Static crackled through the speakers, followed by the faint, rhythmic sound of a tiny heartbeat.
The pulse of a small life filled the ultrasound room, rapid and insistent.Yoojin's eyes widened—startled by the speed, the vitality of it.
Inside me?
The pounding heartbeat echoed as if shouting the truth—there was life inside her, a fragile being announcing its presence.
Pregnancy. A new life. My own blood.
For some, it would be a moment of joy, of trembling excitement at the miracle of creation.But for Yoojin, the thought only filled her with despair.
She could never escape the Gangrim Group—not now.
Princess Odette had become the possession of the demon Rothbart.
Everything in Yoojin's life had slipped beyond her control.
Now that she carried his child, Hyun-oh would use the baby as a leash—tightening it around her throat whenever he wished.
She should have run.
There had been so many chances to run.
All she needed was to throw away her crown as prima ballerina, leave behind the debt the Gangrim Group had wrapped around her, and disappear—abroad, anywhere.
Why hadn't she?
Regret came crashing down, sharp and suffocating.
Why did it only strike now, when it was too late—when she realized the truth inside her?
She bit down hard on her lip and closed her eyes.
The doctor's bright, cheerful voice filled the room, as she spread cold gel over Yoojin's stomach and pressed the probe against her skin, shifting the angle again and again.
"Everything looks perfect! Such a beautiful baby," she said, her tone relentlessly light.
Beside Yoojin stood Choi Hyun-oh, the baby's father, and his mother, Chairwoman Hong In-hee.
Hyun-oh's lips twitched with restrained joy, his face glowing.
In-hee, meanwhile, stared at Yoojin's exposed belly and the baby's image on the monitor—expressionless, unreadable.
"Congratulations,"
In-hee finally said, her words clipped, as if forced past a bitter taste.
Hyun-oh smiled broadly, answering for Yoojin.
"Mother, we should start planning the wedding, don't you think? It wouldn't look right for her to walk down the aisle already showing. We'd better hurry."
In-hee glanced from her son's glowing face to Yoojin's tightly shut eyes and the doctor's cheerful grin.
Without a word, she turned her head away.
Yoojin knew.
Hong In-hee opposed their marriage.
She was the matriarch of Gangrim Group, one of Korea's largest conglomerates.
Five years ago, when her husband—Chairman Choi Seung-jae, the Group's second-generation leader—died suddenly of a heart attack, she had seized control of the entire corporate empire: distribution, finance, chemicals, machinery, and the cultural foundation.
Rumors had swept through the financial world—that her takeover had been fueled by private loans, offshore accounts, and cryptocurrency assets.
A woman who had once seemed content as the elegant chairwoman of the Gangrim Cultural Foundation had become something else entirely—a predator cloaked in silk.
No one had believed she could ever claim real power.
The line of succession was supposed to be clear: First Chairman Choi Kang-su, then his son Choi Seung-jae, then the sole heir, Choi Hyun-oh.
But after her husband's funeral, Hyun-oh quietly stepped back—remaining only as Vice President of Gangrim Trading, the distribution branch—while his mother ruled the conglomerate with an iron will.
One day, Yoojin had asked him carefully:
"Why do you only handle distribution? Doesn't the Group have bigger divisions—finance, electronics?"
Hyun-oh had looked at her with mild surprise.
"Didn't think you cared about management."
"I was just curious. I thought finance or electronics were more important."
"Those things? I can take them anytime I want. But you—being with you—is something I can only do now."
His voice dropped as he gazed down at her.
Even if he abandoned every business interest, he would never let go of her.To him, possession was love.
To Hong In-hee, Yoojin was a flower—a rare, beautiful flower that could make money simply by being admired.
But she had never imagined that her son would want to pluck that flower and keep it for himself.
In her world, only women with newspapers, political ties, or major holdings could stand beside her son.
That was simple arithmetic.
But her foolish son refused to see the equation.
Yoojin, however, understood it perfectly.
Last year—the final year of her fifteen-year sponsorship contract—she had met with Hong In-hee and the foundation's legal advisor.
It was then that she had played her final card.
"Once the contract ends, I'll be leaving Gangrim."
A faint crack appeared in In-hee's mask of indifference.
"And Hyun-oh?"
"Him, too. It's what I've always wanted."
In-hee nodded slowly.
She had bound Yoojin with money, but not out of hatred—she had admired her talent, her work ethic, her brilliance.
And she knew her son's obsession had begun the moment she'd allowed him access to the foundation's sponsorship records.
She had thought he was learning about business.
She hadn't realized he was studying Han Yoojin.
When Yoojin later became Principal Soloist of the Korean National Ballet, she had come to In-hee herself—confessing that she was involved with Hyun-oh.
"You can't go anywhere. You're mine."
"Do you know how much Gangrim has spent on you? Dance on stage by day, and stay with me by night."
Yoojin's revelation had shocked In-hee more than she cared to admit.
She had tolerated their relationship, believing Yoojin was at least refined, unlike the usual scandalous women her son might chase.
But instead of learning how to lead a company, Hyun-oh flaunted his obsession in public, shadowing Yoojin like a lovesick fool.
As Yoojin grew more famous, his possessiveness deepened.
At her debut as prima ballerina, when she received thunderous applause, his eyes gleamed with envy.
He wanted to hide her from the world.
A man terrified of the woman he owned.
That was her son.
And the one who feared this most was not Yoojin—but Hong In-hee herself, watching the invisible cage of Gangrim, of Hyun-oh, close tighter around Yoojin.
"You know Hyun-oh won't let you go."
"I was just a toy, Madam. Once he finds a new one, he won't even remember me. He'll marry eventually. I'll live quietly abroad for ten years and come back."
Yoojin's calm reply had made In-hee smile with satisfaction.
She agreed—easily—to end the fifteen-year contract.
For the first time, Yoojin felt free.
Even if she would never dance on grand stages again, she could finally be the lead in her own life.
That joy—that fragile hope—had bloomed just one year ago.
And now… a baby.
Back in her university days, Yoojin had always feared pregnancy.
She had taken birth control pills religiously.
But during preparations for her final Christmas performance—The Nutcracker, her farewell to Gangrim—she had been rehearsing on an empty stomach, surviving on coffee and pills.
Her liver enzymes had spiked. The doctor had ordered her to stop the medication.
Hyun-oh knew this.
She had begged him to use protection.
And he had. Or so she remembered.
So she hadn't taken emergency contraception.
A month ago, when she told him she was pregnant, he had simply smiled—that quiet, triumphant smile of a man who had achieved his goal.
Only then did she understand.
The pregnancy had been planned—not by fate, but by him.
She had considered abortion. Secretly, quietly.
But before she could act, the loneliness came.
A child. A baby who would stay with her.
Her only family since the deaths of her parents.
A life that would not leave her.
Would her child be forced to live hidden, a chaebol's illegitimate heir?
If so, maybe they could live together—just the two of them, in peace.
After all, it was easy for the rich to make their unwanted children disappear—sent off to overseas boarding schools, erased from family records.
But with the pregnancy, everything ended.
Her title as prima ballerina vanished.
Her fifteen-year sponsorship expired.
Her powerful backing was gone.
And no ballet company would hire a dancer with a baby on the way.
In the brutal world of ballet, there was always another girl waiting to take her place.
Ballet—her reason for living, the art she had clawed her way toward—was cut off with a single heartbeat.
And now she was truly trapped,
forever bound in the cage of Choi Hyun-oh.
* * *
The car that had rolled down the coastal cliff hit the sea with a deafening crash.
A burst of white foam exploded into the air, and the vehicle began to sink beneath the waves.
The sound was loud, but the storm swallowed it—the blizzard and crashing surf muffled it from any nearby homes.
Yoojin, thrown against her seatbelt, had blacked out from the impact.
When she awoke to the screeching of twisting metal, she found herself upside down—head pressed against the ceiling, still strapped in by the belt.