It started with a whisper.

A simple message slipped into the black envelope delivered to her desk:

He’s alive. And he’s coming for you.

Gauri stared at the paper, hands trembling. The handwriting was unmistakable.

Riyan.

The man from her past. Her ex-fiancé. Her first love. Her first betrayal.

The one who destroyed her family.

The one she left behind in Delhi — broken, furious, and full of secrets.

---

Viransh wasn’t in the office.

He was in Bangkok on a 36-hour weapons deal. She hadn’t heard from him in five hours.

She didn’t call him.

She didn’t need to.

This wasn’t about Viransh.

This was about her.

---

She returned to her flat. Not the penthouse. Not the villa. But her old rented apartment — tucked into a forgotten corner of Mumbai.

And she waited.

He came at midnight.

He didn’t knock.

He walked in.

Same face. Same voice. But colder.

“I knew you’d come back to your real self eventually,” Riyan said.

“I’m not the girl you left behind,” she replied.

He stepped closer. “No. Now you’re Khurana’s whore.”

She slapped him before he could finish.

He laughed.

“I know everything,” he whispered. “Your secrets. His crimes. What you did to that man in the warehouse.”

Her blood froze.

“I recorded it,” he added. “And guess who wants that footage? The new CBI handler assigned to Viransh. You give me what I want… or I burn you both down.”

---

She didn’t cry.

She didn’t beg.

She punched him.

Hard.

Then he punched back.

Her head snapped against the wall. Blood filled her mouth. Pain blinded her.

He grabbed her wrist. Twisted.

“You thought you could become him? You’re still just the scared little nothing I left behind.”

She reached for the lamp.

He kicked it away.

She screamed.

But no one came.

---

The door shattered.

And Viransh Khurana walked in.

Drenched in rain. Eyes blazing.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t blink.

He shot Riyan in the knee.

Riyan collapsed, howling.

Viransh knelt beside him. Whispered something in his ear.

Then broke his jaw with one brutal punch.

And finally… slit his throat.

The silence afterward was louder than the violence.

---

Gauri lay in a heap against the wall.

Viransh rushed to her.

Her lip was split. Her shoulder dislocated. Her spirit cracked open.

But her eyes…

They were dry.

“I had him,” she whispered.

Viransh cupped her face. “No. He had you.”

She looked at the blood on his hands.

And the tears came.

Not for Riyan.

For the girl she used to be.

The girl who thought love could be safe.

---

That night, back in the penthouse, he undressed her slowly.

Bathed her wounds. Kissed every bruise.

He held her like she might break — not physically, but inside.

“I wasn’t strong enough,” she whispered.

“You didn’t fail,” he said. “You were tested.”

“And next time?”

His voice was fire. “Next time, no one gets close enough to touch you.”

---

She pulled him onto the bed. Pulled him into her.

It wasn’t sex. It was survival.

She cried in his arms as he made love to her — slow, deep, raw.

No dominance.

Just devotion.

He held her through every tremble, every sob, every curse.

And when they were finished, he whispered:

“You’re mine. Not because you’re broken — but because you refused to stay broken.”

And she fell asleep to the sound of his heartbeat.

Not safe.

But never alone again.