My Child-Free Wife Carried My Brother's Baby

I ended up in the hospital after a car crash while frantically searching for my wife in a storm. At the hospital, I discovered that my child-free wife was pregnant with my younger brother's baby. She said, "You can't have kids yourself, so why shouldn't I? Don't be so selfish." Yet she was the one who had insisted on never having children and pressured me to get a vasectomy in the first place. She said, "Justin saved my life when we were kids. What's wrong with having a baby for him to repay that debt?" Except... I was the one who saved her back then. I chose divorce to set them free. In the end, she fell to her knees and pleaded, "Please, let's remarry. I love you." Her desperate sobs echoed through the hospital room. Even after she aborted that bastard child, I never looked back. Chloe slammed the door and stormed out after throwing a fit over the steamed sea bass I made for dinner. She didn't return all night. I drove through a blinding rainstorm looking for her, got into an accident, and woke up in the hospital. Limping on crutches to settle my medical bill, I saw my wife walking out of the OB-GYN clinic. A second later, she threw her arms around a man, radiating pure joy. That man was my half-brother, Justin. They turned and caught sight of me frozen in place, leaning heavily on my crutches. "What are you doing here? What happened to your leg?" Chloe hurried toward me. Justin shot me a mocking smirk. Then, Justin tenderly held her arm. "Careful, Chloe. You can't afford to take a fall right now." What a picture-perfect, loving couple awaiting their miracle baby. "Are you pregnant?" I ignored her questions, my voice rasping and raw. Chloe stroked her belly with a beaming smile. "Yes. I'm going to be a mother." "Congratulations. You're carrying a bastard." I stared at her, voice dripping with sarcasm. So that was why she had been so irritable lately. "What's that supposed to mean, Ethan?" Chloe frowned. "My baby will be completely legitimate. You can't have kids, so why can't I find someone who can?" Passersby overheard her and shot me looks of open disgust. "She's right, Ethan," Justin chimed in earnestly. "You can't rob Chloe of her right to be a mother. Every woman wants a child of her own." "Too bad your legal husband is still me," I retorted, the pain from my stitches flaring like fire as I sank onto a nearby bench. "Unless we divorce, that baby is nothing more than an illegitimate mistake." Chloe flipped her hair impatiently. "Stop throwing a tantrum. I'm not divorcing you. Since you can't have kids anyway, you can just raise him as your own. He shares your family blood anyway. Isn't that a win-win?" I really couldn't have kids. Because I had gotten a vasectomy. She was the one who claimed she wanted a child-free life. To give her absolute peace of mind, I underwent the surgery. There had been complications. I spent an entire month bedridden in the hospital. A sharp stab of agony shot through my injured leg. I couldn't bear to look at them anymore. Supporting myself against the wall, I struggled to stand up. It was time for my meds back in the ward. My body swayed dangerously, on the verge of collapsing. "Ethan, wait!" Chloe shoved Justin's hand away and rushed toward me. With a look of genuine concern, she gripped my shoulder, supporting me with one arm while taking one of my crutches. I tried to pull away, but she refused to let go. "Let me help him," Justin offered smoothly. Ignoring my protests, Justin grabbed my arm and dragged me forward at a brisk pace. The stitches on my thigh tore open. Hot blood seeped through the fabric of my pants. "Remember what I told you on the phone?" Justin whispered, his voice audible only to the two of us. "File for divorce yourself while you still have some dignity left." When I first woke up in the hospital, my first instinct had been to find my phone. Fearing I would agitate my wounds, the nurse had quickly turned it on and handed it to me. My call log showed over a hundred outgoing calls to my wife before the crash. Not a single missed call or text from her in return. Terrified something had happened to her, I dialed again. This time, the call connected. It was Justin's voice on the line. "Ethan, why are you such a desperate simp? Calling a hundred times? Too bad Chloe and I were busy. We didn't have time for you." "By the way, I discovered a fascinating secret." "Do you know why she married you in the first place?""Because you're just my stand-in." My chest tightened with excruciating pain. My hands shook so hard I could barely hold the phone. "Justin, who are you talking to? Come cuddle me," Chloe's sultry voice drifted through the receiver. It had been so long since she spoke to me like that. At some point, our daily conversations had dwindled to fewer than three sentences. Usually, it was just: "Working late. Don't wait up." Yet in the beginning, she was the one who burst into my world like a beam of sunlight. She healed the deepest scars on my soul. "Ethan, your smile is breathtaking! You should smile more, okay?" College-era Chloe had gently poked my cheeks with her fingers, her smile brighter than the sun. "Ethan, I'll stay by your side forever." "Ethan, talk to me!" "Ethan, let's get married." When I was ten, my mother jumped to her death. The doctors said she suffered from severe depression. My father, Robert, brought endless mistresses into our home while treating Mom as if she were invisible. Less than two months after she died, Robert remarried a woman named Brenda. And with her came a son—just one month younger than me. My cold, distant father showered that boy with unimaginable love, granting his every whim. Yet Justin always coveted my things: my room, my pets, my toys... And now, he wanted my wife. Looking at Justin's smug face, I shoved him away with all my strength. He stumbled back dramatically, then viciously kicked my injured leg. The agonizing pain buckled my knees. I collapsed onto the crowded hospital floor, blacking out from the shock. "Nurse! Help!" I faintly heard Chloe's frantic scream before darkness swallowed me. When I opened my eyes again, Chloe was sitting beside my hospital bed. Her expression was gentle and tender. "You're awake? How are you feeling?" I stared at her, mesmerized by the warmth of her hand. The next second, her words plunged me into an icy abyss. "Ethan, Justin didn't mean it. Please don't hold a grudge against him." A bitter laugh escaped my throat. I pulled back the blanket; the dusty footprint on my pant leg was still starkly visible. "Right. Just go home," I said coldly. "Please take care of Lucky for a few days. If you don't have time, drop him off at a pet boarding facility." Lucky was the rescue dog Mom gave me before she died. He had been with me ever since. Chloe agreed immediately. She offered me a bowl of warm walnut porridge with an eager smile. "I heard porridge is good for recovery. I went and bought this specifically for you." I turned my head away. "Did you forget? I have a severe nut allergy." Besides, I hated sweet food. Justin was the one who loved sugary snacks. My nut allergy was severe—hives at best, anaphylactic shock at worst. Justin had once slipped peanut powder into my breakfast before a school assembly. He watched with glee as I collapsed on stage, covered in hives and gasping for air in front of the entire campus. Chloe's face flushed with awkwardness, which instantly morphed into defensive irritation. "Why didn't you say so earlier?! Fine, starve then!" We had been married for three years. How could I have never told her? She simply never cared. *SLAM!* Chloe stormed out, slamming the door. Her temper was worse than ever. She would block me everywhere on Snapchat and Instagram if I took longer than two seconds to reply to her texts. If she got tired on a walk, she would publicly berate me in the middle of the street. She banned me from having female friends and deleted my female colleagues and boss from my phone, costing me a hard-won promotion and eventually my job. She told me a woman needed a career, so I stayed home to support hers. I ironed her clothes, cooked her meals, washed her laundry, drove her to and from work, and traveled with her on business trips. A few months ago, while picking her up from a company party, I overheard her colleagues laughing. "Ethan is so bland and useless. I saw him the other day—he's even got a gut! Hahaha, Chloe, I can't believe you haven't dumped him."I heard Chloe reply dismissively, "I just treat him like a free live-in maid. I got bored of him ages ago." She forgot that back in college, I was the aloof golden boy everyone admired. Countless girls tried to get close to me, but only Chloe refused to give up, chasing me tirelessly even when I gave her the cold shoulder. How did I become this out-of-shape, exhausted man? I did it all for her. After that night, Chloe forbade me from ever coming to her firm again. I thought she was embarrassed of my appearance. So I started working out late into the night, fixing my diet and refining my style. Once my abs were back, I got a fresh haircut, bought a bouquet of flowers, and went to her office to surprise her. Instead, I saw her laughing and chatting intimately with Justin as they walked out together. I casually asked someone from her firm's legal team about the man. They said he was Justin, a brilliant game designer freshly returned from studying abroad. Studied abroad? He really had the nerve to lie. "Don't they look great together? A true power couple," the colleague remarked, not recognizing me. "Way better than Attorney Campbell's loser of a husband." I threw the bouquet into the trash can and drove home alone. That evening, Chloe came home in remarkably high spirits. She wrapped her arms around my neck. "Why does my husband look so handsome today? How do you want to celebrate your birthday next week? Anything you want, I'll say yes." "How about Iceland, like you always wanted? They say if you make a wish under the Northern Lights, it always comes true." I believed her. Going to Iceland had always been my dream—and my late mother's. I meticulously planned the entire itinerary and booked flights for the day after my birthday. Chloe promised she had taken ten days off work to be completely with me. On my birthday, I prepared a lavish dinner, along with the homemade noodles she had cooked for me the year we started dating. I waited from five in the afternoon until midnight. She never showed up. Sitting on the porch all night in the freezing wind, my body burned up with a fever. Choking down the cold, rubbery noodles, I saw Justin's new Instagram post. It was a photo of him and Chloe right after landing at the airport. Caption: *In Iceland with my girl. Pure bliss.* No wonder none of my frantic calls went through. Then, a text from Chloe popped up: *An urgent case came up overseas. Leaving for a business trip right now.* She didn't even bother putting effort into her lies anymore. Over the next week, Justin posted on Instagram every single day—following the exact itinerary I had spent weeks crafting. Like a rat in the sewers, I watched their romantic getaway unfold on my screen. Whale watching, snorkeling, chasing the aurora. Whenever I had begged her to do those things with me, she had always complained it was too exhausting. I spent several days in bed battling the fever, hugging Lucky. It was Lucky who brought the pill bottle to my bedside in his mouth. When Chloe finally returned, she collapsed onto the couch without noticing my hollow, pale face. She groaned that she was exhausted and demanded a shoulder rub. Her wedding ring was gone from her finger. I massaged her shoulders as usual and asked flatly, "Did you have fun in Iceland with my brother?" She bolted upright. "He's your brother?!" She really knew how to pick the right detail. "Don't read into it. We're just colleagues," she said defensively. "Besides, when he was a kid, he saved me from a kidnapper." Chloe explained that she had finally tracked down the boy who pulled her out of an abductor's car years ago—it was Justin. She felt indebted to him, and since he had just returned to the country, he needed help settling in. "He told you that?" I raised an eyebrow. "I saw he was wearing the exact same jade pendant as that boy. I asked him, and he admitted it." Chloe continued casually, "Don't be so petty. A real man wouldn't make a fuss. Now that he's your brother, there's even less reason for you to be jealous." I didn't bother telling her that Justin had tormented me my whole childhood. Otherwise, how could she have been married to me for three years without knowing he existed?Justin went to the same middle school as me. Armed with Robert's limitless allowance, he bought a gang of loyal thugs. He ordered them to trap me in the bathrooms, beating and kicking me until I couldn't move. Once my face was bloody and bruised, he would pour foul, dirty mop water over my head. "Just disinfecting you, bro! Hahaha!" Whenever he felt like it, he would have his lackeys pin my arms and legs to the floor. Wearing tailored blazers and polished leather shoes, he would grind his heel into my face. "Acting all pathetic like your dead mother, trying to make Dad pity you. She took up my mom's rightful spot for years, and now she's finally dead. Why don't you go die too? Don't you miss her? Go kill yourself!" I never let anyone disrespect my mother. I fought back violently. And he loved seeing me struggle helplessly. "You're pathetic, Ethan. You know what you look like squirming on the ground? A maggot in the gutter." It happened dozens of times. I would run, and when cornered, I fought until I was beaten to a pulp. The teachers turned a blind eye to my bruises. Robert listened exclusively to Brenda, convinced I was framing his angelic, well-mannered son. He accused me of being a delinquent picking fights on the streets, beating me even harder when I got home. That living hell lasted until I tested into an elite boarding high school with a strict zero-tolerance policy on bullying. I moved into the dorms, completely out of his reach. Spoiled and unchecked, Justin found another victim at his own school to torment. Eventually, that boy committed suicide. To dodge the scandal and the police, Robert drained half his savings to ship Justin overseas. Could a monster like that ever save someone? From that day on, Chloe began "working late" almost every night. She had no idea that every time she stayed out, my dear brother sent me pictures on Snapchat. Candlelit dinners Chloe cooked for him, designer clothes she bought for him... In all our years together, the only thing she had ever cooked for me was that single bowl of birthday noodles. She claimed she didn't know how to cook. Even though those noodles were overly salty and weirdly sweet, I had eaten every last bite with gratitude. Because she was the only person who had ever celebrated my birthday. When you've lived in the dark for so long, you cling desperately to the faintest spark of light. So even though her heart had strayed, I desperately clung to hope. I couldn't bear to let her go. Just catching a glimpse of her smile was enough to keep me going. Until I saw their company's new launch event. Justin stood on stage under the dazzling spotlights as the lead game designer. The revolutionary game they unveiled was mine. It was the project I had poured my heart and soul into since college. Only Chloe knew my passwords. Just like my father, she helped Justin rob me of everything I loved. Driven to madness, I stormed into their corporate office, barged up to Justin, and seized him by the collar. "Stealing my game?! You're nothing but a petty thief! Don't push me!" The commotion immediately drew a crowd of employees. "What's happening? Is Justin's masterpiece stolen?" "No way, he has an Ivy League degree. That guy just looks like a house husband." "Probably just jealous. Men get insecure so easily." Justin leaned in and whispered in my ear, "Looks like nobody believes you. And how is it stealing? I just told Chloe I was stressed about my debut project, and she handed it to me on a silver platter as a birthday gift." He tilted his head with mocking curiosity. "What did you get for your birthday? Oh, right, Chloe was with me in Iceland. The hotel you booked was wonderfully romantic. We both loved it." "Your face right now is priceless. Just like when you were a kid." His grin was venomous. Having heard about the scene, Chloe rushed over. She instantly pried my hands off him. "Haven't you embarrassed yourself enough? You're acting like a raving lunatic! Don't make me call security to throw you out!" She fussed over Justin with deep concern, checking him for scratches. Looking at Justin's triumphant smirk, and then at the bleeding scratch Chloe's nails had left on my hand, I shook my head slowly. "I hope you can handle the consequences."