{TRIGGER WARNING FOR DEPICTION OF POTENTIAL MISCARRIAGE AND BLOOD!!!}
Joy's nails dug crescents into her palms, the sting keeping her upright as Theo closed in. His shadow cut across her face as he stepped forward, forcing her back until her shoulder blades pressed against the wall.
His voice was soft—too soft.
"You know what I hate most, Joy?"
He tilted his head, eyes sharp and unreadable.
"When family lies to me. Especially you."
Joy swallowed, her throat dry and raw.
"I'm not lying—"
Theo's hand slammed against the wall beside her head, not touching her, but near enough that the sound made her flinch. He leaned in close, his words brushing against her ear like a cold blade.
"You are lying. I can see it. You're trembling, your pupils dilate, your breathing is shallow. Don't you dare insult me by pretending."
His tone dipped darker.
"Now tell me the truth—what's wrong with Yu?"
Joy's chest heaved, eyes burning as she tried to summon another lie, any excuse—but Theo's presence squeezed the breath from her lungs. She couldn't do it. She couldn't hold.
Finally, her voice cracked, spilling out like a flood.
"He's sick, Theo! Too sick to deal with stress, too fragile to handle pressure right now."
Tears welled up despite her fighting them.
"That's why I've been covering for him. That's why I don't want you pushing him, because if you do—you'll break him."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Theo drew back just enough to study her face. His eyes narrowed, not with relief, but calculation.
"…Sick, truly?"
He repeated slowly, like he was tasting the word, rolling it on his tongue for weakness.
Joy's breath came in shallow gasps, but she forced herself to nod.
"Yes. Sick. And if you care about him—if you love him—you'll give him time. You'll let him rest."
Theo straightened, smoothing the front of his suit jacket, his calmness chilling her even more than his fury. His gaze lingered on her a moment longer before he turned away, as though filing her words for later.
Theo's silence stretched so thin Joy thought her heart might burst from the tension. Then, just like that, he exhaled through his nose, calm and composed again.
"Very well, I believe you."
He said softly.
"If he's unwell… then I'll just have to take better care of him once we're married."
He turned to her with a faint smile that never touched his eyes.
"If that's all, then… thank you, Joy. For worrying over him on my behalf."
His tone was smooth, affectionate even, like the cold edge from before had never existed.
Joy could only nod, lips trembling, her whole body screaming not to believe it.
Theo gave her hair a small, brotherly pat—gentle, rehearsed—and then turned on his heel. He walked toward his study, his footsteps measured, almost serene.
"I'll let him rest. I won't press him."
He said over his shoulder, as if granting her wish.
Joy sagged against the wall the second his footsteps carried him deeper into the house—her knees threatening to give, dragging in ragged breaths—fighting the urge to crumble.
'For now…'
She told herself.
'For now he believes me… damn it.'
She had bought Yu some time… but not much.
But the moment Theo shut the door to his study, his hand slipped into his pocket. The mask of a doting brother vanished, leaving only the cold, calculating man beneath.
He dialed quickly.
"Rin…"
His voice was low, commanding.
"I'll be taking the next few days off. Cancel everything on my schedule. Tell the partners I've got more pressing matters."
There was a pause, then Rin's muffled acknowledgment.
Theo's gaze sharpened, a flicker of obsession twisting his calm expression. His fingers drummed once against the polished surface of his desk before curling into a fist.
"My fiancée is sick…"
He said, more to himself than Rin.
"And it's time I tend to him properly."
The vow laced his voice like steel—unyielding, final.
…
Joy gripped the steering wheel of her car so tightly her knuckles turned white, packed boxes of her clothes and necessities took up space in the back seat and trunk. The cold night pressed against the windows, but it was nothing compared to the ice settling in her chest.
Her brother.
Her only family left.
The same man who once swore to keep her safe after their parents' deaths and their grandfather was too busy to raise them. The same man who locked her in gilded cages, who cloaked his suffocating control as protection.
She used to believe it. Used to excuse it. But sitting there in her car now, Joy finally let herself face the truth.
Theo hadn't changed. He'd only shifted his fixation.
From her… to Yu.
And it was worse. So much worse. Because she saw the way his eyes burned for Yu, the way he hollowed himself into obsession. Theo's "care" was never love. It was hunger disguised as devotion, ownership masquerading as protection.
Tears threatened, but she forced them down, nails digging crescents into her palms.
'Why did you turn out like this, Theo?'
She thought.
'Why couldn't you just love without destroying everything you touch?'
The crushing disappointment broke her in places she didn't know were left to break. She drove off into the night, but every mile only deepened the dread clawing at her ribs.
Because if Theo was shifting his obsession fully to Yu… then Yu was already in danger.
---
The next morning broke soft and pale through the penthouse windows. Yu reclined on the couch, draped in only one of Adrian's sweaters, his blanket pooled around his lap. His swollen belly rose and fell with his breathing as he idly rubbed it, murmuring a quiet lullaby half to himself, half to the babies.
From the kitchen came the scent of butter sizzling in a pan, Adrian humming low under his breath as he whisked eggs.
It almost felt normal. Domestic. Safe.
Until the knock.
Sharp. Echoing. Cutting through the fragile peace like a blade.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Yu's eyes flicked toward the door. His chest tightened. Something in him knew. Perhaps it was his maternal instincts amplified by his Incubus ones, but he felt like a storm was here.
Adrian straightened, already reaching for a towel to wipe his hands.
"I'll get it."
But Yu pushed himself up, ignoring the faint pull of nausea.
"No. I feel restless… I can get it."
Adrian frowned, worry flickering in his gaze.
"Yu—"
"I'm fine…"
Yu interrupted softly, hand rubbing his belly in reassurance.
"You keep cooking. The babies are hungry."
The earnestness of his tone, fragile but determined, coaxed a chuckle from Adrian despite his unease.
"Alright. But just this once."
He said, turning back to the stove.
Yu padded across the floor, every step weighed with dread. His hand trembled on the knob as he wrapped his fingers around the handle. Paused.
And then, with a slow inhale, he pulled the door open.
A mistake Adrian would come to regret.
He wasn't sure if it was the weight of his belly or the heaviness inside his chest, but he felt faint even before the door swung open.
The air shifted.
A scent, subtle but unmistakable—rich cologne layered over crisp paper and faint ink, the scent that clung to boardrooms, money, and power.
A shadow fell across the threshold, tall and broad, filling the doorway as if he had always belonged there.
Then, the voice.
Deep. Warm. And yet threaded with steel that left Yu's skin crawling.
"Yu."
His name, breathed like both a prayer and a claim.
Yu's breath stuttered in his throat as his vision cleared enough to see.
Theo Kingsley stood there.
In one hand, a lavish bouquet of a dozen roses—too many, too heavy, their perfume overwhelming. In the other, a pristine white pharmacy bag, its corners sharp, as though plucked right from a counter moments ago.
And on his face, that smile.
Wide, unyielding. A smile that spoke of obsession, possession, inevitability.
Theo leaned forward slightly, his eyes raking over Yu, lingering on the soft curve of his body beneath the sweater.
"I heard you weren't feeling well so I came to take care of you."
Yu's blood ran cold.
Yu froze, caught between the roses and that smile. His throat bobbed, words dying before they could even form. Theo's gaze held him pinned, heavy, unwavering, like there was no room in this world for refusal.
Theo tipped his head slightly, roses lifting between them, the faint crackle of cellophane wrapped around the flowers breaking the silence.
"You shouldn't be on your feet."
He murmured, stepping closer, the pharmacy bag rustling in his other hand.
"I brought you something to help… and roses, because you deserve nothing less."
Yu's heart thundered. His palms dampened against the doorframe. Every instinct screamed to run, but his body—his pregnant, exhausted body—wouldn't obey.
The silence stretched, too taut to bear—
—and then broke.
"Yu—"
Adrian's voice cut into the air like a blade, casual at first as he stepped out of the kitchen with a plate of scrambled eggs and toast for himself and a bowl of cereal with toast for Yu balanced in his hands. He was smiling faintly, speaking like he always did to coax Yu into eating.
But then he saw.
Theo.
Standing in the doorway, too close. Smiling too wide.
The plates trembled in Adrian's hand before he caught himself, his body stiffening, shoulders rolling back into something broader, harder. His jaw set. The smile dropped cold.
His voice, when it came again, was no longer warm. It was low, dangerous, biting.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
The scent of eggs and butter suddenly clashed with the roses' cloying perfume, the domestic quiet Adrian had built around Yu splintering in an instant.
Yu stood caught in the middle, Adrian's fury rising behind him and Theo's obsession filling the doorway in front of him.
Yu's breath hitched. The roses smelled too strong. The eggs cooling in the air smelled too real. His stomach rolled, caught between nausea and dread. He gripped the edge of the doorframe tighter, nails whitening against wood.
Adrian's heat was at his back. Theo's shadow pressed in from the front. Two forces colliding, and Yu stood fragile in the narrow space between them. His pulse pounded in his temples, the babies shifting heavy inside him, as though even they felt the danger.
Every sound sharpened:
The faint crackle of roses, the faint scrape of Adrian's shoe against the floorboards, his ragged inhale. Yu wanted to scream stop—but his tongue was lead.
Adrian moved first.
"Leave, now."
His words snapped like teeth, steadying the plate down on the entry table so his hands were free, his posture widening, protective.
Theo's smile curved sharper.
"Why?"
He responded softly, as though the demand were absurd. He tilted the roses slightly, the velvet of the petals brushing Yu's shoulder.
"My betrothed lives here. Shouldn't a fiancé be allowed to visit?"
His eyes flicked past Yu to Adrian, narrowing.
"But what I can't understand… is why you're here. Hovering. Like a stray dog pretending to be a man."
Yu's chest squeezed, the words slashing through him.
Adrian's jaw flexed. His hands curled to fists.
"Because I'm the one actually taking care of him."
He stepped forward, half a shadow over Yu's smaller frame.
"Because I'm the one making sure he eats. Sleeps. Breathes. You—"
He spat, the word almost venomous.
"—don't get to question me."
Theo's eyes darkened, but his smile never faltered. He leaned a fraction closer, gaze slipping from Adrian to Yu, lingering too long.
"Funny. You talk as if you have rights here. As if he's yours. But Yu is mine. He agreed to marry me."
Adrian snapped forward, every line of his body taut as wire.
"I have more right than anyone—"
His voice caught, almost breaking the truth wide open. He shut his teeth fast, cutting himself short. His glare burned deep, daring Theo to press further.
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. Yu stood between them, small, trembling, breaking, as two wolves circled with teeth bared—both claiming, both ready to tear.
The air felt like lead. Yu's lungs clawed for breath but only drew shallow, trembling pulls. His babies pressed against his ribs, heavy, reminding him with every shift that his choices weren't just his own anymore. Guilt coiled inside him—guilt for deceiving Theo, for leaning on Adrian, for endangering everyone who touched him. His hands shook at his sides. He wanted to disappear, to dissolve into the floorboards and never exist between these two men's locked stares.
'What made me think I could possibly handle more than one man at once? Stupid, stupid…'
Theo's roses loomed too close, suffocatingly sweet. Adrian's shadow behind him felt hot, demanding. Every heartbeat drummed louder, a countdown to collapse.
Theo's voice cut the silence, silken and sharp.
"Enough."
His smile never faltered, but his eyes sharpened.
"Yu made his choice the day he accepted me. That's why you need to leave. You're nothing but noise. He belongs to me."
The Love-o-meter ticked down:
42 - 40
Adrian surged a step forward, his teeth bared.
"Accepted?!"
His voice cracked like a whip.
"You mean the day you forced him to dress like a woman and parade in front of your grandfather? That wasn't a choice—that was blackmail. The acknowledgment of one senile old man doesn't make a relationship happen and it sure as hell doesn't count for marriage!"
Theo's laugh cut through the room, low and cold, the sound of someone who knew he'd already won. He tilted his phone in his hand, thumb flicking.
"You really think that was all I had planned?"
His gaze slid deliberately to Yu, savoring the flinch he drew out.
A few taps later, a glow filled the space between them. Theo turned the screen outward.
Yu's heart nearly stopped.
There, clear and cruel, played the video:
Theo kneeling before him by the campus bench, 520 roses held up to him, petals and bills raining like blood and silk, and his own small hands trembling as he accepted the ring. His fake smile shining like glass under the crowd's adoration.
Theo's voice on the recording echoed through the penthouse like a death knell:
"Yuvin Beckham, I want you by my side for the rest of my life. Be mine—marry me."
"...Yes."
Yu's body went cold, the room tilting. His mind screamed. The babies stirred inside him as though sensing his terror.
Theo's real voice followed, calm and venomous.
"This, Adrian. This is the truth. Witnessed. Recorded. Celebrated. Tell me now—who looks like the intruder here?"
Yu's throat constricted so tight it hurt. His eyes clung to the screen even as his vision blurred with tears. The crowd's cheers replayed in tinny distortion, his own brittle smile flashing back at him like a cruel mirror.
"It… it wasn't—"
His voice cracked. He pressed a trembling hand to his belly as if the weight there might anchor him.
"It wasn't what it looked like…"
His breath hitched, ragged.
"I—I didn't choose that. I had to…"
His chest heaved, his words collapsing into sobs.
"I didn't want it—I never wanted it! But I couldn't say no, not there, not like that!"
His palms curled into fists against his thighs as his mask slipped, tears streaking down his cheeks.
"It wasn't my choice…"
Adrian's blood roared in his ears. The sight of Yu shattering, shoulders quaking as he tried and failed to explain himself, snapped something inside him. His jaw clenched hard enough to ache, hands curling into fists at his sides.
"You filthy bastard."
His voice thundered, each word vibrating with a violence barely leashed. He stepped forward, heat rolling off him in waves, his entire frame taut like a predator ready to pounce.
"You cornered him. You forced him into that circus and dressed it up as love. You think flowers and a damn camera make it real?"
Theo's smile wavered—just barely—as Adrian's shadow loomed closer.
Adrian's hand twitched toward his waistband, where muscle memory knew a weapon could rest. His brown eyes burned, feral, unblinking.
"I swear to God, if you don't leave right now, proposal or not—I'll make sure you never come within ten feet of him again."
The air cracked with the promise of violence.
The world tunneled. Yu couldn't breathe—couldn't move. His vision jumped between them:
Adrian's clenched fists trembling at his sides, his jaw taut with fury; Theo's eyes gleaming, lips curled into that cruel smile that made Yu's stomach lurch.
The air was heavy, suffocating, charged with static like the moment before lightning strikes. Every muscle in Yu's fragile body screamed to stop them, but his limbs were stone, pinned by dread. His heart slammed so violently in his chest he swore the babies could feel it.
'Please… please don't…'
He thought, his sobs choking silent. One wrong word, one wrong twitch, and everything would shatter.
Theo didn't flinch beneath Adrian's threat. If anything, his smile sharpened, the roses in his hand wilting against the venom in his voice.
"You talk too much."
He said softly, almost a whisper, but every syllable dripped with ice. He tucked his phone back into his pocket with calm precision, as though the tension in the room were beneath him.
"Funny, though… hearing a stray dog bark so loudly in a house that isn't his."
His gaze slid deliberately over Yu—hungry, possessive—before snapping back to Adrian.
"Let me make this clearer…"
Theo murmured, stepping just close enough that the tension snapped taut.
"He's mine. He said yes. The world saw it. And if you think for a second that your little tantrums mean anything, you're more pathetic than I thought."
Theo tilted his chin up, exposing his throat, his eyes daring, taunting.
"Go on. Hit me. Show him what kind of man you really are. I bet he'll come crawling back to me after he sees you can't even control yourself."
His smirk cut sharper, his voice a poisoned blade.
"You want to play wolf, Adrian? Then bite."
Adrian's fist was already trembling in the air, so close to flying, so close to giving Theo exactly what he was taunting him for. His vision tunneled red, the sound of Yu's trembling sobs the only anchor barely holding him back.
Then Theo moved first.
With a wolfish snarl disguised as a smile, Theo seized Yu's wrist and tugged him forward, voice velvet-wrapped venom.
"Enough of this. You're coming with me—where you belong. Away from rabid strays like him."
Yu gasped, stumbling under Theo's sudden force. Before he could twist away, his belly caught the edge of the doorframe with a sickening thud.
The sound echoed.
"Ahh—!"
Yu's scream ripped through the air as he doubled over, crumbling to the floor, clutching his stomach, agony searing across his body.
Warmth spread first, an unsettling heat where there should have been none. Yu felt it before he truly understood it—a thin, insistent slickness slipping between his thighs, soaking into wool, gravity pulling it downward in a way that made his stomach clench with sudden, primal fear. When he looked, the color was wrong. Too dark, too vivid. Too red. Blood.
The blood moved slowly at first, a heavy, viscous trail against his skin, then more insistently, following the delicate lines of his legs as if tracing them. It was hot, almost scalding in contrast to the chill creeping up his spine, and the sensation carried with it a deep, sinking dread, the kind that hollows the chest and makes every breath feel thin. His heart began to pound, loud in his ears, each beat echoing with a single, terrible question he was too afraid to voice.
It wasn't pain that struck him first—it was the shock, the helpless awareness of something precious slipping away, of a body suddenly betraying its promise. The warmth kept flowing, and with it came a cold, suffocating certainty that something was terribly, irrevocably wrong.
Something in Adrian snapped.
"Yu!"
His voice cracked raw, shredding through the static.
He lunged forward, every ounce of control obliterated. His hands slammed into Theo's chest, shoving him back so hard Theo stumbled, crashing into the wall.
Adrian didn't even watch him fall. He was already crouched at Yu's side, arms trembling as they wrapped carefully around Yu's fragile frame.
"It's okay, I've got you—I've got you."
Adrian whispered hoarsely, checking Yu's belly, his face pale with terror when he saw the blood. His hands shook as they tried to steady Yu, to shield him from more harm.
"You're safe. The babies are safe. I won't let him touch you again."
Theo staggered against the wall, breath leaving him in a harsh grunt as Adrian's shove rattled through his chest. His sharp eyes burned, snapping up to Adrian with the kind of venom that promised retribution.
"You dare—"
Theo spat, already pushing himself off the wall, fists curling, voice cracking into something ugly.
But then his gaze dropped.
Yu was still doubled over, clutching his belly with both hands, his sweater ridden up just enough to reveal the faint swell beneath. Blood trickling between Yu's thighs and pooling around his legs.
Theo froze.
All his fury drained into stunned silence. His jaw parted, words caught like stones in his throat.
"... Babies? He's… pregnant?"
He whispered, as if the very idea curdled the air around him.
"You—you're a man—how—who—?"
Questions spiraled behind his eyes, too many at once. His stare cut between Yu and Adrian, suspicion and disbelief twisting into a storm he couldn't mask.
Yu couldn't even answer. The world was white-hot pain. His arms shook violently as he pressed them to his belly, as though his palms alone could shield the fragile lives inside from slipping away.
Every muscle screamed. Every breath rattled. He felt sweat bead cold against his temple.
Inside, the babies reacted—the fluttering life that had grown day by day now thrummed in alarm before cutting silent. It wasn't words, but Yu swore he felt it:
Their tiny movements, their restless twisting, as if even they sensed his terror and tried to cling to him, to tell him they were still there.
His heart hammered so fast, panic crawling up his throat.
He wanted to scream again, but all that came out was a broken sob.
'Please be okay… please be okay…'