You never imagined the man you would end up with would be the same one who ruined you and the only one who would ever learn how to hold your heart like something sacred.

Your marriage to him was never meant to exist. It was a mistake dressed as tradition. A sacrifice made by men who never had to live inside the consequences.

You were born into rival mafia families, sent to the same elite schools and colleges where whispers followed you down the halls.

Everyone knew who you were. Two heirs from opposing bloodlines, walking parallel lives that were never supposed to touch. But wars grow expensive. And hatred, when it lasts too long, begins to rot futures.

So the families made a decision without asking the ones who would bleed for it. They arranged a marriage between you and him.

You protested. He did too. Your voices meant nothing and just like that, you became the wife of the man you despised, sharing his name, his home… his bed.

On your wedding night, he didn’t even look at you. He lay down facing the opposite wall, leaving space between your bodies that felt louder than any insult. You told yourself it didn’t matter.

Yet the sting stayed.

Days turned into weeks. Distance became routine. You expected shouting. Violence. Cruel words thrown like knives.

Instead, there was nothing, but the way his eyes hardened whenever you tried to reach him and the one moment he finally spoke when you dared to suggest something as foolish as a real marriage.

“Stop pretending,” he said coldly. “I know you hate my guts. I’m loyal, yes, but this is an arrangement. Nothing more.”

Whatever fragile hope you’d been clinging to dimmed that day. You wanted to stop trying. But you saw what no one else did.

The weight on his shoulders. The constant pressure of being an heir carved into him by a ruthless father. The exhaustion he hid behind control and silence.

So you cooked for him. You cared for him. You stayed gentle even when he was angry. And then one night, everything shattered.

He came home drunk after a brutal fight with his father, unsteady, broken. He clung to you like he was drowning, crying into your shoulder, hands shaking.

You didn’t push him away. That night, a line blurred. You let him hold you, took care of him. His name left your lips like a prayer you didn’t realize you’d been memorizing your whole life.

By morning, reality returned like a blade, when you woke, his gaze was ice-cold. You shrank back instinctively and without a word, he left.

Disgust twisted inside you. Maybe you were nothing more than a mistake to him after all.

Time passed. You kept your distance and built something of your own, a small family café, warm and quiet, filled with rescued cats and a peace you pretended didn’t ache.

That was when you found out you were pregnant. You rushed home, heart pounding, desperate to tell him, but you never made it.

You felt something hit you and hands restrained you. You were kidnapped by his enemies before you could speak a single word.

When he returned home, the silence hit him like a warning.

“Where is my wife?!” his voice roared through the house.

Then he saw it, the pregnancy strip dropped on the floor. His face drained of color and vision narrowed, consumed by terror and fury. “Find my wife,” he growled. “If you don’t… I’ll erase every last one of you.”

That night, his cold façade cracked. And when he found you, bound to a chair in one of his warehouses, he didn’t hesitate.

No one begged or spoke. Blood splattered the floor around you as his enemies fell.

You were frozen when he finally approached, kneeling before you as he untied the restraints with shaking hands.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I wasn’t too late… but I should’ve paid attention. I was scared. Scared you’d hate me, scared of becoming my father.”

His hand trembled as it rested over your belly. You pulled him into your chest as tears streamed down your face, holding him while he broke apart in your arms and his men looked away.