He Made Me Pay for Someone Else’s Revenge

At my wedding to Sebastian Gilbert, heir to one of the most powerful Mafia families in New York, the enormous screen behind the altar suddenly lit up with photos of me in bed with his family's sworn enemy. Before I could even explain, Sebastian had already silenced the whispers and brought the chaos under control with terrifying efficiency. Then, as if nothing had happened, he took my hand and finished the ceremony. But when the reception finally ended and I went looking for him, desperate to tell him the truth, I found him in our bridal suite with my stepsister, Narelle Harding, pinned beneath him on the marriage bed. I screamed. I cried. I begged him to listen. Sebastian only looked at me with cold contempt. "What's wrong? A woman who slept with my enemy wants to play the loyal Mafia wife now?" From that night on, Sebastian stopped hiding his relationship with Narelle. He bought her a mansion, covered her in diamonds, and gave her anything she wanted. He took her to family gatherings, private clubs, and Mafia banquets, parading her at his side while I, his lawful wife, became a joke throughout New York's underworld. For three years, I tried everything to win him back. I swallowed every humiliation and clung to the marriage long after there was nothing left to save. It wasn't until a doctor placed the papers confirming my miscarriage in my hands that I finally understood. If his love for me was already dead, why was I still clinging to its corpse? …… As the doctor delivered the news, two nurses' voices drifted in from the hallway, thick with envy. "Mr. Gilbert must really love Ms. Harding. She had one little scare, and he walked away from a billion-dollar deal with another Family just to stay with her. Her room is overflowing with flowers, gifts, and expensive supplements. I even saw him feeding her himself." "That's what love looks like when the man happens to be one of the most powerful capos in New York. But isn't Mr. Gilbert married?" "Oh, you mean that infamous slut? Everyone knows she betrayed him before the wedding and slept with a man from an enemy Family. Mr. Gilbert was generous enough to let her keep his name. A woman like that doesn't deserve to be called Mrs. Gilbert." Slut. That one word dragged me straight back to my wedding night. Sebastian had looked at me with exactly the same contempt when he'd called me that for the first time. I'd walked into our bridal suite still wearing my wedding gown, desperate to explain what had happened before the ceremony. Instead, I froze in the doorway. Two naked bodies were tangled together on our marriage bed. Sebastian and Narelle. Something inside me shattered. I grabbed whatever I could reach and hurled it at them, screaming until my throat burned. Sebastian immediately pulled Narelle behind him, shielding her with his body. Then he helped her dress, his movements unexpectedly gentle, before ordering one of his men to drive her home. Only after making sure she was safely gone did he finally turn to me. I was shaking so badly I could barely stand. "Why?" I sobbed. "Sebastian, why would you do this to me?" He leaned against the table and lit a cigarette, his expression cold and indifferent. "Joy Harding, the devoted-wife act really doesn't suit a slut like you." The words hit harder than a slap. I cried until I could barely breathe. "Sebastian, you can't do this to me. And why her? Why Narelle?" My voice broke. "You know what she and her mother did to my family. Her mother was my father's mistress. They destroyed my mother. They drove her to her death." Something flickered across Sebastian's face. Then his eyes turned bloodshot. He kicked the table so hard it crashed onto its side. "Joy, so you do know what betrayal feels like?" His voice was raw with fury. "I treated you like something sacred. All these years, I never laid a hand on you before our wedding, no matter how badly I wanted you. I was afraid I'd frighten you. I was willing to wait until you became my wife." His jaw clenched. "And then you turned around and climbed into bed with Hubert Sanchez, a man from the Family that's been trying to destroy mine for years." He stared at me. "What the hell did that make me?" Hubert. The photograph. Of course. The day before the wedding, Hubert and I had both been drugged. When we woke up, we were lying in the same bed. I had gone straight to a private doctor afterward. The examination results, along with the last things Hubert and I could remember before blacking out, confirmed that nothing had happened between us. Someone had set us up. I had planned to explain everything to Sebastian after the ceremony. I never imagined that someone would put that photograph on the giant screen at our wedding, in front of both Families and half the New York underworld. The pain in my chest became almost unbearable. "I don't know who drugged us or why they wanted us in that room together," I choked out. "But nothing happened between Hubert and me. Nothing." Sebastian gave a cold laugh. "Joy, do you really think I'm going to believe that?" I stared at him through my tears. "If you don't believe me, then why did you finish the ceremony?" My voice trembled. "Why did you marry me at all?"

Sebastian's hand closed around the back of my neck, his grip hard enough to bruise. There wasn't a trace of the man who had once loved me left in his eyes. "Revenge. What else?" His voice was cold. "You wanted another man so badly? Fine. Then I'll make sure you spend the rest of your life as my wife in name only." He leaned closer, his breath brushing my ear. "Joy, I want you to hurt. A hundred times, a thousand times worse than I'm hurting right now." The next morning, Sebastian took Narelle to the Maldives. It was supposed to be our honeymoon. Sebastian had always hated cameras. In our years together, even people close to the Gilbert Family knew better than to photograph him without permission. But for Narelle, he hired a private photographer. Hundreds of photos appeared on her social media. Sebastian watching her on a white sand beach. Narelle leaning against his chest beneath the sunset. His arm around her waist as they stood beside the ocean. By then, what had happened at our wedding had already spread through New York's underworld. Everyone knew that Sebastian Gilbert's new wife had supposedly slept with a man from an enemy Family the night before their wedding. Slut. Whore. Traitor. Those words followed me everywhere. Meanwhile, Sebastian became the man everyone admired for honoring the marriage despite my supposed betrayal. Narelle was painted as the woman brave enough to stand beside him while the entire underworld whispered about their relationship. People flooded my phone with threats. Funeral wreaths were delivered to the Gilbert estate in my name. Someone even put my face on escort advertisements and circulated them through private clubs and Family circles. I became a joke. While I was drowning in humiliation, Sebastian took Narelle to every place I'd once told him I wanted to visit with him. Every single one. And still, I couldn't let him go. How could I? After my mother, Sebastian was the only person in this world who had ever truly loved me. I was eighteen when my father brought Narelle and her mother into the Harding estate. Her mother had been his mistress for years. A month later, on my birthday, my mother pressed a small blessing charm into my palm. Her hands were warm. Her smile was gentle. That same night, she climbed to the roof of the estate and stepped over the edge. Her diary told me what no one else would. Page after page documented the humiliation she'd endured. Narelle and her mother had deliberately tormented her, taunting her with my father's betrayal and slowly driving her to the edge. I took the diary to my father. Narelle cried. Her mother cried harder. My father believed them. I was thrown out of the Harding estate that same night. That winter was brutal. I had no money, nowhere to go, and no one in the Harding Family willing to risk my father's anger by helping me. I was only hours away from spending the night on the street when Sebastian found me. He had sent Gilbert men across the entire city looking for me. The moment he saw me, he pulled me into his arms so tightly I could barely breathe. "Why didn't you come to me?" There was anger in his voice, but beneath it was something that sounded almost like fear. He lifted my chin and forced me to look at him. "Joy, remember this. Even if everyone else abandons you, I won't." His eyes never left mine. "I will always want you." After that, Sebastian gave me everything. He brought me into the private academy attended by the sons and daughters of New York's most powerful Families. Everyone there knew who I was. They knew my father had thrown me out. They knew my mother was dead. They knew I no longer had the protection of the Harding Family. They waited for me to break. At the opening ceremony, Sebastian took the stage as the student representative. He was supposed to deliver a speech about the new academic year. Instead, he looked directly at me. "Joy Harding is under my protection." The entire hall fell silent. Then he added, "Anyone who touches her answers to me." After that, no one dared openly humiliate me again. Sebastian took care of everything. He cooked for me whenever he could because I had become painfully thin after my mother's death. He made sure I ate properly and watched until the color slowly returned to my face. Whenever the luxury houses released a new collection, clothes, shoes, and jewelry would arrive at the estate before I'd even seen the catalogs. Once, after a trip to Disneyland, I casually told him that I'd always wondered what it would be like to live in a castle. Sebastian remembered. He bought a secluded piece of land outside the city and built me an estate there. A place that belonged only to us. Everyone connected to the Five Families knew how Sebastian Gilbert treated me. The future head of the Gilbert Family, a man feared even by people twice his age, treated Joy Harding like the most precious thing in his world. With him beside me, I slowly became myself again. I laughed again. I became confident again. Maybe he even spoiled me a little. But there were still nights when I dreamed about my mother falling from that rooftop. I'd wake up shaking, convinced that sooner or later Sebastian would leave me too. Sometimes grief made me unreasonable. Sometimes I'd cry and accuse him of promises he hadn't even broken. Sebastian never lost patience. He would pull me into his arms and hold me until I stopped shaking. Then he'd tell me the same thing every time. "Don't be afraid, Joy." He'd kiss my forehead. "Unless I'm dead, I'll never stop loving you." How was I supposed to let go of a man who had once loved me like that? So when Sebastian returned from the Maldives with Narelle, I swallowed what little pride I had left. I went to him. I begged him to listen. I brought the medical records from the private clinic that had examined me after I woke up beside Hubert. The bloodwork proved I'd been drugged. The examination supported everything I'd told him. I placed every document in front of Sebastian. He didn't even pick them up. His eyes swept over the papers before returning to me, cold and contemptuous. "Fabricated evidence." His mouth curled into a bitter smile. "Joy, is there anything you won't do?"

I had run out of ways to make Sebastian believe me. In the end, I dug out everything we'd kept from the years we'd been together. Old photographs. The letters we'd written to each other. Every gift and keepsake that carried a memory only the two of us understood. Sebastian burned them all. One by one. Eventually, desperation stripped away what little dignity I had left. One night, I put on lingerie and waited for him in our bedroom, hoping I could make my own husband stay with me for just one night. Sebastian stopped when he saw me. For the first time in what felt like forever, he walked toward me. My heart leaped foolishly. Just as I thought he was going to kiss me, his fingers closed around my chin. A cruel smile touched his lips. "Joy, have you really fallen this low?" I went still. His gaze swept over me with open contempt. "Too bad I have standards." He released me. "I don't touch dirty things." The next night, Sebastian took Narelle to a private charity auction hosted by one of the Five Families. I was brought to the venue halfway through the evening. The moment I stepped inside, I froze. A photograph of me filled the enormous screen at the front of the ballroom. Then another appeared. And another. They were private photos I'd taken for Sebastian years ago, meant for his eyes alone. Now they had been printed, framed, and put up for auction in front of New York's most powerful Mafia families. Sebastian sat in the center of the room with Narelle beside him. When he saw the blood drain from my face, his mouth curved into a vicious smile. "Do you like it, wife?" He lifted his glass toward me. "Happy first anniversary." Laughter swept through the ballroom. Men stared openly at the photographs, their gazes making my skin crawl. Narelle leaned against Sebastian, practically melting into his arms as she laughed. "With my sister's reputation, Sebastian, I have to admit, this gift suits her perfectly." She looked at me with feigned sympathy. "Though you haven't touched her once since you and I got together, have you? With her kind of appetite, no wonder she's desperate enough to throw herself at you." Then she traced a finger down Sebastian's chest. "I'm not selfish. She's still technically your wife. Maybe you should satisfy her once in a while." Her smile deepened. "After all, you wear me out every night. I can barely keep up with you." Sebastian looked at me. Once, I would have given anything to see desire in those eyes again. Now there was only disgust. "Touch her?" His mouth twisted. "I'd rather not catch something." Then he turned to Narelle and brushed his nose against hers. "Don't worry, sweetheart. You're the only woman I want." His voice softened. "When the auction is over, I'll get you that bag you wanted." I watched them wrapped around each other beneath the glittering chandeliers. Something inside me finally died. I closed my eyes. Tears slipped silently down my cheeks, but for the first time in three years, I didn't beg. When I spoke, my voice was strangely calm. "Sebastian." He glanced at me. "Let's get a divorce." For a second, he said nothing. Then he laughed. "Divorce?" Sebastian rose from his chair and walked toward me. "Joy, what makes you think you have the right to ask me for one?" He stopped in front of me, towering over me. His thumb brushed away one of my tears with a tenderness so false it made my stomach turn. "Did you forget what I told you?" His voice dropped. "I'm going to make you suffer for the rest of your life." He glanced around the ballroom. "And this?" His smile was cold. "This is only the beginning." He leaned closer. "As long as I refuse to sign the papers, you'll remain Mrs. Gilbert." His eyes locked on mine. "You'll never be free of me." After that night, Sebastian moved Narelle into the Gilbert estate. He didn't even bother hiding what he was doing anymore. The living room. The kitchen. The bathroom. Even the storage room. No matter where I went in that house, there were traces of them. By morning, I'd find used tissues and condom wrappers scattered across the floor, left where I couldn't possibly miss them. I stopped sleeping. Night after night, I lay awake staring at the ceiling until dawn. Eventually, I started seeing doctors. They prescribed antidepressants, and I took them exactly as instructed. I thought I had already reached the bottom. Then one afternoon, Narelle walked into my bedroom without knocking. There was a tablet in her hand. She looked at me for a long moment before laughing. "Joy, after all these years, you're still this pathetic?" I didn't answer. She walked closer. "Watching you drag yourself through this house like a dying dog every day is getting boring." She sat down across from me and crossed her legs. "So I've decided to be generous." Her smile sharpened. "At least I'll let you know the truth before you completely lose your mind." My fingers tightened around the blanket. "What truth?" Narelle unlocked the tablet. "You remember the night before your wedding, don't you?" My heart stopped. "The night you woke up in bed with Hubert Sanchez." I stared at her. Her smile widened. "That was me." For several seconds, I couldn't breathe. Narelle turned the tablet toward me. Surveillance footage began playing on the screen. The image was painfully clear. There was Narelle, standing beside my table. There was my glass. And there was her hand tipping white powder into my drink.

My first instinct was to grab the tablet and take it straight to Sebastian. This was proof. Finally, I could prove that Narelle had drugged me. That Hubert and I had been set up. That I'd been telling the truth from the beginning. But after Sebastian watched the surveillance footage, his expression only grew colder. "Narelle was right." I froze. His eyes lifted to mine. "To cover up what you did with Hubert, you'd actually go this far to frame her." Then the video ended. An AI-generated watermark appeared in the corner of the screen. Everything inside me collapsed. Narelle immediately threw herself into Sebastian's arms, sobbing as if she were the one who had been wronged. Sebastian wrapped an arm around her and stroked her hair. When he looked at me again, there was nothing but contempt in his eyes. "Like mother, like daughter." My breath caught. Sebastian gave a cold laugh. "Maybe your mother was exactly like you. Maybe she betrayed your father, realized she was about to be exposed, and killed herself because she couldn't face the consequences." I stared at him. For a moment, I couldn't even understand the words coming out of his mouth. He knew. Of all people, Sebastian knew what my mother's death had done to me. He knew that wound had never healed. And now, for Narelle, he was tearing it open with his own hands. "First you blamed your mother's death on Narelle and her mother. Now you're trying to frame Narelle for what happened with Hubert." His expression hardened. "Did you really think I'd keep falling for your lies?" My hand flew toward his face. Sebastian caught my wrist before I could touch him. The next second, he threw me to the floor. Pain shot through my body. He stared down at me like I was something beneath him. "Without my protection, Joy, do you really think you'd still have the right to bare your claws at me?" Narelle hurried over and crouched beside me, pretending to help me up. "Joy, are you all right?" But the moment Sebastian couldn't see her face, her expression changed. She leaned close to my ear. "You're just as stupid as your dead mother." My entire body went rigid. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Of course I drugged you." She smiled. "But did you really think I'd give you the real evidence?" My fingers trembled. "Your mother couldn't beat mine." Her smile widened. "And you'll never beat me." Tears streamed down my face. I couldn't stop them. Then, somewhere between grief and rage, I started laughing. My gaze landed on a pair of scissors on the nearby table. I grabbed them and lunged at Narelle. Before I could reach her, Sebastian kicked the scissors from my hand. They skidded across the floor. He immediately pulled Narelle behind him. "Have you completely lost your mind?" The horror in his eyes wasn't for me. It was because I had almost hurt her. Narelle had only been scratched, but Sebastian called in the best private doctors available to the Gilbert Family. Then he took her away. To the estate he'd once built for me. My secret sanctuary. The place he'd promised would belong only to us. After that, my condition deteriorated quickly. I took the antidepressants my doctors prescribed, but some days I barely recognized myself. My hair started falling out. My memory became unreliable. Sometimes I'd walk into a room and forget why I was there. Sometimes entire pieces of the day seemed to disappear. If I wanted to survive, I knew I had to stop thinking about Sebastian. So I locked myself away and returned to the only thing that could still quiet my mind. Restoring ancient manuscripts. I'd discovered the work by accident after the wedding. At first, it had only been a distraction, something delicate and demanding enough to keep my thoughts from wandering back to Sebastian. I never imagined it would eventually become my lifeline. Or that one day, it would give me the means to finally leave him. I stopped searching for news about Sebastian and Narelle. I stopped looking at photographs. I stopped asking where he was. But Sebastian Gilbert was the future head of one of New York's Five Families. There was no truly escaping news about him. One day, word spread that he'd bought Narelle a private island. Another day, photographs circulated of them attending some high-profile charity event together, Narelle's arm linked through his as though she had already become Mrs. Gilbert. She stood beside him at Family gatherings. She accompanied him to public events. She occupied every place that should have belonged to me. And slowly, Joy Harding disappeared. People stopped mentioning Sebastian's actual wife. It was as though I'd never existed. Eventually, even that stopped hurting as much. Maybe I'd simply become numb. Six months passed that way. Then, one night, Sebastian came home. He was drunk. Not merely tipsy. Completely wasted. The moment he saw me, he crossed the room and kissed me. I shoved at him. I fought him. I told him to stop. But Sebastian was too drunk and too far gone to listen. That night, he forced himself on me. The next morning, I woke with a gasp as ice water hit my face. I opened my eyes. Sebastian stood beside the bed, staring at me with naked disgust. "You're revolting." I said nothing. His jaw tightened. "Crawling into my bed while I was drunk." His eyes swept over me coldly. "Is that how you used to seduce other men too?" I looked at him for a long time. Once, I would have screamed. I would have cried and begged him to remember what had actually happened. This time, I didn't say a word. Sebastian called in a professional cleaning crew and ordered them to sanitize the entire master bedroom. Halfway through, apparently deciding that wasn't enough, he had his men strip the room completely. The mattress was thrown out. The furniture was removed. The entire room was ordered to be rebuilt. I stood in the hallway and watched in silence. I didn't explain. I didn't defend myself. There was no point anymore. No matter what happened, Sebastian would only believe the version of me he'd already decided was true.

It wasn't until my follow-up appointment that I discovered, completely by accident, that I was pregnant. When the faint, steady beat of my baby's heart filled the ultrasound room, tears I thought I'd exhausted long ago spilled down my cheeks. I had no one left. No family. No home that truly belonged to me. No one who still loved me. But this baby made me greedy. For the first time in a long time, I wanted something badly enough to be afraid of losing it. I wanted to keep my child. So I told no one. Especially not Sebastian. I was terrified that if he found out, he would force me to end the pregnancy. But before I could decide what to do next, everything fell apart. During my second prenatal appointment, a fire broke out in the hospital. Alarms screamed through the building. Smoke poured into the corridors as patients and staff rushed toward the emergency exits. I was caught in the crowd when I saw Sebastian. He was coming out of another OB-GYN room with Narelle in his arms. Our eyes met. For one brief second, he saw me. Then someone slammed into my back. I lost my balance and crashed to the floor. Before I could get up, the panicked crowd surged over me. A shoe struck my shoulder. Another foot came down against my side. Then another. Pain tore through my abdomen. I curled around my stomach and screamed for help. Blood spread beneath me. Bright red. Too much. I looked desperately toward Sebastian. His gaze stopped on me for barely a second. Then his arms tightened around Narelle. He turned away. And he carried her out without looking back. I lay on the floor, staring after him. Something inside me went completely still. So this was what we'd become. The memory faded. I opened my eyes and realized my hospital pillow was already soaked with tears. My hand slowly moved to my stomach. There was nothing there anymore. Only a dull ache that sometimes felt so real I could almost convince myself my baby was still with me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, baby. Mommy couldn't protect you. And your father... He really doesn't love me anymore. Maybe he hasn't for a long time. I should have let him go sooner. A knock came at the door. A courier stepped inside carrying a sealed envelope. "Joy Harding?" I nodded. He handed it to me. The letterhead belonged to the Federal Heritage Administration. My fingers trembled as I opened it. It was an official appointment letter. Months ago, I'd returned several manuscripts I'd restored to the museum. Dr. Margaret Winslow, the curator overseeing the collection, had been stunned by the quality of my work and recommended me for an international restoration program funded by the Administration. Now they were formally offering me a position. The assignment would take me overseas for several years. Housing, security, and relocation would all be arranged. More importantly, the legal team assigned to the program had already agreed to help me sever my remaining ties to the Gilbert Family and complete my divorce once I accepted the appointment. I stared at the letter for a long time. Then I signed my name. After finishing my discharge paperwork, I left the hospital with almost nothing. The moment I stepped through the main entrance, I saw a familiar black Maybach waiting at the curb. Sebastian stood beside it. One hand rested against the roof as he carefully helped Narelle into the back seat. He looked up. Our eyes met. There had been a time when one glance from that man could make my entire world feel safe. Now Sebastian merely looked me over. A faint, dismissive smirk touched his lips. Then he climbed into the car. The door closed. The Maybach pulled away. I watched it disappear into traffic without calling his name. Without crying. Without taking a single step after him. A few moments later, another black sedan stopped in front of me. The Administration had sent a car. The driver stepped out and opened the rear door. "Ms. Harding?" "Yes." I climbed inside. The door shut behind me. The car pulled away from the hospital, made a U-turn, and headed straight for the airport. This time, I didn't look back.