The morning air in the city of Mumbai carried an unseasonal chill. A few kilometers ahead of the old city railway station, three young women walked along the crowded footpath, laughing and chatting.

"Is it just me or has Aashi gotten even thinner?" Riya asked, glancing sideways.

"A little," Tani squeezed her friend's arm.

"You're still taking those meds, right?" Riya asked again, voice soft.

The girl nodded quietly, offering a small smile that didn't quite reach her warm brown eyes.

Aashi Krishna. 21 years old. Her first mistake in Mumbai had been arriving in Mumbai itself.

The nightmares had returned last night, flashes of blood, smoke, and a man with pitch-black eyes staring at her like she was both his everything and nothing. She told herself it was just trauma. Her mind's pathetic escape hatch from reality. Nothing more.

"By the way..." Riya began shyly, pulling out her phone.

Tani giggled like a conspirator and shoved the screen in Aashi's face. A handsome man in a crisp suit smiled back from a Bumble profile. Aashi knew what it was...

A prospective lover for her.

"No way... you didn't..." Aashi whispered in concern.

"Yes we did!" They giggled back at her. Aashi froze and then heat crept up her neck. What a surprise!

"We've got men... Now here's yours, baby girl!" Tani announced triumphantly. "You've got nothing to do. Just continue the chat~"

Riya nodded. "He's interested... very, very interested."

Aashi's eyes widened in pure horror. "You what!? You've been talking to him as me?!"

"You like him! Look, you're blushing!" Riya laughed.

"His name's Tanmay. He's from Mumbai too, and he's very consistent with you..." Tani added with a wink. "We wanted you to have someone here when we're gone. I mean, you need a man to keep you company too."

Aashi buried her face in her hands, cheeks burning. "You two are actual menaces."

They laughed harder.

She quickly tried to change the subject, smiling still, pointing at a small café just off the footpath. "Let's just get something to eat first before ruining my life... I'm starving."

The three of them walked toward the café, still giggling, until the world exploded.

A motorcycle tore around the corner with a roar so violent that people on the footpath jerked back in alarm. The rider wore a yellow shirt darkened with blood near his ribs. His black jeans were streaked with dust. The Himalayan bike beneath him swerved recklessly between cars, missing a vegetable cart by inches.

Behind him came another bike, black, fast and louder. Its engine did not sound like transport. It sounded like a warning.

The man driving it leaned low over the handles, his black helmet visor lifted just enough to reveal a hard gaze, eyes so dark they seemed untouched by daylight.

Behind him, on the back seat,  another man braced himself with terrifying calm, one arm locked around the rider, the other raising a pistol toward the fleeing target.

Aashi froze.

The man riding the black bike gave a single command.

"Now."

The gunshot rang out. The bullet was a fraction of a second late. The target swerved violently at the exact moment the trigger was pulled.

Aashi closed her eyes and felt something tear through her shoulder. For one suspended second, there was no pain. Only impact.

She opened her eyes again, gasping. A small hot line across her skin. A violent burst of shattered glass as the café window exploded behind her. The smell of gunpowder sliced through the air.

Aashi stumbled backward.

"Ah!" Riya screamed.

Both girls dragged Aashi down toward the pavement as people ran in every direction. Someone shouted for help. Someone else cursed. A child cried from inside a nearby shop.

But Aashi heard none of it clearly.

Because through the chaos, she looked up and met his eyes.

The rider of the black bike had swerved right before her, turned his head, only for a heartbeat, but long enough for his gaze to collide with hers. Yet the moment it did, the street vanished around.

His eyes were black.

Black in a way that felt endless. Merciless. As if it was pulling her in.

Something ancient stirred inside her chest, rising so suddenly that it stole the breath from her lungs. Fear should have been the only thing she felt. A stranger had just nearly shot her.

She should have hated him. She should have screamed.

Instead, grief flashed through her like a memory that did not belong to this life.

Then the sting bloomed on her arm. He took her eyes off from her and vanished around the corner by then. The fleeing target disappeared with it.

And still, Aashi stared after him, trembling.

Riya pressed her hand against the slight scratch on her shoulder. "Aashi, look at me! Are you okay? Say something!"

Aashi's lips parted. No words came. Because she had only one thought, and it made no sense at all.

Do I know him?

The dizziness hit a second later. The street tilted. Riya and Tani's voices blurred into panic. And as Aashi collapsed against her friends, the last thing she recalled was his pitch black eyes, leaving behind an awful, aching feeling she could not name.

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

The doors of the Mansion slammed open hard enough to shake the crystal chandelier above the grand hall.

Every guard in the hall straightened.

Arshad Rawther entered like a storm that had learned to walk like a man.

Dust clung to his black riding jacket. His helmet hung from one hand, his long layered hair falling messily around his face sharpened by exhaustion and anger.

He had returned to Mumbai that morning and hadn't slept properly in two days. Within an hour of coming home, someone had entered his house, held Mira at knifepoint, injured four of his men and escaped on a stolen motorcycle.

Arshad's mood was not poor. It was murderous.

Tarun, his confidante followed him inside, quieter than usual. Unlike the men along the walls, he didn't lower his eyes. He'd known Arshad for too long to mistake silence for calm.

Jeet stood near the bottom of the staircase with one hand hidden behind his back. His boss's gaze fell on him first. It wasn't a good sign.

"What happened? Did you get him?" A woman's voice sounded from above the stairs.

Arshad glanced up, a humourless smile touching his mouth. "If I am the one supposed to get him..." His gaze returned to the hall. "What are all these fools here for?"

The hall fell deathly silent. Even the seasoned guards lining the walls avoided eye contact. Arshad's black eyes swept over them like a blade.

"Who was in charge of securing the house?" He asked, voice deceptively calm.

Jeet stepped forward. "Sir, I was-"

"Just as I expected," Arshad cut him off, stepping closer. He handed his helmet to the nearest guard without looking at him.

His tone dropped to a lethal whisper. "You fucker... All those weeks I spent training you... for what? To let one bleeding, half-dead man slip through your fingers?"

Jeet's jaw tightened. "He had a knife at Mira's throat, Sir. I couldn't rush him while he was holding her."

"I'm asking how he fucking got inside..."

Jeet fell silent. Arshad stepped closer.

"You had one job," His voice was low and that somehow made it worse.

"He entered my house. Reached my sister's spare room. Held Mira hostage. Injured my men." His hand closed around Jeet's collar.

"Then he escaped while bleeding."

Jeet stood still.

"Tell me which part of your duty you completed, elite guard."

The men around them scarcely moved.

In photographs, Arshad Rawther stood beside his father at business dinners and project launches.

Twenty-four years old.

The respected heir to an empire most people knew by its name alone.

What he had built in Russia stayed out of those photographs. Some of the men in this hall had followed him from there. Others he'd bought himself. All of them knew the terms they'd signed.

The lifestyle paid well. He protected his own. Loyalty to him was rewarded.

Running from him was a death sentence.

He had already become the kind of man people lowered their voices to discuss.

A man who killed and lost count. Nobody standing in that hall wanted to become another face he forgot.

"Arshad... Enough."

Lyra Rawther descended the staircase in a deep crimson dress. Her presence was every bit as commanding as her brother's, though warmer in a way his never was.

A rare reason why Arshad spared his men at times...

Because a woman's presence tended to soften things.

At twenty-eight, she was not just a spoiled heiress, but had learned to recognise the moment her brother stopped listening...

Her gaze moved to Jeet's injured hand. Blood had slipped between his fingers.

"Enough?" Arshad pulled Jeet by the collar, yanking him forward. The man's feet nearly left the ground. "After this big of a fuck-up?"

Up close, Arshad was terrifying. The black tattoo tracing down his right eye hid an old scar, but it did nothing to soften the lethal glare.

"Arshad listen to me-"

"What if something had happened to you Lyra..?" His voice was quiet. "I'd have put a bullet in him myself..."

Jeet said nothing.

"Stop it." Lyra struck the marble table with her fist. The sound brought every gaze towards her.

Arshad didn't release him.

For several seconds, the siblings looked at each other. Lyra's hand remained flat against the table, the knuckles reddening.

"Let him go," she said.

Arshad's jaw ticked. Then his fingers loosened.

Jeet staggered back, coughing once. He put his uninjured hand to his throat.

"Jeet got Mira away from him," Lyra said. "He kept both of us safe. He got hurt doing it."

Arshad finally glanced at the blood on his hand.

"And he's still standing here bleeding while you pull him around like a rag doll." She sighed.

"He was assigned to you, Lyra. That's what he's fucking supposed to do." Arshad glared.

"I know who he was assigned to. He did his job!" The words came sharply enough that Tarun looked between them.

Lyra drew a breath. "We're all here, Arshad. I'm here. Mira's alive. Whatever happened, we can deal with it."

Arshad rolled his eyes but said nothing, the fight draining from his shoulders.

"Whoever sent him," she continued, "we'll find him. We always have."

Arshad let out a slow breath through his nose.

Some of the men glanced at Lyra. Jeet didn't. He was still trying to swallow without wincing.

She was the only person in the hall who had interrupted Arshad. She had been doing it since long before any of these men knew the kind of monster he was...

"Now," she said, turning back to business, "what happened during the chase?"

Tarun stared at the ceiling. Arshad continued with a disinterested tone. "The moron behind me here had perfect aim. Almost killed a girl in front of a cafe."

"Almost killed?" Lyra's eyes widened. Arshad sighed, rubbing his temple.

Those wide brown eyes still lingered in his mind, terrified, vulnerable, and strangely familiar.

"The target swerved at the last second when he fired. A graze. On her shoulder. She'll live..." Arshad muttered.

Tarun mimicked the sharp bike turn with exaggerated hand gestures. "He was going way too fast! Like this-" He paused, seeing Arshad's disappointed gaze and continued "She was there at the wrong time..."

Arshad ignored him. "He shouldn't have reached that bike in the first place..."

His gaze moved back across the men. "One more mistake like this. And I won't be asking for explanations..." He looked straight at Jeet.

"You'll be better off dead... "

Jeet's throat moved. "Yes, Sir."

The others answered after him, their apologies quiet and hurried.

Because when things turned dirty, even Lyra won't be able to stop him...

"Have that shit treated," Arshad told Jeet, tapping the nose of his gun on his hand. "Then I want to know exactly how he got inside."

Jeet nodded.

But Arshad's mind was not in the room anymore. Not on the target. Not even on who might've sent him.

It was on a vulnerable girl with terrified brown eyes.

Not brown exactly...

The moment her gaze had met his through the chaos, something had shifted. He saw something that made him question reality.

It made no sense and Arshad hated things that made no sense...

He could still see her face. The way fear had flashed across it. The way she had looked at him like someone who had recognized him from a place neither of them should remember.

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

What did you think of me when we first met?" A man's voice asked her as his hand caressed her cheek down to her jaw. He gently lifted her chin to look into her eyes.

"I thought you would kill me..." She whispered innocently under the moonlight. The man laughed, running his fingers through her hair.

She looked at him, carefully examining his features... His face was unclear as a whole... His chest was beaming with gold ornaments, studded perfectly with jewels.

His earrings were big and long, emeralds embedded in them. His eyes were lined with kohl, just a streak but still a stark contrast to his skin. His hair was long, wavy and coal black, a few strands falling over his face.

"And why didn't you kill me?"

"How can I kill someone who stole my heart..." He whispered back, pulling her in for a kiss.

"Aah!"

Aashi gasped awake in her quiet and small rent house room.  Her chest heaved as if she'd been drowning. She could still feel the ghost of his fingers on her cheek, the pull of something timeless and aching.

That voice. Those eyes. That same damn man...

The dream felt too real...

Just another nightmare, she told herself... But why did it have to be a half naked man? Aashi rolled her eyes.

Tani and Riya had left after they made sure she was ok. It was just a small graze on her arm. Both had wanted her to tell her parents.

Aashi refused.

She was here to get away from them in the first place.

A while later her phone rang. Her mother. Aashi picked up hesitantly.

"Aashi... how's the new place? Everything going well?"

"Yes yes everything's fine. I was just taking a nap..." Aashi decided to ignore the part were her mother's dear daughter would've nearly died. Then she would have had to deal with the unwanted panic.

"Alright. Just prepare for the interview. Don't mess it up."

Aashi's smile faltered. Of course. The job. That was all they ever worried about.  Her mother was fiercely independent and expected the same from Aashi.

Pushing her forward, never asking what the nightmares truly cost her. Since when did they ever care?

All throughout school, they never once asked why she cried, or why she came home with scraped knees. When she complained, she was too much. Other kids always handled it better...

A problem child.

By the time the call ended, her shoulder wasn't the only thing aching.

Aashi put the phone beside her and looked around the small room.

She'd booked it for two days before her final interview. Two days to settle in, find the new workplace and convince herself she could walk into that room and forget every pain she knew.

A proper salary. A place she could afford for longer than a few nights. A life she wouldn't have to ask permission to live.

Even if the interview went badly, she wasn't going home.

She had wanted escape...

Her phone lit up again. This time, it was the dating app.

Tanmay.

Somewhere in Mumbai, this handsome stranger believed he had been getting to know her.

The only boy she'd ever liked had lived in another city too. For a little while, he'd made her feel as though someone finally saw her. Then he'd hurt her in a way she still hated remembering.

She'd gone back to her panic medication afterwards. Back to pretending she was recovering more easily than she was.

She wanted to believe there was someone who would stay. Someone she wouldn't have to keep becoming smaller to love.

She was so tired of healing by herself. A person to love, to stay beside her, would've made it so much easier... Maybe.

.

.

.

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