Where the Thorned Rose Withers

I had planned to tell him after giving him the painting. A surprise.

Killian didn't believe me. I fumbled in my pocket, pulling out the pregnancy test report and thrusting it at him.

"See? I'm really pregnant."

He snatched the paper, crumpled it into a tight ball, and threw it in my face. "Do you take me for a fool, Aurora? I've never touched you. Now tell me, whose bastard is it?"

"It was that night... the one you came home drunk..."

His expression turned venomous. "Don't you lie to me. Whose child is it?"

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I shook my head. "It's yours. Killian, I would never lie about this."

Two months ago, he'd come home drunk from a family gala, holding me so tightly he bruised my arms. In the desperate, whiskey-soaked haze of that night, we had slept together.

The next morning, he denied everything, insisting he would never have touched me in that state. I thought he was just embarrassed, so I didn't push it.

Now, his hand shot out and seized my throat. He shoved me hard into the vault, and I heard the sickening crunch of bone against metal.

He tossed a pen and a single sheet of paper at my feet. My price for freedom, he sneered, was a thousand-word apology to Lena.

No matter how I begged, he was merciless. Annoyed by my cries, he slammed the door shut. I heard the heavy thud of the wheel turning, the definitive click of the lock engaging.

Before he left, he warned everyone in the manor that if anyone dared let me out without his permission, they would face his wrath.

There was barely room to breathe. I was curled in an unnatural position, the cold walls pressing in on me from all sides.

Fear was a physical entity, consuming me. My thoughts became a desperate, silent prayer.

Killian, please, let me out. I'm so scared. Please.

"Think long and hard about what it means to betray me, Aurora."

With that, he turned and abandoned me in the basement.

The cold inside the vault was a physical entity. I was still in my thin silk pajamas, my body wracked with violent, uncontrollable shivers. A sharp, tearing pain lanced through my abdomen, and I felt a sudden, warm gush of liquid. Blood began to seep out from beneath me, staining the floor crimson.

The baby. I was losing the baby.

I beat my fists raw against the unyielding steel, my nails splintering as I clawed at the walls, but the bleeding wouldn't stop. The pain only intensified, a merciless tide pulling me under.

"Please, someone save our baby! Let me out! Please..."

But my voice was swallowed by the thick steel door. The words never reached the outside. All I could do was scream into the suffocating darkness.

I never imagined Killian could be so cruel. No matter how I struggled, I couldn't move him. In the end, I died alone in the dark, trapped in a prison of pain and despair.

In my final moments, as my vision tunneled to black, I clung to a single, flickering hope. He'll come. He has to. He'll open the door. He'll save me.

He never did. He was already on a yacht in Miami with Lena, watching the sea and drinking champagne.

After I died, my soul drifted out of the vault. Even now, the smallest memory of those last moments sends waves of agony through me, as if it were all happening again.