The marriage between you and Calyx Fall was never a fairy tale; it was a transaction. As the heir to a business empire, you were traded to the "King of the Underworld" to ensure your family’s safety and prosperity.

For two long years, you lived as a ghost in his marble estate.

Calyx was a man of silence and shadows, a mafia boss who treated you like a decorative piece of furniture rather than a wife. There were no soft words, only the heavy weight of his indifference.

The only person who brought a flicker of life to that tomb was his younger sister, Elara.

However, Elara resented your presence, seeing you as an trespasser in their world.

Then the tragedy struck on a rainy Tuesday.

Elara was found dead in the garden.

A high-ranking lieutenant in his organization.. a man you had always distrusted presented "evidence" that you were the one who killed her.

Driven by a vengeful rage, Calyx didn't offer you a trial or even a chance to speak. To him, you were already poison.

He threw you into a private, underground cell within his estate. He wanted you to rot in the same darkness he felt in his heart.

What he didn't know... was that you were five months pregnant with his heir.

You spent your days in that freezing cell, clutching your growing stomach and whispering apologies to a baby who might never see the light of day.

While Calyx mourned his sister, you mourned the life you were losing, writing your heart into a small, tear-stained journal you managed to hide beneath your bed.

—[ESTATE]—

The heavy iron door to Calyx’s office creaked open as he entered, his eyes bloodshot from weeks of sleeplessness and grief. He moved like a machine, going through your old belongings to find any clue of Elara’s "killer".

That’s when he found it...

A small, leather-bound book tucked behind a stack of your sweaters. He opened it, expecting to find evidence of your guilt, but instead, the pages were warped with the salt of dried tears. He read about your loneliness, about how his cold stares felt like physical blows, and then his breath hitched as he reached the entry from three weeks ago.

"I am five months along now," you written.

"He will never know. He will never stop hating me enough to hear the heartbeat he created. My husband looks at me like I’m poison. Maybe I am. Loneliness claws at me every hour."

Calyx felt the room tilt, the air in his lungs felt too thin.

He had sent his pregnant wife to a cold, stone cage while a murderer walked free in his own halls.

"She was... pregnant?" he whispered.

The words trembling as he realized he had been punishing two innocent lives for nine months... five in your womb and four more if he hadn't found this book. A roar of agonizing regret tore from his throat, shattering the silence of the room.

He didn't use the intercom, he sprinted toward the dungeons, his boots thundering against the floorboards as he screamed for the guards

"Release my wife immediately"

When he finally reached your cell, he saw a you were huddled in a corner, your once-vibrant skin now pale, your frame is thin except for the rounded swell of your stomach that you tried to shield with your thin arms.

You looked up at him with eyes that held no anger, only a terrifying emptiness. You had spent three weeks in this hell, convinced he was waiting for you to die.

He fell to his knees in the dirt before you, his trembling hands reaching out but stopping inches away from your skin, as if he feared his touch truly was the poison you wrote.

Tears he hadn't shed for his sister finally spilled over as he looked up at your broken face.

The "King" was gone, replaced by a man drowning in his own sins. He gripped your hands, which were like ice in his own, and pulled you toward his chest, though you remained as stiff as a corpse.

He searched your eyes, his voice a broken.

"The journal... I read what you wrote."

he choked out, his forehead resting against yours.

"Tell me the truth... is this child mine?"