Investing in My Crippled Wife: Every Return Makes Me Stronger

”And so, I wanted to fix my mistake. Even if it was already too late.”

Darius had a slightly hollow look in his eyes.

”However, those powerful candidates you mentioned were completely out of the question from the very beginning. I feared they would marry her solely because of her status and our family’s influence. To people like that, she would have been nothing more than a trophy, not a real wife or a daughter-in-law.”

’...Didn’t you do the same?’ Soren wanted to ask, but he held the question back, fearing he might break the fragile atmosphere. He didn’t want to risk shutting the older man down when he was finally opening up. More importantly, this was a rare chance to learn more about Ethea, and he couldn’t afford to miss it.

Darius let out a long breath, staring past Soren as if looking back at the past.

”I also feared they would look down on her. With how proud and arrogant those families are, they would have looked down on her and treated her poorly, viewing her condition as an embarrassment and keeping her hidden away from the public eye. In the end, I knew deep down that they would never give her the ordinary life she desperately needed after everything she went through.”

Soren gave a faint nod to indicate he was listening seriously.

”So, I had to look elsewhere to find someone suitable. I searched for a long time, filtering through countless names, until I finally found... you.”

Darius pointed at Soren, who became even more attentive.

”As you mentioned, you were just an ordinary young man with no real power or background to speak of,” Darius continued, his gaze narrowing slightly as he recalled the details. ”On paper, you seemed completely unremarkable, which was exactly what drew me to you in the first place. But the more I looked into you, the more your personality made me certain that you were the exact person I was looking for.”

”My personality?” Soren asked in doubt.

”That’s right,” Darius affirmed, leaning forward slightly to emphasize his point. ”I would never choose a partner for my daughter on a whim, Soren. I investigated your background thoroughly, and once I liked what I saw, I went so far as to test you multiple times before even considering the arrangement. I needed to see who you truly were when no one was watching. Think back to the months leading up to your wedding.”

Soren nodded and started searching his memories.

”Do you remember how you kept encountering random people who needed help, or those strange occurrences around your neighborhood? Like the old lady struggling to carry her bags up the steep stairs, or that night you stepped in to stop a group of thugs from assaulting a defenseless woman in the alley?”

”!” Soren’s eyes widened, a sudden chill running down his spine. The pieces from the past few months began to fall into place, forming a picture he had never anticipated.

”T-that...” Soren stammered, looking at Darius in sheer shock. ”All of that was your doing?”

Darius offered a small nod, though he raised a hand to temper the accusation slightly. ”Not every single event, no. The world throws its own miseries at people without my intervention. But yes, those specific incidents were indeed orchestrated by my men to observe your reactions. And for that intrusion into your life, I apologize.”

Soren sat frozen, his mind racing.

The weight of the revelation pressed heavily on him, leaving him feeling deeply complicated. If Darius had been pulling the strings from the very beginning, then how deep did the rabbit hole go? The warmth of the ’grieving father’ act suddenly felt tangled in the cold threads of a master manipulator’s web.

”Then what about my family?” Soren asked, his voice shaking slightly as a darker realization dawned on him. ”The deal you made with them... what was all that for? Don’t tell me... Was it all just for show? You planned everything, right? Even... my disownment?”

Darius met his gaze evenly, his expression unreadable.

”I merely used the circumstances efficiently,” Darius said, his voice entirely calm. ”Your family was greedy, and they were looking for leverage. I provided the bait. And besides, didn’t you benefit from it, even if indirectly? Your sister received what she desperately needed, and you were finally freed from responsibility and your family’s control.”

Soren swallowed the bitter taste rising in his throat. He couldn’t even deny the words because, as cold as it sounded, they were the exact truth.

”In that deal, I explicitly added a condition stating they were never to interfere with your lives once you and Ethea were married. I wanted to build a wall between you and their toxicity. Though I must admit, I didn’t expect them to go so far as to completely disown you. And certainly not that fast.”

Soren almost let out a dry, humorless chuckle at the older man’s words. He knew Darius was likely downplaying his foresight, but the truth was that his own family, especially his father, was exactly that predictable.

His father was a calculating man, always scheming for the next advantage, but his intense greed must have made his actions incredibly easy to manipulate. When Darius dangled such massive leverage in front of them, his father probably couldn’t resist the urge to take the bait.

Of course, they had cast Soren aside the very second he served his purpose, rushing to secure their own gains before the opportunity slipped away.

’Hmm...’

In fact, his father might have even thought the Morvain family was planning to get rid of their daughter this way, and hastened the disownment to show Darius they had no intention of sticking their noses into their family’s dirty laundry. He had thrown his own son away just to prove he could be a compliant, quiet business partner.

’Even I thought that way at the beginning. But now... I’m not entirely sure.’

Sure, his father-in-law was presenting so many logical explanations, but that made Soren wonder if this was just another beautifully crafted layer of the man’s grand design. Darius was painting himself as a protective, desperate father who merely manipulated a toxic environment to save his daughter. Yet, looking at the sheer scale of the deception, Soren couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still missing the true core of the arrangement.

But he was certain of one thing now.

’This man... is terrifying.’