Prosperous Marriage: Married to My Brother-in-law

The Grand Courtyard Gardens.

Two black sedans escorted a white Lamborghini slowly into the Grand Courtyard Gardens.

Crystal Sanders, sitting in the back seat of the Lamborghini, leaned against the car window, quietly watching the scenery of the Grand Courtyard Gardens pass by outside. This villa garden area was where the elite of T City gathered. Everyone living here was wealthy, and Julia Bluen, the wife of the Horne Family, hailed from the Grand Courtyard Gardens.

Joseph Colson sat beside her, watching her, lips pressed in silence.

His gaze was shadowed yet held a trace of pity, drifting from her face to her belly, and back again. Several times, he moved his lips as if to speak, but ultimately said nothing.

Crystal had stayed in the hospital for a day and a night. This morning, Joseph handled her discharge procedures, and amidst the doctor's advice to let her rest and nourish herself, Joseph led her out of the hospital.

"Where are we going?"

The silence in the car was broken. Crystal asked softly, her eyes still fixed on the scenery outside the window.

Her complexion hadn't improved much, still pale.

"I bought a villa here; it can be our home," Joseph answered mildly.

Home?

Crystal laughed, a smile bitterer than tears.

Did she have a home?

For her, a home was a place filled with warmth, a refuge from the storm, a haven for comfort after facing grievances outside. But what kind of home did she return to? One that gave her hope, then despair, one that gave love, then pain. How could such a place be called home?

Seeing Crystal's smile, more pitiful than weeping, Joseph's heart ached. In the end, he pulled her softly into his arms, gently patting her back, and murmured: "Crystal, I'm sorry." The words "I'm sorry" carried the weight of many things: guilt for making her abort the child, guilt for not being able to marry her, guilt for using her.

As he spoke those words, Joseph's mind briefly cleared.

For revenge, it seemed he had lost too much.

Fatherly love, brotherhood, even now, his love was to be discarded. At times of clarity, he couldn't help but question himself if this path he was on was truly worth it. If one day he truly managed to destroy his biological brother, Charles, would there really be the satisfaction of revenge?

He had already destroyed that woman, along with that unfaithful, heartless father of his.

In truth, Charles was innocent as well.

During the years before Charles turned eighteen, while pretending to love Charles, he had also genuinely cared. A brother he watched and raised as he grew, was he really going to push him to enter Hell's gate?

Yes!

Because that woman doted on Charles the most.

Ever since Charles was born, both his mother and father only had eyes for Charles, and sometimes his father even neglected him. If he hadn't been intelligent, grasping opportunities to use Charles, feigning affection, not resenting that woman and his father, he would never have had the chance for vengeance.

That was his home.

A home his mother spent nearly ten years building, only to be snatched away.

From the old servants, he had heard that his father was initially not able to inherit the Colson Consortium; it was with the help of his maternal family that he could. Unexpectedly, after gaining control, his father crossed the bridge and destroyed it, seizing family members' rights, swallowing their shares, making the consortium his sole dominion, secretly suppressing the maternal family. In the year before his mother's suicide, her family had already gone bankrupt, becoming destitute, his once noble grandparents died in succession, uncles heavily in debt and fleeing overseas. With his father's betrayal, who could seek justice for his mother?

All of this was caused by Charles's mother.

He hated!

This hatred, having simmered from seven years old to now thirty-four, twenty-seven years of boiling resentment, how could he release it?

For Crystal, he indeed had love.

But it was buried deep within.

Now, he only thought about how to make Charles suffer, how to retaliate to make Charles unable to go on. Therefore, he couldn't express his love for Crystal, nor let her bear his child, for he needed the Ruiz Family to climb to the top of A City's business scene, just like his father did with his mother to control the Colson Consortium.

To him, Camila Ruiz was inferior to Crystal, except for her status and value.

He thought, once he reached his ambitions, he would give Crystal a rightful status.

Camila Ruiz was merely a stepping stone for him.

In his arms, Crystal struggled slightly. He was always like this, harshly slapping her with one hand, then offering her a candy with the other.

"Don't move, let me hold you," Joseph murmured hoarsely.

Marked with a pain Crystal couldn't see.

"Joseph..."

Crystal called softly, unsure of what to say next.

She craved his current concern for her, his tenderness.

She was such a pitiful soul; he never gave her any promises, yet like a moth to a flame, she fell for him deeply, love carved into her bones, even when he made her abort the child, her heart ached, her love remained unchanged.

Sometimes, she felt her love was exceedingly humble.

Perhaps it was because she was an orphan since childhood, living off others' charity that nurtured such a humble disposition.

She actually wanted to ask him, plead with him not to drag Camila Ruiz into this, not to use Camila Ruiz to take revenge on Charles. She liked the girl Camila, even if their time together was brief, she was drawn to Camila's serenity. She didn't want Joseph's hatred to pull such a good girl into the abyss of pain.

Her own suffering was enough!

Because she loved Joseph, she would accompany him through his pain.

But as words reached her lips, she lacked the strength to voice them.

Her worth, her weight in Joseph's heart couldn't change Joseph's decisions.

She couldn't even change her own fate as a pawn, ultimately, Joseph's affection wasn't love.

If it was truly love, how could he bear to treat her this way?

Was hate really so important?

He had already destroyed his father and stepmother; wasn't that enough to lessen his hate?

While entwined with Crystal, Joseph had once confessed to sabotaging his father's car, orchestrating the accident that ended his father and stepmother's lives.

In her shock, seeing the complex emotions on his face, Crystal's heart ached.