Framed for My Husband's Love

On my wedding night, flames erupted without warning, ripping me from sleep. My fiancé was gone, vanished into thin air, while my father lay sprawled on the floor, unconscious. Blood gushed from his skull, and his body was limp and unresponsive. I tried to reach him, but my head spun, and my arms and legs felt like lead weights. I could not even drag myself an inch. Flames licked at the walls and choked the air with smoke as they circled us like predators. Just as I accepted that we would die together, Silas Vaughn burst through the wall of fire, his silhouette haloed by embers as he carried me to safety. When he turned back for my father, the fire erupted into a monstrous wave of heat and destruction that swallowed the entire block. My father never stood a chance. Before I could recover his remains, they framed me as the arsonist and slammed me with an eight-year sentence. I begged my fiancé for help. He married Chloe Vaughn before my trial even began. Only Silas remained. He arranged my father's funeral and then greeted my release with a fairytale wedding fit for a queen, which was front-page news for weeks. Seven years of marriage. Six times I carried life, and six times I held death. During my seventh pregnancy, pouring everything into protecting this child, I overheard Silas's conversation with my ex-fiancé: "Chloe set that fire, yet you forged evidence to make Leila take the fall. You are a special kind of monster, aren't you?" Silas's voice turned lethal. "This would not have happened if you had not slept with Chloe in Leila's bridal suite. Her father walked in. Chloe panicked. She has got her whole future ahead. I would never let her rot in prison." "You could have saved Leila's father when you went back. Instead, you torched the whole neighborhood to cover your tracks. Now you are breeding Leila like livestock for Chloe's cord blood. You would burn the world for her. Pathetic." "Treat Chloe well, or you will learn what real suffering means." On the other side of the door, his voice was a scalpel, carving my heart out slice by slice. I shook so hard that my teeth chattered. "Leila loves you with all her heart, yet you would destroy her like this for Chloe's sake. Tell me you will not regret this." Silas's knuckles whitened as he gripped the armrest, and his voice was thick with conviction. "Not for a second. Chloe is my everything. But as her brother, the world would never accept us. If I cannot give her happiness, I will safeguard what she has, even if it means stepping over corpses." "And when Leila learns the truth? You think she will not come for your head?" "She will never know. But if she does, I will offer her my life in return. From now on, I will treat her like a queen. Call it my penance." Fifteen years ago, on my wedding night, flames engulfed our home while I lay unconscious, plied with alcohol until I could not stand. I awoke in Silas's arms to his honeyed lies. He claimed that I had caused the fire by dozing off while preparing a hangover remedy. He said that my father's charred bones were my doing. He convinced me to confess. Eight years in prison. Eight years while he played the grieving widower, arranging my father's funeral with one hand and stroking Chloe's cheek with the other. After my release, survivors' families spat at me. Relatives crossed streets to avoid me. I became a pariah shunned by all. Then Silas appeared like some twisted savior, proclaiming his love before high society. Overwhelmed with gratitude, I became Mrs. Vaughn without a second thought. For seven years, my womb became a graveyard, six tiny headstones with no names. Each loss carved deeper into my broken body. "Don't blame yourself," he would whisper, wiping my tears with hands that secretly signed hospital orders. "Eventually, one will survive." I believed his obsession with children came from paternal longing. Now I know the horrific truth: he only bred me like livestock to steal my babies' cord blood, all for his one true love. That inferno was never my doing. My fiancé and Chloe had schemed to get me drunk and then tangled in their illicit passion right in my bridal suite. When my father caught them, he flew into a rage, but Chloe slammed his head against the wall, leaving him unconscious. To erase their sin, they set the fire, intending to burn us alive. Silas only rescued me to make me the scapegoat. By the time he carried me out, my father had come to, and he could have escaped alone. But Silas, terrified that my father would expose their affair, commanded his men to fuel the fire until the entire neighborhood was engulfed. My father burned alive because of him. I clamped a hand over my mouth, and tears flooded down my face in hot, shameful rivers. The man who destroyed me had been sleeping beside me all along. The truth clawed at my chest like a rabid beast, stealing my breath. I staggered back to my room, only to feel a sudden gush of sticky warmth between my legs. A searing pain shot through me, and I collapsed like a broken doll. The pool of crimson spreading beneath me reeked of iron. Another piece of my soul was dying.