01

Chapter 01

Third Person's POV

"No! Let me go! You're not my mommy!"

Chaos erupted in the hospital room as the young boy thrashed violently against the medical staff trying to calm him. Within moments, a tall man in an expensive suit rushed in and scooped the child into his arms, his voice gentle despite the tension radiating from his body.

"Sonia, what are you doing? Didn't I tell you not to approach Vladimir yet, and to stay out of sight?" Victor's voice carried a sharp edge of frustration as he cradled his son, whispering soothing words into the boy's ear.

On the floor, kneeling in a hospital gown that seemed to swallow her diminished frame, was a woman whose face told a story of unimaginable pain. Half of her once-beautiful features were destroyed by severe burns, the scarred tissue so extensive that she was barely recognizable as the woman who had once graced magazine covers and red carpets.

The look in her husband's eyes cut deeper than any physical wound. In all their years together, Victor had never looked at her with such... revulsion. Such barely concealed disgust.

"Victor, I just wanted to see my son," Sonia whispered through tears that traced paths down both the unmarked and scarred sides of her face. "I wanted to make sure he was okay, that he wasn't hurt." Her voice broke on the last word, the sound raw and desperate.

Victor's expression darkened further, his jaw clenching as he held their trembling son closer. "Look at yourself? With that face? Vladimir doesn't even recognize you anymore! Can't you see the child is terrified?"

The words hit Sonia like physical blows, each one designed to wound. She struggled to stand on unsteady legs, her hands instinctively moving to cover the worst of her scars.

"Why are you angry with me?" she demanded, her voice rising with a mixture of pain and fury. "Are you acting like this is my fault? Like I chose to look this way? Aren't you the one responsible for all of this?"

The accusation hung in the air like a toxic cloud, but before Victor could respond, the sound of expensive heels clicking against the hospital floor announced the arrival of his family. The Valencia clan had arrived in force, their designer clothes and perfectly styled hair a stark contrast to the sterile hospital environment.

"Did I hear correctly? Are you blaming Victor?" The voice belonged to Esperanza Valencia, Victor's mother. Despite being in her eighties, her beauty and sophistication remained formidable, her silver hair styled in an elegant chignon that probably cost more than most people's monthly salary.

She approached with her chin held high, flanked by Victor's siblings who looked at Sonia with barely concealed disgust, as if she were something unpleasant they'd found on the bottom of their shoes.

"My goodness, Victor," said Victoria, Victor's twin sister, her manicured hand pressed dramatically to her chest. "You allowed our nephew to see Sonia's face? Vladimir's therapy results aren't even out yet, and now he'll have fresh trauma to deal with." Her voice dripped with disdain as she spoke about Sonia as if she weren't standing right there.

The Valencia family had never accepted Sonia from the beginning. Her origins in an orphanage, her lack of inherited wealth, her "common" background—all of it had been ammunition against her from the day Victor first brought her home. They had tolerated her only because of her beauty and the positive publicity her marriage to Victor brought to their family name.

"The only thing you had going for you was your looks, and now you've destroyed even that," sneered Vincent, Victor's older brother. His eyes raked over her scarred face with cruel satisfaction.

Sonia's hands clenched into fists at her sides. Vincent had tried to assault her multiple times when she lived in the Valencia mansion, but Victor had never believed her accusations. After all, Vincent was a respected pastor—surely he couldn't be capable of such things.

"Take Mrs. Valencia back to her room," Victor instructed the medical staff, his voice cold and clinical. "She's not to leave until we have the final test results."

As the doctors gently but firmly guided her away, Sonia heard Esperanza's voice carrying down the hallway: "You need to divorce her, Victor. This is becoming an embarrassment to our family name."

Victor said nothing in her defense. Nothing at all.

---

Two weeks after the accident, the final medical verdict came down like a judge's gavel: Sonia's injuries were permanent. No amount of surgery, no matter how expensive or experimental, could restore her face. Even the most skilled plastic surgeons in the world couldn't repair the extensive damage.

Sonia's world crumbled completely.

She sat in her hospital bed, staring at her reflection in a small mirror, her fingers tracing the raised scars that would mark her for life. This meant Vladimir would always be afraid of her. This meant her modeling and acting career was over. This meant...

"Doctor, there's really no way?" Victor asked, though Sonia could hear in his voice that his concern wasn't for her wellbeing. He was worried about the embarrassment, about what his friends would say, about the media attention when news of his wife's condition became public.

The doctor shook his head gravely and began explaining the technical reasons why reconstruction was impossible, but Sonia heard none of it. The voices of the Valencia family filled her head instead, their cruel words echoing: *It's all her fault. She brought this on herself. She's ruined everything.*

Sonia buried her face in her hands and pulled at her hair, her body shaking with silent sobs. What was she going to do now? How could she live like this?

---

A few months later, they returned to the Valencia mansion—the sprawling estate that had once felt like a prison and now felt like a tomb. Sonia's confusion turned to horror when she discovered that the bedroom she had shared with Victor for years was now locked from the outside.

"Victor! What is the meaning of this?" She pounded on the heavy wooden door, her voice echoing in the hallway.

"You can't be seen by people, Sonia," came Victor's muffled voice from the other side. "It's... embarrassing. And if Vladimir sees you again, his condition might worsen. It's better if you just stay in there."

The words hit her like a physical blow. Sonia's legs gave out, and she collapsed to her knees on the cold marble floor, her whole body trembling. What was Victor doing to her? What did he mean by "stay in there"?

Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Every day, Sonia begged to be released. Sometimes she could hear Vladimir playing in the garden outside her window, and there was always an unfamiliar woman's voice telling him not to go near "that room" because there was a "monster" inside.

Her own son. Her own flesh and blood was being taught to fear her.

Sonia screamed until her voice was hoarse, pleading to be let out, but eventually, she realized the truth: Victor had abandoned her completely.

She resigned herself to watching the world through her bedroom window, catching glimpses of the life that had once been hers. She watched the gates, watched her son play in the garden she had once tended, watched Victor come and go with his new life.

And she watched him with Themarie.

Themarie—her former best friend, the woman who had been maid of honor at their wedding, who had held Sonia's hand during Vladimir's birth, who had sworn to always be there for her. Now Themarie walked arm-in-arm with Victor, laughing at his jokes, sharing intimate conversations on the garden paths that Sonia had once walked as the lady of the house.

Two years passed like a slow-motion nightmare.

Sonia found herself remembering their beginning—how they had been the golden couple in high school, she the campus queen and he the campus king. Everyone had envied their fairy-tale romance. Their wedding had even been featured in magazines as the "love story of the decade."

She had believed in fairy tales then. She was the princess, Victor was the prince, and they would live happily ever after. Just like in the storybooks, their tale was supposed to end with "and they lived happily ever after" written in elegant script.

But fairy tales, Sonia had learned, only existed in books.

The truth was that Victor had grown cold toward her almost immediately after Vladimir's birth. That was when she realized that happy endings only existed in stories. Real life was far more cruel.

Sonia's hand unconsciously moved to grip her left arm—a nervous habit she had developed during her imprisonment. She pressed her fingers into the flesh until it hurt, using physical pain to distract from the emotional agony.

Victor was gone. She wasn't stupid—she knew exactly why Themarie was always at the mansion, why they were always together, why Victor's laughter echoed through the halls when he was with her but never when he spoke to Sonia through the locked door.

Even knowing the truth, she couldn't accept it. She kept telling herself lies: Themarie was just comforting Victor because he was sad about Sonia's condition. They were just friends. Victor still loved her, he was just confused, just scared...

"Who am I kidding?" she whispered to her reflection in the window. "Victor has imprisoned me here."

The woman staring back at her was a stranger—half-beautiful, half-monster, completely broken. This wasn't the fairy tale princess she had once been. This was the cautionary tale, the warning about what happened when the magic wore off and reality set in.

Outside her window, she could see Victor and Themarie walking together in the garden, Themarie's head thrown back in laughter at something Victor had said. They looked happy. They looked like the couple Sonia and Victor had once been.

They looked like they were living the happily ever after that had been stolen from her.

Sonia pressed her forehead against the cold glass and closed her eyes, a single tear sliding down the scarred side of her face. In fairy tales, the princess was always rescued. But in real life, sometimes the princess was locked in the tower forever, forgotten by the world, replaced by someone newer, prettier, unmarked by tragedy.

Sometimes the monster in the story wasn't the dragon or the witch.

Sometimes the monster was the prince himself.