The atmosphere in the room was a suffocating blend of ancient rivalries and raw, bleeding hearts.

Dominic looked at me, his eyes wide with a silent warning—this was the nightmare we had whispered about in the shadows of our past, finally standing in the light.

Reyansh and Siddharth were unnervingly still. They weren't looking at my face; they were staring straight into my soul, judging the man I had become and the man I was about to lose.

And Mia... she was the most dangerous variable in the room. Her earlier tremors had vanished, replaced by a predatory focus. She was dissecting Salvatore’s every movement, every twitch of his blood-stained hands.

She was ready to launch a suicide mission just to protect the woman who was her soul-mate in everything but blood.

I remembered Shreya letting Mia hit her without ever fighting back—Mia was the only person on earth allowed to hurt her and keep breathing.

And my "son," Khiraz. He had claimed his mate in front of a God of Destruction without a second's hesitation, while I stood there, paralyzed by the complexity of my own heart.

I watched Shreya. I counted her breaths—fifteen a minute.

I saw the flutter of her pulse in her neck.

My medical mind noted the stats, but my soul felt the shift.

Her heart was racing, but for the first time, I knew the rhythm wasn't for me. It was for Him.

Karma didn't just tap on my shoulder; it caved in my chest. They say Karma waits until you have everything to lose before it strikes.

Today, I felt weak. I felt small. The "Devil of Mumbai" was nothing more than a man watching his world tilt on its axis.

I looked at Salvatore. I wanted to hate him. I wanted to snap his neck. But the realization hit me like a physical blow: his love was purer than mine.

I was selfish; I wanted her here, in my cage, under my name, regardless of the cost.

But Salvatore? He had waited. He had the power to erase me a thousand times over, to avenge his father and brother, yet he stayed silent.

He chose her happiness over his own blood. He chose to protect her from a distance rather than claim a woman who had forgotten him.

The irony was bitter. I would die for her.

But Salvatore? He would never die for her. He would stay alive through every bullet and every blade because he knew that if he fell, no one else in this godforsaken world could truly keep her safe.

I looked at the woman who had taken revenge for our lost child while I stood by.

I heard her screams from yesterday echoing in the silent penthouse. I realized that if she walked out that door today—if she chose the man who had burned a city just to hear her breathe again—I would let her.

I whispered to the hollow ache in my chest, a promise that was both my crown and my cross:

"10 baccho k sath bhi aayegi wapis, tab bhi apna lega yeh Aditya Singh Rathore."

(Even if she returns with ten children, this Aditya Singh Rathore will still accept her as his own.)

"Lekin aayegi wapis tab na..."

(But that's only if she ever comes back...) my inner voice is mocked.

The giant moved another inch closer to the couch.

The panther didn't move. The tigress waited. And I, the King of a crumbling empire, stood back to let destiny finish the play it had started ten years ago in the Siberian snow.

I stood there, the smoke from my cigar stinging my eyes, but the burn in my chest was far worse. I watched the monster—the man who had just painted the lobby of my building in the blood of a hundred men—descend.

Salvatore didn't just kneel; he surrendered. He dropped to his knees before her couch, a giant collapsing at the feet of his only altar.

"Can you help me sit up?" her voice cracked through the silence.

He didn't speak. He didn't hesitate. The hands that had torn chests open minutes ago became the gentlest instruments on earth.

He supported her back, moving with a terrifying precision, ensuring not a single stitch of hers was strained. When she was finally upright, he dropped to both knees.

I had to look away. Seeing the world’s most deadliest predator so vulnerable, so utterly enslaved by her presence, was a humiliation I wasn't prepared for.

I turned to the balcony, staring at the burning horizon of Mumbai, the cigar burning down to my knuckles. I felt the universe laughing at me. I was the husband, the "Lion," the "Devil"—and I was a spectator in my own home.

I turned back, unable to stop myself. I felt that if I stopped looking, she would simply evaporate into the shadows he brought with him.

CRACK.

The sound was like a gunshot. The room didn't just go silent; it died.

Shreya had slapped him. A stinging, violent blow that snapped Salvatore’s head to the side.

I froze.

Dominic looked like he was waiting for the floor to swallow him before the retaliation came.

Reyansh stopped breathing.

Siddharth’s eyes looked ready to pop out of his skull.

Mia was digging her nails into her own palms so hard she was drawing blood.

Even Khiraz and Bella stayed perfectly still, sensing the tectonic shift in the air.

She had just struck the God of Destruction.

Salvatore’s expression remained blank. He didn't growl. He didn't strike back. He slowly turned his head back to face her. His pitch-black eyes met hers, and for a heartbeat, I expected the end of us all.

Instead, his giant hand rose. Khiraz coiled, ready to snap his neck, but the panther stopped.

Salvatore’s palm cupped her face—it was so large it practically shielded her entire profile. His thumb, still stained with the drying blood of my guards, brushed a stray, dried tear from her cheek with the delicacy of a butterfly’s wing.

"Who did this to you, Amore?"

His voice was a low, melodic rasp. It wasn't the voice of a killer; it was the voice of a man whose heart was being flayed alive.

That was when she broke. The "Queen" I knew, the woman who fought through pain and memory loss, dissolved.

Her eyes turned glossy, and then she simply lost it. She lunged forward, burying her face in his blood-soaked shoulder, screaming—not in anger, but in a raw, primal agony that tore through the penthouse.

My jaw tightened until it ached. Watching her find comfort in the arms of the man I was supposed to kill was breaking me into a thousand pieces.

But I saw it. I felt it. There was no lust in his touch. No ego. He was stroking her hair, rubbing her back, anchoring her while she drifted in a sea of pain. Salvatore’s eyes turned a deep, blood-red as he fought to control the monster inside him.

In that moment, the hatred I had nurtured for this man began to dissolve like salt in rain. I finally understood. I understood why he burnt the city. He didn't care about innocence because her innocence had been ripped away too.

The realization hit me like a physical blow to the gut: I was the villain of this story.

Ten years ago, I took his innocence. I took his father, his brother, his home, and his empire. I was the reason he became a shadow. And in return, he didn't hunt me down. He didn't slit my throat in my sleep.

He let me  have her . He let her find a life with me while he stayed in the frozen dark, watching over a woman who didn't even remember his name.

I wanted to hate him. I should have been reaching for my gun to claim my territory. But how do you fight a man who has already given you everything by simply staying away?

I stood there, a King without a crown, watching my wife sob into the chest of the man I had spent a decade trying to destroy—only to realize he was the only one who truly understood the cost of loving her.

The air in the penthouse didn't just turn cold; it died. It became a stagnant, suffocating weight that pressed against my lungs until every breath felt like inhaling shards of the very glass that was about to shatter.

"He... He tried to rape me, Ivan..."

Her voice was a ghost, a thread of silver silk snapping in the dark.

My eyes snapped open, and for a second, the world was nothing but a blur of agony.

I looked at her—my Shreya, my kitten—and the words she whispered felt like a physical blade carving through my chest, twisting in the cavity where my heart used to beat.

"Who?" Salvatore managed to choke out. The word didn't feel like his.

"Simon... he tried to rape me..."

She broke. The dam burst, and she cried with a primal, gut-wrenching force that made the floor feel like it was liquefying beneath me, ready to swallow me whole into the abyss.

I looked around the room, seeing the fallout of her words.

Dominic looked like a man who had already stepped into his own grave, ready to pull the trigger.

Reyansh’s face was a mask of pure, unadulterated loathing—not for her, but for a world that allowed this.

Siddharth’s hand fisted so tightly his knuckles turned a ghostly white, the bones creaking under the strain of his silent rage.

And Mia... she looked like her entire reality had been set on fire. She stood up, to Salvatore, to the predators surrounding Shreya.

She moved like a sleepwalker toward the wreckage of the woman on the floor.

"What did you just say?" Mia whispered, bending down, her voice trembling with a hope that was already dead.

Shreya didn't answer with words at first. She threw herself into Mia’s arms, burying her face in Mia’s chest, her body racking with sobs that sounded like bones snapping.

Then, with a voice so broken it was barely human, she began to pour out the poison.

"He... He tried to rape me... Simon..." Shreya gasped, her fingers clawing at Mia’s clothes. "I trusted him! He was the only man under me... I gave him my trust, and he... he took me. I couldn't say anything, Mia. My body went numb. It was like I was watching it happen from a thousand miles away."

I felt my knees buckle. The room started to spin.

"And when I woke up," she continued, her voice rising into a jagged scream of memory, "he slapped me. Again and again. He slapped me until my cheeks burned, until the world was red. Then he dragged me by my hair, Mia! He dragged me across the floor like I was nothing! He threw me on the ground like trash!"

She was shaking so hard I thought she would shatter.

"I fought! You remember? I fought with everything I had! I told you once... Adi taught me... *'Live like a queen even if your soul is full of scars. Fight even if death is knocking on your door. But kneeling down... giving up... never. Not even in front of Aditya.'* I remembered his words! I fought until my nails bled! But then... then he stabbed me. Right in my old wounds. He knew where I was weak."

I let out a sound that wasn't a sob; it was the sound of a man’s soul tearing in half.

"He started touching me... biting my skin... and when I wouldn't let him, he stabbed me a second time. He made me watch the blade go in, Mia! And then he looked at me and said... he said, *'You are a pathetic whore. You are already used by many men. I don't touch used products.'* I didn't care about that! I know my past! I know who I am! But then he choked me... I almost lost it... I almost let go..."

She gripped Mia tighter, her voice dropping to a haunting, hollow pitch.

"But then... he twisted the knife. He twisted it right there, in my stomach. And he asked me... 'Is this the same stomach you were having Rathore's baby in? But look at you... you never did give him a child.' He said... Mia, he said my child was cursed. Just like me. He said even if the baby had been born, he would have killed him with his own hands. He said I don't deserve a child. That my baby didn't deserve a life."

"How?" Shreya wailed, the sound echoing off the marble walls. "How can he say that about my unborn baby? I never even felt his heartbeat! I never felt him kick! I never got to hear my baby call me 'Mama'! And Adi... Adi never heard his baby call him 'Dada'! How can he call my baby cursed? Why is it always me, Mia? Why does life always betray me? I was finally happy... and now I feel so dirty. Am I cursed? Is it me? What did I do wrong?"

The world turned white.

My vision blurred, and suddenly I wasn't in the penthouse anymore.

I was back in the car. The doctor’s appointment. The ultrasound. Two and a half months of a life we hadn't even met yet. The argument—the stupid, petty fighting. The truck. The impact. The sound of metal screaming.

Her last words: I love you, Adi.

My last words: I love you, kitten.

My knees finally gave out. I hit the floor hard, the impact jarring my teeth, but I couldn't feel it. I couldn't feel anything but the fire in my lungs.

Dominic was there in a second, kneeling beside me, his arms wrapping around me in a desperate attempt to hold my crumbling pieces together.

Salvatore was watching me. His eyes were bloodshot, a single tear escaping his cold exterior before he wiped it away with a trembling hand. The "Distraction" himself was weeping.

"He called my baby cursed, Dominic," I whispered, my forehead resting against his shoulder.

Dominic—the man who had taken five bullets without a flinch, the man who was a fortress of iron—was shaking. He was hugging me and he was crying. The Great Dominic was breaking for me.

"I am cursed, Dominic..." I breathed. "I am the curse."

I looked at Shreya. My kitten. All that pain, all those stabs, all that filth—she endured it because she was associated with me. Because she was mine.

The realization was a physical weight, a mountain dropping onto my chest.

I pushed Dominic away with a sudden, violent surge of self-loathing. He fell back, startled.

I tried to stand, but the air was gone. I was suffocating in a room full of oxygen.

"He's triggering!" I heard Reyansh yell, his voice panicked.

But I wasn't triggering. I was seeing clearly for the first time in years. The air in the room shifted; it grew heavy, thick with the scent of ozone and impending death.

I ripped at my t-shirt, tearing the fabric away because it felt like a noose. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't exist in this skin.

Salvatore looked at me, and I saw it in his eyes—he wanted to reach out. He wanted to help. But he stayed back, because he knew. I didn't deserve help. I didn't deserve comfort.

My nails dug into my palms until the skin split, blood trickling down my wrists.

A sound began to rise from my throat—not a cry, but a low, guttural growl that vibrated in my marrow.

And then, he move.

Khiraz.

My son.

My shield.

He walked toward me, his pace slow and predatory. As he moved, he let out a growl that made the very foundations of the penthouse shiver.

It was the sound of ancient, tectonic rage. Everyone jumped. Shreya stopped sobbing, her tear-stained face turning toward the beast.

Khiraz growled again, heavier this time. The windows rattled in their frames. He stopped in front of me and turned his amber eyes on Dominic, who was still trying to reach for me.

The look in Khiraz’s eyes was unmistakable: Move away from my father right fucking now, or die.

Dominic, paralyzed by a fear he had never known, scrambled backward.

I screamed then.

A raw, jagged sound that tore my throat. "He called my baby cursed, Khiraz! He called your brother or sister a curse!"

Reyansh and Siddharth took a step forward, their faces pale.

Khiraz didn't even look at them. He let out a roar that promised a slow, agonizing death to anyone who dared come closer. Come and die, his posture said. Touch him and burn.

"Khiraz... I didn't even hear his heartbeat..." I wailed, my voice breaking into a thousand pieces.

Dominic tried to shift, perhaps to offer one last bit of support.

Khiraz growled, and the massive glass wall behind me CRACKED. A spiderweb of fractures raced across the surface.

The room froze.

Salvatore looked at Khiraz as if he were staring into the eyes of the Grim Reaper himself. For the first time in his life, Salvatore was terrified.

"Khiraz!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, the agony of the loss, the guilt of the accident, and the horror of Simon’s words coalescing into a single point of madness.

The glass shattered.

Thousands of shards exploded inward, raining down on me. I felt them bite into my back, piercing my skin, pinning my guilt to my flesh. The scent of fresh blood hits the air instantly.

Khiraz smelled it.

He saw the red staining my back, staining his territory, and staining his father.

He didn't move away. He didn't flinch. Instead, he did something that silenced every heart in that room.

Khiraz—the predator, the beast—lowered himself. He lay down directly onto the bed of shattered glass. He let the shards pierce his own skin, mirroring my pain, taking the wounds off the floor onto himself so he could be level with me.

"He called my baby a curse..." I whispered one last time, my forehead touching the floor.

Khiraz let out a low, mournful rumble, his body bleeding alongside mine. He was the only one who understood. In a room full of humans, only the beast knew that when a father loses a child he never got to hold, the only thing left to do is bleed.

Salvatore stood paralyzed, watching the monster and the man, finally understanding that some wounds are too deep for even the strongest to survive. The penthouse was silent, save for the sound of blood dripping onto glass.

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