Awakened for Revenge-marrying my ex fiancés brother

Ariana’s POV

“I can’t stand being with her for another minute,” he spat, his voice was filled with such venom I had never likened him with. “I swear, I can’t be paid to pretend to be into this.”

I was stunned watching the smoke billowing from the cigarette between his fingers.

He was sat on the lounge chair on the balcony, his hands running through his hair in frustration.

My brows furrowed in confusion, Was I dreaming? Is there a stranger in our home?

For one, Matt didn’t smoke, he never had, I never knew him to be a smoker. We had been together for nearly six years, and I had never seen him smoke.

And also, who could he possibly be talking about? His voice was heavy with such contempt that even I feared for whoever his anger was directed at.

I’d woken from sleep only moments ago to find a cold emptiness in the spot on the bed where Matt had laid the night before. He must have left the bed for a while because the sheets were stripped of any warmth. There was not even a dip left in his wake.

My mind immediately went to work, finding reasons and explanations for why he wasn’t in bed. Maybe he was busy working, he had always been quite ambitious and hard working.

I moved to a stand, with sleepy eyes and tired legs I put on my fuzzy house slippers, grateful for the softness and warmth.

I trudged down the stairs as quietly as possible hoping to find him, maybe having a late night snack or working on something.

From the bottom of the stairs, I spotted Matt through the glass doors connecting to the balcony, my fiancé paced slowly on the balcony as he spoke into his phone, his hands still clutching tightly to the cigarette stick.

He paced for a while before plopping down on the recliner.

So it was Matt. And Matt smoked? That was new to me. I was immediately pissed off at his lies. He had clearly told me that he never smoked.

Smoking was the one thing I drew the line at and he knew this.

“Not a day in my life,” he had said when I asked him on our first date.

‘Oh I was so going to make trouble.’ I thought to myself as I planned to go question him.

He better have a good fucking reason.

I glanced at the wall clock in the living room, it was a little past two o'clock in the morning. That in itself was strange enough. Who could he possibly be on the phone with at this ungodly hour?

Quietly, I moved closer to him, hoping to catch his attention. He was so focused on whoever was at the other end of the phone. I frowned.

Just as I was only a breath away from calling out his name when he loudly cursed, “Don’t you fucking get it?” His voice suddenly sharp with spite that shocked me right in my tracks. My limbs knocked frozen.

“I’m not sure how long I can keep this up,” he continued, smoke billowing from his snarled lips, “I’m sick and bloody tired of playing pretend, pretending to be the perfect boyfriend, pretending to be this doting fiancé and future golden husband. When does it end?”

I almost collapsed to the ground.

My body failed me, my knees buckled, the room spun as I clutched tightly to the staircase rails.

I retract my steps, careful not to get spotted and also grateful that I'm shrunk safely in the shadows of the living room behind him.

Unaware of my crumbling existence behind him, Matt rambled on, “Angelina, I’ve told you, everything is all set. The accident has been arranged. It’s set in stone and will go on as planned before the wedding. Soon, she’ll be out of our lives for good. I can be freed from her and finally be with you, properly. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

I could’ve sworn my heart stopped beating at that moment. My entire world crumbled down to rubbles of unrecognizable pieces.

What? Wait, Angelina?

My brain started to filter through my memories of any other possible Angelina that I knew or that he knew. None!

‘It can’t be, right? Maybe I’m hearing things now.’

My Angelina, my sister?

Matt sighed loudly into the phone, his eyes eyeing the last brunt of the cigarette before he threw it down and stumped it with the heel of his feet.

“Angelina, don’t worry, nothing will be traced back to us, once she is gone, we can be free to do whatever we want. Her inheritance would be yours, ours.”

That was my confirmation if I needed any.

Tears rimmed my eyes, my heart thumping faster, violently against my chest.

What did he mean by accident? They plan to kill me? Take my inheritance? Rid their lives of me?

My chest tightened as the realization hits me like an asteroid crash.

Matt, my fiancé, the man I’d given my all to. I defied my parents to be with him, disobeyed them, fought for him, because I love him—I loved him.

My own sister, Angelina, my meek and sweet younger sister…that can’t be possible.

Right?

It didn’t add up.

She surely wouldn’t conspire with him to kill me, right? Or even have an affair with him.

I tried desperately to convince myself I misunderstood, that I had heard wrong, that none of this is real. It was likely a dream, an illusion. Maybe it’s not my Angie, definitely not my own sister Angelina.

But the cold certainty that creeped through my veins told me otherwise. Perhaps the signs had always been there.

“Angie, I love you. I never loved her. You know that, but I couldn’t choose you when she obviously latched onto me. Your parents never even liked me and she was brave enough to defy them. Once everything goes according to plan. We can finally be together. I promise.”

If I was broken before, I was destroyed now. Broken pieces burned to ash that I swore I could taste at the back of my throat.

The rest of the world blurred away as I collapsed right behind the sofa, away from where his gaze could possibly see.

The only question I could ask myself was why?

Why did I deserve this from someone I gave my whole life to? I gave my work, my time, my everything.

Through the constant refusal on my parents' part before agreeing to our engagement, through the times I had to cut off my friends for his sake. They never liked him and now I could see why.

It made sense to an extent why Matt would do it. He had always been extremely ambitious, but Angie, she was supposed to be my sister, she is my sister, my only one at that and I was utterly gutted at the realization that she was a part of the scheme to plot my death.

My fiancé and my sister were planning my death.