The silence of my penthouse was usually my sanctuary, but today, it felt like a witness to my humiliation.

I paced the floor, the silk of my robe whispering against my legs, as I tried to scrub the memory of yesterday from my mind.

I had screamed. I broke. I had let him see me as a shattered child instead of the vulture he feared.

And that look on Agastya’s face? Pity. It was worse than his violence. It was a brand of weakness I couldn't stomach.

" I fucking hate him," I hissed, taking a long, jagged drag of my cigarette.

Are you sure? My subconscious sneered. Or are you just mad he saw the heart you pretend doesn't exist?

"Fuck off, bitch! Get the fuck out of my head!" I yelled at the empty walls.

The elevator chimed. It was four. My security had already buzzed them up. I stood there, the cigarette smoke curling around my head like a silver shroud, frozen in the middle of the room.

I hadn't cooked—obviously.

The table was lined with high-end takeout containers I’d tried to plate to look "homely," but who was I kidding?

The doors slid open.

First, Shaurya and Avantika, looking like the power couple of the century. Then Advait and Vedika.

Then my sisters. Aira dii’s face was already set in that "I’m going to ruin your life for your own good" expression.

Anvi looked like she was ready to cry again. Then the twins and the cousins.

The elevator doors began to close. My eyes darted to the gap.

Empty.

He didn't come.

A strange, cold hollow opened up in my chest. Why didn't he come?

Bitch, aren't you supposed to be happy? my mind mocked. You wanted him gone. Now he's gone. Celebrate.

"Of course I’m happy," I muttered, but I couldn't move.

I was paralyzed under the collective gaze of the people who actually cared about me.

Aira dii and Anvi marched forward, flanking me like an execution squad. Avantika and Vedika followed close behind.

Avantika didn't even say hello; she simply reached out, plucked the cigarette from my fingers, and crushed it into the crystal ashtray with a finality that made my heart skip.

"Aahana Kashyap," Aira dii started, her voice a low, terrifying simmer.

"Do you have a death wish? Because if you want to die so badly, I can save you the trouble of lung cancer and just strangle you right now!"

"Dii!" Anvi wailed, her eyes widening as she pointed at the overflowing ashtray and the empty coffee mugs on the glass table. "You promised! You said you’d take care of yourself! This place smells like a chimney. Is this how you celebrate a win? By turning your lungs into charcoal?"

Avantika crossed her arms, her eyes flashing. "Aahana, listen to me very carefully. If I see another pack of cigarettes in this house, I am calling your father. No, better yet, I am moving in here and I will personally flush every single one of these down the toilet. You are a brilliant lawyer, but you are acting like a suicidal teenager. It stops today."

Vedika stepped closer, her voice softer but no less firm. "Baccha, we were so proud of you yesterday. But seeing you like this? It’s like you’re trying to burn yourself out from the inside. You think you’re being tough? You’re being reckless. If you don't start eating real food and breathing real air, I will have Shaurya station a guard here just to watch your meals. Don't test us."

" I'm serious, Aahana!" Aira dii yelled, her hand slamming onto the marble counter. "One more cigarette. One more night of surviving on nothing but caffeine and spite, and I will drag you back to the mansion by your hair! I don't care if you're twenty-five or fifty, I am your elder sister and I will break your legs before I let you destroy your health like this!"

"You're scaring me, Dii," Anvi added, her lip trembling. "Please. Just... just stop. For us? If not for yourself, then for Mumma's memory? She’d be heartbroken to see you like this."

I stood there, the "Vulture of the Courtroom," feeling like a five-year-old caught stealing candy. I couldn't even snap back.

Their care was a suffocating, beautiful weight.

In the background, Shaurya, Advait, and the twins were leaning against the far wall, chuckling at my expense.

"She looks like she’s facing a full bench of Supreme Court judges," Atharva whispered loudly.

"Worse," Aryaman grinned. "She’s facing the Wives and Sisters Association. There’s no appeal for this sentence."

Kritika and Ishani were hiding their faces behind their hands, their shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

I was frozen to death—not by fear of my enemies, but by the overwhelming, loud, terrifying love of my family.

And yet, even as they yelled, my eyes kept drifting back to that closed elevator door.

Where was he?

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The silence of the penthouse had turned heavy, pulsating with the rhythm of my own blood.

After everyone left, the quiet was too loud, filled with the absence of the one person I had spent all day pretending I didn't want to see.

I was a mess. A beautiful, high-functioning, intoxicated mess. I had ditched the clothes, opting for the raw freedom of just a loose shirt and silk—but even that felt like too much.

My skin felt electric, sensitive to the cool night air and the dark, tangled thoughts of Agastya Singh Rana.

The case was a puzzle, but he was the labyrinth. I couldn't find the start or the end of him.

I just knew he was under my skin, like a fever that wouldn't break.

I had abandoned the files for the swing on the balcony, the city lights shimmering below like fallen stars.

I was drunk on the seventh glass of wine, high on the nicotine of my third cigarette since the girls left, and absolutely drowning in my own desire.

My brain was a war zone—half of it screaming "Hate him," the other half vividly recalled the way his thick, rough fingers felt against my throat.

The heat was unbearable. It wasn't the weather; it was me. I was burning up from the inside out.

I ditched the shirt, throwing it toward the living room, and crawled under the duvet with nothing but my soaked panties and my pride left to cover me.

I closed my eyes, the swing swaying gently, and then—the air changed.

The temperature in the balcony didn't drop; it spiked. A shadow fell over the moon. I didn't need to open my eyes to know. I knew that scent.

It was the smell of expensive whiskey, the dark smoke of a Cuban cigar, and that haunting, masculine hint of wildflowers that only he carried.

The swing groaned under a new weight.

My heart didn't just beat; it slammed against my ribs, a frantic bird in a cage.

I stayed frozen, my eyes clamped shut, praying to a God I didn't believe in. He didn't say a word. He just moved with the silent, predatory grace of a ghost, sliding under the duvet.

The contact was a shock to my system. My bare back pressed against the wall of his chest.

He was wearing a shirt, but I could feel the heat of his skin, the hardness of his cock, and the terrifying breadth of him.

He was a mountain, and I was just the valley he was about to flood.

And then, his arm moved.

Slowly, possessively, he draped his heavy, tattooed arm over my waist, pulling me backward until there wasn't a single millimeter of air left between us.

His palm, large and calloused, spread over my stomach, his thumb grazing the underside of my breast.

"You're late, Agastya," I whispered, my voice trembling, barely audible over the sound of the wind.

I felt his breath against the shell of my ear—hot, smelling of whiskey and danger.

"I'm exactly on time and......where I'm supposed to be, Kashyap," he growled, his voice a vibration that went straight to my core.

His hand moved lower, his fingers hooking into the waistband of my soaked panties.

I gasped, my eyes flying open to see the dark skyline, but his grip only tightened.

"You've been thinking about me," he murmured, his lips brushing the column of my neck, right where he had left that bruised mark yesterday.

"I can feel it. I can smell it on you."

He turned me over in the narrow space of the swing, pinning me beneath him.

The duvet was a tangled mess around us. In the moonlight, his blue eyes weren't just sexy—they were predatory.

They were the eyes of a man who knew he had already won.

"You hate me, don't you?" he asked, his hand moving up to grip my throat, not enough to hurt, but enough to make me realize who owned the air I was breathing.

"I... I fucking hate you," I breathed, even as I arched my back into his touch, my body betraying every word coming out of my mouth.

A dark, lethal smile spread across his face.

"Good," he whispered, his face descending toward mine. "Keep hating me. But tonight... you're going to scream my name until you forget your own."

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