The rain wasn't falling.
It was breaking.
Sharp, cold sheets of water slammed sideways as if the entire sky had cracked in half. By the time I stumbled up the porch steps, I could barely feel my fingers. My clothes were plastered to my skin. My breath came out in a shiver.
All I wanted was warmth. A blanket. My mother's voice.
A normal end to a brutal workday.
I pushed the door open.
It swung too easily.
Too wide.
Too quiet.
A small warning rose in my throat. "Ma?"
No answer.
Lightning strobed—and for half a second, I saw everything.
The overturned sofa.
Glass scattered like sharp snow across the floor.
Deep claw-like gouges in the wall.
My heart kicked against my ribs.
"Baba?" My voice was barely a whisper.
Thunder swallowed it whole.
I stepped inside, water dripping off my clothes onto the wooden floor.
Then I saw the smear.
A thick, dark stain dragged across the hallway wall—like someone had tried to hold on while being pulled away. My stomach lurched. My knees wobbled.
This wasn't a break-in.
This was violence.
My fingers trembled as I fumbled for my phone. I couldn't even unlock the screen properly. The numbers blurred.
"Come on," I whispered to the device, breath shaking.
Before I could hit call—
a hand covered my mouth.
A scream clawed its way up my throat—
but it died against the palm crushing my lips.
An arm locked around my waist.
A hard chest pressed against my back.
And a voice—low, unhurried, cold as the storm—slid into my ear.
"Where do you think you're going?"
My entire body froze.
I jerked forward, but his grip only tightened, pulling me back into him with terrifying ease. Panic exploded through me. I kicked backward, twisted, grabbed at his wrist—
Nothing worked.
"You should know," he murmured, his breath brushing my ear, "your parents sold you. For debt. For drugs."
His fingers dragged down my cheek, slow, claiming.
"Didn't they tell you?"
My mind fractured.
No. Not possible.
Not my parents.
His hand shifted from my cheek back to my mouth, silencing the broken sound threatening to escape.
"You belong to me now."
Tears burned hot in my eyes. I shook my head frantically, denying everything he said, denying him, denying this nightmare—
And then he turned me around.
He didn't shove.
He didn't yank.
He simply pivoted me with one arm around my waist, the other gripping the back of my neck, gentle but inescapable.
And I saw him.
The storm flashed behind him, illuminating a face I should have never been close enough to know—
Sharp jaw.
Rain dripping from dark hair.
Eyes that didn't blink when they landed on me.
Power radiated from him, cold and heavy as winter.
He looked at me the way storms must look at mountains:
inevitable.
Unstoppable.
Claiming.
His gaze slid over my soaked clothes, the tremble in my fingers, the fear in my eyes.
He tilted his head.
Something shifted.
Something dangerous.
"Wait," he murmured. "I just changed my mind."
His lips curved—a slow, dark, too-knowing smile.
"You might be…" His thumb traced my lower lip, making my breath break. "…interesting."
My back hit the wall. I didn't even realize I'd stepped away. He followed, planting one hand beside my head, caging me in without touching anything but air—and yet it felt like he touched everything.
"Who are you?" The words fell out of me like they cost blood.
His smile deepened, but there was no kindness in it.
Only certainty.
"You already know."
I shook my head, chest tight, rainwater dripping from my hair onto the floor.
"I—I don't. Please—"
"Please," he echoed softly, tasting the word like it amused him. His fingertips brushed my jaw.
"You married me, Aarya."
The world dropped out beneath me.
"What?" I choked. "My—my husband… he died. Five years ago. I—"
He stepped closer. My breath hitched.
He didn't touch me, but the heat rolling off him wrapped around me like a threat.
"He died," he repeated.
Amusement flickered in his eyes.
"Did he?"
I pressed back into the wall until the plaster dug into my spine.
"He was sick," I whispered. "Terminal. In a wheelchair. He—he couldn't even walk—"
"He wasn't me."
The room tilted.
Lightning flashed, carving shadows down his cheekbones.
"I'm Rishabh Kael."
My breath stopped. Literally stopped. Like my lungs refused the truth.
"No," I whispered. "No, you can't be—"
"You signed my name."
His thumb grazed the hollow of my throat.
"You wore my ring."
His gaze dipped to my lips.
"You became my wife."
My pulse hammered so violently I thought my ribs might crack.
"Why?" My voice trembled. "Why fake the sickness? Why fake your death?"
His eyes darkened.
"Control."
The word felt like a hand closing around my sanity.
"You disappeared," I whispered. "You left me alone. I thought—"
"You were supposed to be safe," he said quietly. "Away from this world. Away from me."
His voice softened—not warm, but something like regret twisted into steel.
"I warned you once, Aarya. I told you to stay away from me."
"I didn't even know who you were!"
"You didn't want to."
He brushed a tear from my cheek with his thumb.
"You wanted the fantasy. Not the man."
My chest tightened painfully. "What do you want from me?"
His eyes held mine. A storm inside a storm.
"Everything I paid for."
A broken sound escaped me.
Pain and fury and terror mixed.
"I won't go with you."
He leaned closer—so close I felt his breath on my lips.
"You already have."
Before I could ask what that meant, the front door slammed open.
A man stepped inside, rain pouring off his jacket. His boots left puddles on the broken floor.
"Boss."
A respectful bow.
"We found the girl's parents."
Rishabh didn't move.
Didn't look away from me.
"Alive?" he asked.
"No."
The world stopped.
I didn't scream.
Air wouldn't come.
Sound wouldn't form.
My knees buckled—
—and he caught me before I hit the floor.
His arms were solid. Warm. Terrifyingly gentle.
He held me as if I weighed nothing, one hand on my back, the other in my hair, shielding my face from the storm behind him.
"Don't look," he murmured, voice barely a breath against my temple.
A sob tore itself from my chest, raw and broken.
He tightened his hold, pulling me into him, absorbing the tremble of my body.
"Why?" My voice cracked.
"Why would you—why—"
"I didn't," he said quietly.
My tears soaked the front of his shirt. My fingers clutched at him without permission, survival instinct overriding pride.
But his voice remained steady.
Terrifyingly steady.
"But I will find who did."
His breath brushed my ear.
Warm.
Real.
Unshakeable.
"And I will end them."
Lightning flashed. Thunder crashed.
And in his arms—in the arms of the man I should have run from—I felt the truth settle into my bones.
He wasn't going to let me go.
Not now.
Not ever.