're his wife. Why would you both help an adopted son do this to Rhys?"

Out in the hall, I clenched my fists. I wanted to know that too.

I was the one who was her own son. I was the one who honored her most.

Even when she dies, I'll be the one to bury her, buy the coffin, handle the arrangements.

Cara let out a sigh.

"Because my mother-in-law never loved Rhys's father. But her family insisted she marry him, and that cost her a lifetime with Tristan's father. A lifelong regret."

"So she resents Rhys's father, and she resents Rhys along with him. As for Tristan, I suppose she loves him for his father's sake."

"After Tristan's father died, he made her promise to take good care of him."

"But once they brought Tristan home, Rhys was just too brilliant. He beat Tristan at everything. Tristan was timid and insecure to begin with, and Rhys still never knew when to hold back."

How am I supposed to know how to hold back?

Everything that made me shine, I earned on my own.

Since when did making myself stronger become a crime?

Cara looked down at the son she'd just set back in the crib.

"I'm starting to regret this now."

"Pushing him this hard, he really might die..."

Her friend shot her a look.

"What you should be doing right now is telling him you gave him a son. Then he won't get desperate enough to end it."

"The way you look so guilty about it, don't tell me the baby isn't Rhys's..."

Then the friend caught what she'd just said, and froze.

"Wait, wait. Is the baby really not Rhys's?"

I froze too, my whole body locking rigid like a statue, as if I'd been struck by lightning.

"What the hell? The baby isn't his?"

Something uneasy surfaced in Cara's eyes, but in the end she nodded.

"Holy shit. Are you out of your mind?"

"That baby is Rhys's whole world!"

"Don't forget how much he cared about this child the day you found out you were pregnant."

"You, oh you. You really are..."

"Don't tell me it's Tristan's?"

"Jesus. If Rhys finds out, he'll kill both of you."

The sudden words left everyone in the room stunned.

I glared at that door, eyes wide, the fury in my chest refusing to cool.

"You, when did you and Tristan sleep together?"

Cara said nothing. She lifted the hem of her shirt to show her friend.

Below her chest, her name and Tristan's were tattooed together.

Through the gap in the door, I saw it with my own eyes.

In that moment, it was like a knife going through me.

"I don't even know why I fell for Tristan. Maybe it was that one afternoon when he handed me a warm handkerchief. Maybe it was that his situation made me pity him."

"While Rhys was away on a business trip, the two of us got together."

"That was the happiest, the most joyful time of my whole life."

"We shut ourselves in a hotel for three days and three nights and never left, and marked each other with the tattoos of our love."

"After Rhys came back, every time we slept together I kept my top on, so he never knew our secret."

"One time we nearly got caught. My mother-in-law was the one who covered for me and Tristan."

The friends couldn't bear it, feeling this was too unfair to me.

The whole ward went silent. Nobody said a word.

Because it was all too explosive, too sordid, the kind of thing you'd only see in a movie.

And when I learned that my mother knew they'd betrayed me and cheated on me, and covered for them anyway, my legs nearly gave out under me.

I braced hard against the wall, and the soles of my feet went ice cold.

Everyone said Tristan was pitiful, that I should give in to him more.

But where was he pitiful? He stole my mother's love, and he'd cheated with my wife and fathered a bastard child.

I lost my job because he used the threat of suicide to make my mother and my wife frame me for cooking the books.

When the fish farm was doing well, he used his depression to force them to poison my fish.

My fingertips dug into my own flesh, and blood welled up, ran across my palm, and dripped to the floor.

I didn't know how I was supposed to clean up what was left.

Not only were my savings gone, I still owed my workers their wages, and the buyers were blowing up my phone, pressing me to deliver.

If I couldn't deliver, I'd have to refund them. But I had almost no money left.

What scared me most was that if I couldn't pay, they'd wreck my reputation all over again.

Once word got out, I'd never claw my way back.

Watching the same numbers call again and again, I finally swallowed the grief and walked out to answer.

"Rhys, do you actually have the stock to deliver on time or not?"

"If not, then refund us our money."

I hung up with the buyer, and then the calls from my workers started coming in.

Every one of them wanted their pay, terrified I'd skip town on them.

If I weren't already so hardened, reality would have crushed me a long time ago.

I clenched my jaw, swallowed the lump in my throat, and told them I'd get their wages to them later.

By the time the call ended, I realized I'd already walked out of the hospital.

Rain the size of rice grains pelted down on me. I stared at the road ahead and felt utterly lost.

After my father left, I was afraid people would look down on my mother, so I studied twice as hard, pushed myself to be the best.

It was the only way I could protect the two of us.

But all that effort only made me a thorn in Tristan's side. He turned everything into a competition with me, a quiet war.

And when he couldn't win, he stooped to the lowest tricks, using the people I loved most to destroy me.

The most urgent thing now was to pay back the buyer and get my workers their wages.

But I didn't have much money left. My only option was to sell the house that was mine before the marriage.

When I got home, my mother was bustling around inside.

Setting up a nursery, hanging festive decorations everywhere.

Her own son had just been gutted, and not once had she come to the hospital to check on me.

So this was what she'd been doing at home instead. Decorating for a celebration, getting ready for Cara to give birth to Tristan's son?

I came in soaked and disheveled, and she looked up at me, humming to herself.

The moment she saw my wet clothes, her first reaction wasn't to ask if I was all right. It was to hurry me back out the door.

"Oh, come on! Why would you track yourself in here dripping like that?"

"Get out, quick, don't dirty everything I just set up for my grandson."

She shooed me out to the doorway, and I laughed, a bleak, hollow laugh.

A house I'd paid for with my own money, and I wasn't allowed inside.

Just so I wouldn't stain the gifts for Tristan's bastard.

The rage rose in me slowly, curling up from somewhere deep.

I strode back in, and she snapped at me, furious.

"What are you coming in here for again?"

"Are you deaf?"

"Get out. When Cara and Tristan come home carrying my grandson and see you've messed up everything I worked so hard to set up, they'll be upset."

The moment she finished, she picked up a pomelo leaf and started swatting it at me.

"You've had nothing but bad luck lately. I'm afraid you'll pass it to my grandson."

"So I want you to stay away from this house for a while."

I knocked the pomelo leaf out of her hand, my chest full of fury.

Seeing me like this, so unhinged, she actually turned her face away, guilty as a thief.

My eyes were bloodshot as I closed in on her, step by step.

I backed her into a corner with nowhere left to go, then spoke, my voice thick with grief and hate.

"You're in such a hurry to get rid of me because you're afraid I'll see the baby doesn't look like me. It looks like Tristan, doesn't it!"

My mother froze, her eyes darting, unable to meet mine.

That was exactly how she used to look when she'd done something wrong and knew it.

"What are you babbling about? Doesn't look like you, looks like Tristan, what nonsense is that?"

"I just meant you've been so unlucky lately, you'll bring bad luck down on your own son!"

When I heard that, her reasoning made me laugh out of sheer disbelief.

But as I laughed, the tears came without my noticing, sliding down my face.

"Why have I been so unlucky? You should know that better than anyone!"

My mother still didn't dare look at me, guilt written all over her.

I was out of my mind with rage, and I nearly roared it at her.

"Because the one who framed me for cooking the books was you. You reported me, just so Cara would have a reason to fire me!"

"And the fish in my pond, you poisoned them, every last one, to back me into a corner so I'd never claw my way back up again."

"If it had been anyone else who did this to me, I wouldn't be in this much pain."

"Why you? Why would you do this to your own son?"

"All for Tristan? A worthless thing born to your lover, and because you didn't want him jealous, didn't want him killing himself, you'd do this to me?"

My mother froze, then looked up at me with disbelief in her eyes, no longer hiding anything.

She hadn't expected me to already know the secret.

Rage drove my fist into the wall, and blood ran down my knuckles.

It wasn't that I had no temper. It was that I couldn't turn it on her, because she was the woman who bore me, and the only person I hated.

That was what made it unbearable.

"I only want to ask you one thing. When you did all of this, did you ever once think of me?"

"Rhys, your mother had no choice!"

"Tristan lost his parents. If we didn't treat him kindly, how much worse would his life be?"

"I knew this would hurt you, but Tristan was never as brave or as strong as you." "You're both my children. How could a mother not love you?" "You call what you gave me love?" My voice climbed higher, feeding on itself. She flinched at the shout.

"Your love goes to your lover's son. So what if I'm your own flesh and blood?"

"Did you ever stop to think that after being crushed down again and again, maybe I'd break too? Maybe I'd kill myself?"

The words had barely left my mouth when my phone rang.

I laughed, ruined and hollow. "You see that? That's the crisis you handed me when you poisoned my fish. They're chasing me for the money, and I still owe my workers their wages."

"You're the only one who knows I've got nothing left."

My mother's mouth opened, then her lips seemed stuck fast, unable to form a single word.

In the end she choked out, "If your mother hadn't done it, it would have destroyed Tristan. Seeing you thriving, seeing you do so well, it tore him apart!"

Just then a man and a woman's voices came from outside the door.

"Hold him tight, don't drop the baby."

"Hold the baby, yes, but you have to take care of yourself too..."

The rest went unfinished. Wrapped around each other, they walked in, saw me, and stopped talking.

Blood still dripped from my hand. My heart felt like it was being cut open.

Cara quickly pushed Tristan away, straightened up, and came toward me with a smile.

"Rhys, do you know?"

"While you were unconscious, I was so frightened it brought on early labor, and I gave birth a week ahead."

She held the baby against her, her face gentle and harmless as she looked at me.

Tristan clenched his fists and ground his teeth, resentful and displeased.

My mother wiped away her tears and composed her expression.

"As long as they're safe, that's all that matters!"

"Rhys, come hold your son..."

"Enough. That's not my child. He's Tristan's."

"All of you knew. Even Cara's friends knew. I was the only one who didn't."

"If I hadn't passed by your hospital room and heard you say the secret with your own mouth, you'd have made a cuckold of me for the rest of my life."

The room went dead silent. Only Tristan's resentment melted away, replaced by smugness.

Cara looked at me with a pained face, still not knowing how to speak.

"Mom, you reported me for cooking the books, then you poisoned my fish, then you helped my wife roll around in bed with Tristan, and in the end she gave birth to his bastard."

A mouthful of blood came up, but I didn't go down.

Cara and my mother tensed. Tristan hurried over and bowed to me in apology, his face full of guilt.

"Brother, all of this is my fault."

"They only treated you this way because of me."

"I'm the one who deserves to be cut to pieces. So I promise you this."

"That child, I'll make sure he respects you as his father too."

Tristan shoved the baby into my arms and told me to hold him.

Then, the next second, he suddenly let go, and the baby dropped straight to the floor, wailing.

"Ah! My baby!"

Cara and my mother rushed over in a panic. One of them shoved me hard, and I crashed straight back onto the coffee table.

Cara scooped up the baby and checked him frantically. My mother, humiliated into fury, turned and grabbed a heavy object beside her, and without a second thought brought it down on my head.

Pain surged through me, and with it the smell of blood.

"A man who'd raise his hand against an infant doesn't deserve to be called human."

After cursing me, they took the baby and hurried off to the hospital.

I pressed a hand over the wound. I'd lost too much blood, so I had to go to the hospital myself.

When I came out with the wound bandaged, I saw the four of them in the distance, a family, chatting and laughing.

From beginning to end, in their eyes, I was the outsider.

The debt collectors kept calling, and the only thing I could think of was selling the house.

But the moment I got home, I found people carrying my things out.

I walked over and demanded to know what was going on, and learned that my mother had sold my house. When I called her, she actually yelled at me like she was the one wronged.

"My grandson was born, and as his grandmother I have to give him a gift!"

Then Tristan's voice came through. "Brother, thank you. You bought me a house with the money from selling yours."

I clenched my fist, and before I could speak my mother cut in again. "Oh, right, if you don't have money to pay your debts, go borrow from the bank!"

With that, she hung up.

In that moment, I decided I would never again be tripped up by family.

Crying, carrying an endless weight of injustice, I made the call to the police.

"Hello. I want to report someone for poisoning the fish in my fish farm. That person is my mother and my adoptive brother."