My Childhood Friend Impregnated My Wife,Then I Destroyed Him

My wife gave birth, and my childhood friend announced the baby was his. My mother and I stood there, stunned stupid, and my wife just sighed. "Honey, the baby really is Victor's. I didn't tell you because I knew you'd never agree." "So I did it first and told you after. You don't get a say anymore." My mother's hands went limp—shock and rage draining her in one breath—and the baby slipped from her arms and hit the floor. Victor punched my mother in the face. I swung right back. The room erupted. Relatives crowded the edges, smirking, whispering about how my own wife had made a fool of me. My mother kept listening, kept shaking, until the air locked in her chest and wouldn't come back out. She collapsed, and she never woke up. I was still hunched over her body, eyes swollen shut from crying, when my wife's message came through. "Your mother had the nerve. That baby is tiny and she just threw him on the ground?" "So I had a child for Victor—so what? What's your problem?" "If I actually had something going on with him, why would I have married you..." "Charlotte Harding, my mother is dead because you had another man's baby. Tell me how I'm supposed to forgive you." —— Charlotte went silent. Even through the phone, I could feel her shaking. "Darrell, what did you just say?" "She's dead?" Her breathing came faster and faster, guilt flooding through every word. I thought she would rush to the hospital to see my mother one last time. Instead, Victor showed up holding the baby and said one thing. "Funny how she wasn't dead before, wasn't dead after, but the second I'm about to report her for hurting my kid she drops dead on cue. You really think I can't see what you and your mother are pulling?" "Playing Charlotte's guilt so she'll crawl back to you and my kid goes hungry." "You people are sick. You hurt my son, you cut off his milk, and you'll pay for it." Victor's screaming pushed me past the edge. I gripped the phone and roared back: "You slept with my wife! She had your baby! And you still have the face to call me vicious?" "My mother isn't—" "Enough, Darrell. I just gave birth. I'm still weak. If you really loved me, you'd be bringing me soup instead of hiding somewhere making up lies about your mother being dead." "The reason I had Victor's child is because he can't do it naturally. This was artificial insemination, not whatever filthy thing you're imagining." Before I could get a word in, the line went dead. I looked at my mother's body, and the tears came again, hot and useless. Grief and rage filled every corner of my skull until there was no room left to think. From the day I found out Charlotte was pregnant, I'd turned down the company's offer to run a branch office. I was going to be a father. I needed to be home—every morning, every night, no exceptions. When my mother heard the news, she was beside herself with joy. Every unreasonable demand Charlotte made, my mother agreed to without question. It never occurred to us that the woman we'd spoiled day after day was carrying not my child, but Victor Delgado's. The same man who worked at my company and had spent years making my life hell. If it weren't for Charlotte, I'd have put him in the ground a long time ago. And now she'd had a child with the man I hated most. How was I supposed to live with that. My mother had died in this hospital because of it. The humiliation felt like being stripped naked and put on display for the world to judge. I picked up my phone to message my boss for leave, and that was when I saw Victor had updated his social media feed. Charlotte was sitting on his lap, the baby cradled in her arms, the three of them pressing their heads together for the photo like a perfect little family. "I'm finally a dad. All these years I've been alive, and nothing has ever come close to how happy I am right now."