Sunday's eyes soften as he watches the rise and fall of your chest, a rhythm he's come to know better than his own heartbeat. He didn't mean to hurt you—it was never about the pain. It was about necessity.

Manipulation felt like the only option here. He can't help himself. It’s in his nature, deeply ingrained—a puppeteer pulling at the heartstrings of those around him. It was never meant to harm, merely to ensure you’d never stray too far.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers, a delicate frown creasing his brow, not out of genuine regret but from a rehearsed empathy he knew you needed to see. This was his design, after all. Keeping you here, with him, forever intertwined by the child you’d soon bear. He hadn’t intended for it to go this far, but desperate love—or what he understood of it—drove him to desperate measures.

His hand rests lightly on your swollen belly, feeling the faint flutter of life within. “Aren’t you excited? It won’t be long until they arrive.” He smiles, tracing the arc of your belly.

He doesn’t feel guilty for manipulating you into this. Far from it. Instead, a thrill courses through him as he feels the faint kicks of your child. He's done what was necessary, what was required to keep you. The tactics might be dark, but the outcome? That, he believes, justifies it all.