The Man Left Behind in His Own Marriage
Bonnie
My mother and sister never liked me.
The only son they ever truly cared about was my older brother, Lucian Vieri.
Before she married me, Serafina Valcieri, the only daughter of one of the most feared syndicates in the country, was always the one who stepped in when I was cornered, mocked, or blamed for things that were never mine to carry.
She never said much. She just made people back off.
Then she married me.
Then, not long ago, Lucian shoved me off a ski slope.
I said he meant to kill me.
My mother called it an accident.
My sister said he had only been trying to save me.
Only Serafina believed me.
When I woke up in the hospital, I heard voices outside the door.
“Who told you to do it like that?” Serafina said, her voice low and cold.
My mother answered in a panic. “Lucian’s leukemia can’t wait. If Cassian learns the baby isn’t his, everything falls apart.”
Then Serafina said the words I still can’t forget.
“I chose him, and I married him for my own reasons. But Lucian still needs this child. If anything had happened to Cassian, none of you would have walked away from it.”
I stood there in silence, listening to every word.
The child my wife was carrying was never mine.
It had been conceived through IVF to save my brother.
And the marriage I had trusted from the beginning had never belonged to me alone.
I had spent my whole life coming second to Lucian.
I just never thought Serafina would be the one to prove it.
If no one truly wanted me, then I would leave.