Chapter Seventeen: Hatred
616 Words
Tristan’s POV
The encounter Marcus and I had in the garden only lasted for a moment, but it was enough to awaken the hatred that had been buried inside my chest for so many years.
Not a single day passed during those seven years that I tried to forget the betrayal Vanessa and Marcus did to me, yet I still couldn’t.
Growing up, Marcus and I were never really close.
It was because we had different fathers.
Yes… Marcus is my half-brother.
I was the son from my mother’s first relationship, while she was already married to Marcus’s father.
My father died in a car accident just days before my mother and I were supposed to move in with him. Mom’s best friend, Tito Marco—Marcus’s father—eventually became the man she married.
Ever since we were children, we have always tried proving that one of us was better than the other.
I never thought that even the woman we would love would become another competition between us.
I loved Vanessa.
But before I courted her, I respected Marcus and Vanessa’s relationship first.
They had been together since high school and college.
Only when they finally broke up did I pursue her and eventually make her mine.
Vanessa was a very beautiful woman.
I loved her so much that I practically worshiped the ground she walked on.
She was bratty and hard-headed too, but I became blind because, in my heart, I believed she was the only woman who could make me happy.
I became Vanessa’s puppet.
I trusted her…
No—not Vanessa.
I trusted my brother.
I thought he would never hurt me.
I believed that no matter how often Marcus and I argued, he still considered me his brother.
But I was wrong.
I saw them cheating on me with my own eyes.
I accidentally opened the door without knowing I was the one about to be shocked.
I only wanted to ask Marcus if he had seen Vanessa.
Vanessa and I had a small misunderstanding, and when she attended her college batch reunion at our mansion, I thought it would be the perfect chance to talk to her.
She hadn’t been speaking to me for days.
Different emotions consumed me the moment I saw them together.
I saw them on top of the bed.
Damn it!
I thought my fiancée already loved me…
But I was wrong.
It hurt so much.
At that moment, I wished the ground would swallow me whole.
I badly wanted to punch my younger brother to lessen the pain their betrayal caused me, but I didn’t.
I was afraid…
Afraid that I might kill my own brother with my bare hands.
And before I could hurt him, I chose to go downstairs to the mansion’s first floor instead.
There, I drowned myself in alcohol until I completely broke down.
The following day, Vanessa’s family arrived at the mansion together with Mom and Grandpa.
Vanessa’s family demanded marriage because she was already pregnant, and my dear brother was the father of her child.
Which only meant one thing—
What I saw that night wasn’t the first time they betrayed me.
It had been going on for a long time.
They had been deceiving me for so long…
And I never noticed.
I became too blinded by my love for Vanessa that I failed to see the truth right in front of me.
On Marcus and Vanessa’s wedding day, I left the hacienda carrying the unbearable pain in my chest.
It was cruel.
The woman I gave all my love to betrayed me…
Not with a stranger—
But with my own brother.
They betrayed me…
- Writer
