And the thought arrived with the force of a physical blow:
He'd been doing the same thing to her.
Different tools. Different methods.
But the result was identical—a person systematically dismantled by someone with power over them. Left exposed and bleeding in ways that didn't show.
Cold indifference instead of a knife. Dismissal instead of a fist. The casual, consistent message that she didn't matter, repeated so many times it had carved itself into her.
I didn't think anyone would notice. Or care.
The words she'd said after disappearing for a night. Spoken without bitterness, which was somehow worse. Like she'd genuinely accepted her invisibility as fact.
He'd done that to her.
He'd taken a woman who wrote about love with breathtaking clarity and made her believe she deserved none of it.
"Boss?"
Samarth surfaced. Abhay was watching him with careful eyes.
"We have everything," Abhay said.
Samarth set the knife down. "Finish it."
Abhay's brows rose. "You're leaving?"
"I need to go."
"The Rajput situation still needs—"
"Handle it." He was already moving toward the stairs, stripping off his bloodied gloves. "You know what to do."
"Boss, this is the first time you've ever left before—"
"Abhay." He stopped at the base of the stairs without turning around. "I said handle it."
Silence.
"Yes, boss."
He climbed the stairs and left Elysium without looking back.
Ranawat Estate - 11:23 PM
He drove home with his hands still faintly marked with blood he hadn't entirely cleaned off. The drive should have given himtime to rebuild his walls, to convince himself that what he'd felt in that basement was just a moment of weakness.
It didn't.
He entered through the side door, moving quietly through the dark estate. Everyone was in bed at this hour.
Except—
Light under the library door.
He pushed it open.
Nimisha sat in her window seat, exactly where she always was. Laptop open, brow furrowed, fingers moving over the keyboard with quiet focus. Her hair was loose around her shoulders. She was wearing a simple cotton kurti, her feet curled beneath her.
