Chapter 41
Druve remained by the window for another few seconds, his eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the glass. The faint smirk lingered at the corner of his mouth before he finally let the curtain fall back into place.
He turned towards the bed.
Sruthi hadn't moved. She was still sleeping peacefully, one hand resting near the place where he had been lying earlier. The sight softened his face almost immediately.
Druve walked back to the bed and lay down beside her. He slipped an arm around her carefully and drew her closer, making sure not to wake her before pressing a small kiss to her forehead.
Sruthi stirred.
Druve paused, thinking he had disturbed her, but her eyes never opened. Instead, as though she had recognised his presence even in her sleep, she turned towards him and moved closer on her own. Her arm slipped around him, her face settling comfortably against his chest.
A quiet smile touched Druve's face.
His fingers moved gently through her hair before he bent and pressed a small kiss to the tip of her nose. One of her hands rested against his chest, and Druve gently took it in his, lifting it just enough to press a soft kiss to the back of her hand.
Sruthi remained asleep, her arm still loosely around him.
Druve smiled and settled beside her again, keeping her close. Within a few minutes, his breathing slowed, and he too drifted into sleep.
By early morning, thin rays of sunlight had begun slipping through the small gap between the curtains. One fell softly across Druve's face, disturbing his sleep just enough for his eyes to slowly open.
He remained still for a few seconds, not yet fully awake, until his gaze lowered to Sruthi curled against him. She was still sleeping peacefully, her face partly hidden against his chest, exactly where she had settled during the night.
A quiet contentment settled over him.
His hand moved gently over her head, smoothing her hair away from her face. He watched her for a moment, taking in the peacefulness of her expression before bending to place a small kiss on her forehead.
Sruthi shifted faintly beneath his touch but didn't wake.
Druve stayed where he was for a little longer, his arm still around her. There was no urgency in the way he looked at her, only the quiet satisfaction of opening his eyes and finding her there.
Eventually, he carefully eased his arm from around her.
Sruthi moved slightly at the loss of his warmth, turning further into the pillow. Druve stopped immediately and waited until she settled again before getting out of bed.
The sunlight slipping through the curtains had grown brighter. He crossed the room and pulled them completely closed, returning the bedroom to a comfortable dimness.
Druve looked back at the bed.
Sruthi was still fast asleep.
He quietly left the room, closing the door behind him.
The house was silent at that hour. Druve moved through the hallway without making much noise, passing the familiar rooms before heading towards a more secluded section of the house.
His pace remained unhurried until he reached a concealed entrance.
He opened it.
A staircase descended beneath the house.
Druve stepped inside, and the entrance closed behind him as he began making his way down.
At the bottom of the stairs was a secure underground room.
The softness he had carried upstairs was nowhere on his face when he entered. His expression was cold, his attention immediately taking in the room before settling on Arjun.
Five men had been brought there during the night.
Only two were still alive.
Three bodies lay across the floor at different distances from one another. Of the two survivors, one sat slumped against the wall, badly bruised and visibly exhausted. Their leader was several feet away, in worse condition but conscious.
"Sir."
Arjun straightened when he saw him.
Druve acknowledged him with a small nod but made no move towards the men.
He didn't have much time. Sruthi was still asleep upstairs, and he wanted to be back before she woke. He still had to shower and make breakfast. He had come down only because he wanted to know who had been outside his house and why.
He also had no intention of getting close enough to leave with blood on him.
Arjun understood and came towards him instead.
The interrogation had been over long before Druve arrived.
It hadn't taken many questions.
The first man had been shot without being asked anything. The second had followed the same way. By the time Arjun turned towards the third, the remaining two had already understood that this wasn't going to be an interrogation in which everyone would be given an opportunity to speak.
Arjun asked the third man a question, but the shot came before he could even open his mouth properly to answer.
The fourth man hadn't waited for Arjun to turn towards him. He had started talking, desperate to get the words out before Arjun decided he wasn't worth listening to either.
Everything he knew came out at once—the small jobs they had been doing, the information they collected, the orders passed down to them, what their leader had decided the previous night and, finally, the name of the man responsible for the operations.
Their leader hadn't said a word.
Arjun stopped in front of Druve.
"They were here for Riya."
Druve's eyes immediately moved towards the two survivors. His expression remained calm, but something tightened inside him.
He had noticed the men outside the previous night and left them to Arjun without a second thought. He had been certain they wouldn't get anywhere near the house. But he hadn't known they had come specifically for Riya.
The thought of those men coming anywhere near her, even with all the protection surrounding the house, sent a cold anger through him. She was still recovering from what had happened the previous night. He had only just managed to get her sleeping peacefully again, and someone had been waiting outside his home for an opportunity to kill her.
Druve looked at the leader a little longer before returning his attention to Arjun. He didn't interrupt, but the calmness on his face had become something considerably colder.
"They've been collecting information and passing it along whenever they're asked to. Their leader wanted to move up, and when he saw everyone leaving last night, he decided killing Riya himself would get him noticed by the people above him."
Druve's gaze returned to the leader.
"With me inside the house?"
"He thought five men would be enough."
Druve said nothing more, allowing Arjun to continue.
"The man behind them goes by Kaal. I've got people looking into his real identity. From what we got out of the survivor, Riya's accident—the one that almost left her brain-dead—was arranged by Kaal. The attempt on her afterward came from him too."
Druve's expression hardened, though the information itself wasn't entirely unexpected.
He had already doubted the circumstances surrounding Riya's accident. There had been enough about it to make him question whether it had truly been accidental, but suspicion was one thing. Having a name connected to it was another.
Kaal.
Druve had never heard of him.
And he still had no idea why the man wanted Riya dead.
Arjun continued, "They'd received clear instructions not to make any move against Riya as long as she was under your protection. And from the way those orders were given, Kaal seems to know you pretty well. It doesn't sound like the kind of understanding someone would have just from hearing about you recently."
Druve's eyes narrowed slightly.
That was different.
There were plenty of people who knew who he was. That alone meant nothing. Even an enemy who had only recently learned Riya was under his protection would understand that approaching her had become dangerous.
But Kaal's warning went further than that. He hadn't simply told his men to avoid attacking Riya. He had insisted they keep their distance altogether, careful not to do anything that might draw Druve's attention to them.
That was what troubled Druve.
Kaal appeared to understand that once Druve became aware of a threat, he wouldn't stop at eliminating the men responsible for carrying it out. He would follow the trail until he found whoever had sent them.
And Kaal had apparently been careful to prevent that from happening. Someone Druve had never even heard of seemed to know exactly how he would respond.
It was possible Kaal had studied him from a distance. It was equally possible they had crossed paths before without Druve knowing it. Neither possibility pleased him.
Arjun continued, "There's something else. Apparently, their leader happened to overhear Kaal giving instructions directly. He remembered what Kaal said quite clearly."
Druve remained silent, listening.
"He told them not to target Riya as long as she was under your protection. There was no point rushing and risking everything. They were to wait, no matter how long it took. Kaal said, 'Seven years ago, I got a chance when I least expected it. A perfect chance. If we wait, we'll get another one. Until then, nobody touches Riya while she's with Druve.'"
Druve had been listening without interrupting, but the moment Arjun mentioned seven years, a thought surfaced in his mind so unexpectedly that it caught him off guard.
Seven years ago.
Sruthi.
The thought appeared so suddenly that Druve almost rejected it before it had properly formed. Why would this have anything to do with Sruthi? Kaal was targeting Riya. She was Rana's daughter and Vikram's sister, and either of them could be the reason someone wanted her dead. Druve still knew nothing about Kaal's motives or what he hoped to gain by killing her.
Sruthi, on the other hand, had been an ordinary college girl. Why would a man like Kaal have any interest in her?
It had to be a coincidence.
Sruthi had left him because of what had happened between them that night. He had crossed a line, and she had every reason to be angry with him. Druve had believed that for seven years. Nothing Arjun had told him gave him any real reason to connect her disappearance to Kaal.
But the thought refused to disappear.
What if?
His fingers slowly curled against his palm. No. He didn't want to go there, yet his mind had already begun connecting things that had been troubling him since the previous night.
Sruthi's nightmare.
The desperation with which she had called for Dev, the way she had begged them to kill her, and the terror that had overwhelmed her even after she woke. Druve couldn't forget any of it. But what troubled him most was what had happened afterward.
She hadn't asked about Dev.
Not once had she asked where her brother was or why he wasn't there.
Druve had already suspected that she remembered far more than she was admitting. After the previous night, that suspicion had become almost impossible to ignore. Sruthi remembered, yet she hadn't acknowledged it to him. And if she remembered Dev but couldn't bring herself to ask about him, something terrible must have happened.
He had already decided to find out what had happened to Dev without forcing her to speak before she was ready. But until this moment, he hadn't allowed himself to consider whether whatever had happened to her brother might be connected to the seven years Sruthi had been missing from his life.
Druve closed his eyes and drew in a slow breath, trying to control the dull ache beginning to spread through his chest.
What if Sruthi never left me?
His eyes opened, and the question seemed to tighten around his chest.
What if something happened to her while I thought she had left?
He tried to reason with himself. Sruthi's behaviour towards him now didn't prove anything about what she had felt back then. She hadn't pushed him away. She hadn't resisted his touch. She had married him willingly, and the tenderness between them had come so naturally that sometimes Druve found it difficult to believe they had ever been apart.
But seven years had passed. She could have been furious with him then and forgiven him now. Perhaps that was all there was to it. Perhaps he was searching for an explanation that didn't exist simply because he couldn't bear what his mind was suggesting.
He desperately wanted that to be true.
If Sruthi had left because he had let her down, Druve could accept it. He had accepted it for seven years. However much it had hurt him, her anger was hers, and so was the decision to walk away. He had no right to take that choice from her simply because he couldn't bear losing her.
But if she hadn't chosen to leave...
His jaw clenched, and his fingers tightened into a fist.
If something had happened to her instead, while he had spent all those years believing she wanted nothing to do with him, what did that mean?
What if she had needed him?
What if she had been waiting for him while he believed staying away was the only thing he could still do for her?
The ache in his chest sharpened until he had to draw another slow breath.
No. He couldn't let himself believe that without proof.
Kaal wanted Riya. Sruthi had nothing to do with him. There was nothing connecting the two women except the impossible truth that Riya now carried Sruthi within her, something Kaal couldn't possibly have known seven years ago.
It could all be a coincidence. Druve knew that.
But knowing it was possible didn't make the question go away. And the longer he stood there trying to convince himself that Sruthi had simply left him, the harder it became to ignore the possibility that he had been wrong about the one thing he had never thought to question.
His gaze slowly shifted towards the leader.
Druve needed answers.
While Druve stood underground, struggling with thoughts that threatened everything he had believed for seven years, the very person he was so desperately worried about was sleeping peacefully upstairs.
For the first time in a long while, Sruthi's dreams were free of fear and pain. Instead, she was reliving the beautiful moments she had once shared with her Druve—the laughter, the playful arguments, the warmth of his embrace and the happiness of being loved by him.
A faint smile touched her lips as she slept, completely unaware of the storm gathering in Druve's heart just a few floors beneath her.