VEDANT'S POV

SKYLINE ELEVEN

“When are you planning to plan your Bollywood-level entry in her life?” Dhruv's voice — dripping with amusement that had absolutely no business being here — pierced my ears like a needle.

This bastard had no purpose in life other than annoying me. And from the moment my dove entered the picture, he had made it his personal mission to be a constant, dedicated pain in my ass.

I didn't bother responding. Instead, I kept my eyes on her — currently moving around her room, getting ready for bed.

Yes. Please sleep fast. I'm waiting.

It's been a month now. A month of escaping to the only peace this world has ever offered me. I don't just sit beside her bed anymore — now I lie down. At a safe distance. 

And it is absolutely not my fault that she rolls and turns in her sleep and ends up pressed against me.

As much as I freaking crave that specific moment every single fucking day — and I do, desperately, embarrassingly — it is also extremely dangerous. For my heart and the bulge in my pants. Both of them practically combust with pure joy, leaving me behind to manage the aftermath alone.

My heart beats so fast and so loud when she's near that I genuinely question how she hasn't woken up yet — considering she sleeps directly on top of it. On top of it. The level of control I exercise in that moment is, honestly, unmatched. Historic, even.

And then came the hardness. Damn. Not a single morning had passed without a cold shower cold enough to freeze my bones — and still the fire in me kept burning. 

It started with sitting on the floor beside her bed, watching her sleep until my lips ached from smiling and my legs went completely numb from sitting too long. I'd admire her for a while, then work on whatever needed doing, because both felt equally important and somehow even work felt less heavy with her beside me.  

Days passed like that.

But then the beast in me grew hungrier. The craving increased to the point where the line between right and wrong began to burn. 

I needed to be closer. To feel her more. To breathe her in more.

That's when it shifted — from sitting at the corner of the bed to lying beside her, at a careful distance. And I don't even know exactly when it happened, because all of it felt so natural. 

Like we had done this a thousand times before. 

It started with just one inch closer. Just propping on one elbow to see her better. Just a little more. And all those small, incremental surrenders added up until one night I was lying beside her sleeping peacefully. 

Yes. Actually sleeping.

I still remember that morning clearly. I opened my eyes and just — lay there. It hadn't been long. Two, maybe three hours. But it was enough to shake something loose inside me.

Because I hadn't slept. Not in years. Not without jolting awake seconds later with gut-wrenching images from the worst days of my life playing behind my eyes, dragging me back to the surface. My body had simply stopped functioning the way normal bodies need to. So I kept it running on black coffee and medication instead.

The insomnia arrived years ago — not like an illness you recover from, but like a life sentence with no appeal. Until now. 

She is unknowingly becoming a cure for everything.

I never let it slow me down or become a hurdle in my empire. I did the opposite of what every doctor advised — instead of treating it, I weaponised it. More hours awake meant more investment into the empire I was building with blood and sleepless nights. I took medication that kept my mind sharp and my body functional regardless of sleep. 

And I was fine with that. Mostly. 

Except for the times when everything became too heavy and I just wanted to disappear somewhere quiet for a while — but there was nowhere to go.

Until now. I found my peace in her.

That night, like every other night, I was lying beside her — at this point I'm fairly certain an earthquake wouldn't even wake her — tracing my finger along the curve of her face, just to feel the warmth of her skin against mine. And somewhere between one breath and the next, I was gone. Pulled under into the deepest, most peaceful sleep I'd had in years.

In her arms.

Fuck. Hell. 

I know I am unhinged.

I know how this looks. And yes, if she ever found out about any of this, she'd probably think the worst of me — a cheap pervert, which I am not. 

But she's mine. Everything about her is mine. And there's nothing wrong with lying beside what's yours. Right?

I'm aware that consent exists. I'm very well aware that morals exist too. The problem is that none of it applies when I'm near her — years of discipline and restraint turn to ash the second she's within arm's reach. I work on autopilot. I always have, with her.

I am so drowned in her that it might scare her away. But even then I wouldn't let her run. She belongs with me. Just like I belong with her.

In this one month, I've learned so much about her. 

She's spice-intolerant — which was pretty much guessable given her near-religious devotion to sweets. 

She’s a workaholic — If I thought I was the biggest one then my wife is definitely giving me genuine competition in it. 

And she loves that brat Vidhi with a ferocity that irritates me more than I'd like to admit.

I have memorized her every routine like a prayer. I could recite the rhythm of her entire day without glancing at a single camera feed or her schedule. Maybe she should hire me as her assistant. Hmm. That way I could have more time with her. I'll surely consider it seriously.

I had followed her everywhere this month like a shadow — the park for yoga, college, office, wherever she went. And if somehow I couldn't follow her physically, my devices and sources were already there ahead of me.

Though I think she has started to suspect something. I've watched her turn toward shadows more than once — as if she felt someone there. My dove is sharper than she lets on.

And all of it only pulled me deeper into her.

Still, I didn't want her to become even slightly aware of me hiding in the shadows — that would raise her walls too high for me to break. But somehow, till now, she had managed to convince herself she was just being paranoid. And that was good. That was exactly where I needed her.

"Till when are you planning to hide like this in the shadows?" Dhruv grumbled, propping himself on his elbow and squinting at me.

I exhaled. "I don't know."

None of my plans had ever failed — not in business, not in anything else. Every single one had worked exactly the way I'd wanted.

But this is the first time I'm genuinely scared.

Scared of the what ifs.

What if the plan didn't work? What if I messed up and she ran further away — No. I couldn't let that happen.

Which is exactly why I haven't been able to finalize a single solid plan in this entire month. None of them offered the guarantee I needed, and when it came to her I wanted a hundred percent guarantee on everything. Nothing less.

I stood from the couch when I saw her settling into sleep.

Time to go back to my peace. 

"You can't live like this forever," Dhruv stated, falling back against the pillow with the ease of someone who had clearly made himself at home in my penthouse. As he had been doing, every night, for a month.

"Remind me again — why are you here?" I stared at him flatly, as he texted someone on his phone which he was doing for an hour now I think so and also eating my brain in between. 

"Moral support," he replied, eyes glued to his phone, a disgusting smirk on his face. "From here." He glanced up at me briefly just long enough to confirm his own smugness, then went straight back to whatever had been occupying him for the past hour.

I rolled my eyes, gave him one last look of pure boredom, and moved toward the balcony.

Sometimes, on the way over, the thought catches me — that what I'm doing is wrong — barging into her private space while she was asleep and unaware. Because this was wrong in ways I can list clearly and logically.

And then the beast in me whisper-reminds me that I've never been a good person. I've never valued morals as anything other than a tool other people use. So why start now?

The sane part of me doesn't understand the depth of my need for her. How deeply she was carved into every bone, every cell, every quiet corner of me.

So I did what satiated the beast.

Fucked the morals.

Hell. I am so gone for her.

I crossed to the balcony gate, entered the code — Vidhi's birthday, that brat — and unlocked it. A month of this, and somehow it still feels like the first time. Every single night.

The moment her scent wraps around me like a cocoon, every demon in me goes quiet. Becomes something small and manageable. Hers. 

I don't understand the spell she holds over me without even trying — but the level of power she has over a man like me should terrify me.

Instead it filled me with a primal hunger to simply be tamed by her. 

My feet moved on their own through the room, muscle memory by now.

One thing I had noticed over the past month — she never let the room go completely dark. She always kept her bedside lamp on, or some other light, before going out or even while sleeping. 

Maybe she is afraid of the dark.

A voice whispered in me, as I stared ahead at her sleeping peacefully in the centre of bed. 

The thought settled like a heavy stone on my chest.

Because if she was afraid of darkness — then what about me?

I am darkness. 

A darkness so heavy that even all her little lamps put together wouldn't be enough to light it. 

Would she be afraid of me too?

I shook the thought away before it could root itself. Whatever it took — I would never let my darkness be a reason for her to fear me. Never.

I walked to the side of the bed.

Our bed. Yes, ours. Whatever was hers or mine before doesn't matter anymore. Everything is ours now — mine and my dove's. 

And from that logic, sleeping in our bed doesn't strike me as wrong. Not even a little. Others can have opinions about it.

Fuck other people's opinions.

Thankfully Dhruv doesn't know about the sleeping part. He only knows I come here. If he knew the rest, he would have eaten my ears with a lecture for the next three years without pausing for breath.

As if I would give a single fucking thought to anything where she's concerned. Huh!

I lowered myself slowly onto my side of our bed. For a few minutes I just looked at her — her face in sleep, so quiet, so unbothered, more beautiful than she had any right to be at this hour.

How did she manage to look this serene even while sleeping?

I had already removed my shoes in our second penthouse below, because she was too suspicious. What if she found footprints, or worse, heard footsteps. Everything would be doomed. 

Not that my Dove was a light sleeper — she could sleep through practically anything. But the Thirdwheel-Brat in the room beside ours was definitely not.

I learned that the hard way. One night Dhruv called me and my phone rang in the pin drop silence of our room — not even loud, barely anything — and that brat heard it from the next room and walked straight into our room. Not even having a decency to knock or hesitate.  Just barged in like she owned the place. Truly a brat. 

I barely made it behind the curtain in time.

Thankfully I hid in time. And before she could wake my dove or continue searching, her own phone rang and she left — but not before fucking kissing my dove's forehead like some shitty lover.

I seriously wanted to puke then and there just by seeing this. 

I swear I genuinely wanted to throw her out right then and there. The only reason I didn't was because my dove would have wasted too many precious tears over her. After she left I wiped my dove's entire forehead with cotton wipes I'd found in the room and then placed my own indirect kisses there.

Hell. The things I do.

I want to place my lips properly on her skin so badly it's become background noise. The warmth of her, the softness — I know exactly what it would feel like. I'll get there. Just not yet. Not until she knows me.

I lay down at the edge of our bed, then propped myself on my elbow and turned toward her. Our faces a few inches apart — close enough to make my heart rate do something embarrassing and that fucking bulge do something worse.

I am genuinely unwell for this woman.

But if the view was this beautiful and reserved entirely for me, I'll suffer it gladly.

My fingers moved without permission, tracing the curve of her face. She always felt like cotton under my calloused hands. Warm, impossibly soft, completely unaware of what she does to me.

And then — the moment I wait for. Every single night.

She shifted. Shifted again. And then —

Her legs were thrown around mine, arms circling my waist like a vice grip, and hell –- her face pressed directly against my chest — against my heart, which was now conducting itself like an entire orchestra.

I am a man with no patience. Ask anyone. But for this. This particular heaven, I wait like a child standing at the back of a very long line just for a single piece of candy.

Except my dove is the best candy. And I already know she'll taste the sweetest too. 

Even though I hate sweets.

I pressed my nose into her soft, silk strands and inhaled. She smelled so good. Like mine. Only mine. 

I don't wrap my arms around her — no matter how much I want to. No matter how desperately I was dying to fold her in so completely that no one else can even see her. But that's not for now. 

There is a saying that waiting only increases hunger for that thing tenfold.

And that's exactly what I was doing. 

Chaining my beasts so hard, so that when they finally get their chance — — when I finally hold her properly and she knows — it won't just be holding. It'll be claiming. In a way she won't forget. In a way she remembered only me. Only my touch.

I took a deep breath, jaw clenching, fingers curling into a fist, knuckles white from the sheer restraint, held together by one very frayed thread.

Hell. When it snapped, I didn't know what would happen.

One moment I was holding myself together — and the next I melted like fucking butter as she nuzzled her face deeper into my chest. Completely. Instantaneously. Like I wasn't a man who had tortured someone to death this morning.

" Fuck," I cursed under my breath. Her legs were in a very wrong place today, especially her knee — positioned specifically — directly above the bulge that is too tightened and painful to ignore.

Sometimes I think I come here just to collect new forms of suffering from her. But then I look at her face and damn — every single one of them becomes worth it without question.

And no worries. Once I have her properly — in the future that is already mine — I will be collecting on every cold shower. With interest.

My hand moved to her face to brush the hair away from my view. And then, like I had quietly formed this month, I pressed indirect kisses — from her face to mine. Lips never quite landing where they wanted to.

“What had you made me into?” I chuckled softly, genuinely amused by the strange things I did around her. 

I used to think the softness in me had died somewhere along the way. 

But she proved me wrong. Just by existing within breathing distance of me.

She stirred slightly in her sleep. My hand froze in the air. Her lips parted as she mumbled something. 

Don't wake up. Please don't wake up.

I could feel the panic rising before I could stop it, my heart — which had been beating loudly just seconds ago — practically freezing in fear. Pure frozen panic.

But then she scooted closer, tucked her head right above my heart like it was her throne — which it is — and just like that it started beating again in its usual erratic mess. Loud and chaotic as ever.

I exhaled so slowly it was more like deflating.

Thank every hell that exists.

If she had opened her eyes — what would I have even said? There is no sentence in any language that covers this situation adequately. And frankly, I would have fainted before I got the words out anyway.

'If she'd woken up, you'd have passed out on her floor.'

This fucker in my head could seriously use a vacation instead of poking his nose like the bastard downstairs who was definitely still buried in his phone.

Ignoring both of them, I focused on her again, settled and peaceful against me.

Staring at her, the same question Dhruv had asked earlier drifted back.

“Till when are you planning to hide like this in the shadows?”

Honestly? I still don't have the answer. 

But I need to find one soon. Because staying in the shadows forever means staying out of her life — and that is not something I'm willing to accept.

"I promise," I said quietly, sealing the promise by pressing an indirect kiss to her forehead even though my lips were desperate to do it properly, but I stopped myself. Huh! Gentleman. "We will meet again, face to face. And this time I won't let you disappear into the crowd." I let my fingers hover there for a moment longer than necessary. 

After that, like every night before this one, I let myself be pulled under — into a world where I don't have to hide from her, where there's nothing in those hazel brown eyes when they looked at me except something warm, something bright — something like love. 

A world where it's just the two of us, without the chaos and shadows of everything I've built and everything I've destroyed.

Just us.

And I would make sure that world became real.

Because Vedant Raisinghaniya went to any length for his goals and dreams.

And this one — this dream of just us, her and me — was the most important one of all.

.

.

.

.

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AUTHOR’S POV 

CRESTWOOD SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

The college corridor was buzzing with students moving toward the vast garden, enjoying themselves after their lecture got cancelled — a once in a blue moon sight.

“Why do you wake up so early these days?” Vidhi whined, looking at Aashi who was walking backwards facing her. 

“I don’t know,” Aashi shrugged. "Nowadays I am waking up way before my alarm can even ring, all because I can’t find the same position I slept in the whole night.” She pouted slightly, scratching her eyebrow slightly in genuine confusion. 

She had no idea, of course.

No idea that she spent every night in the arms of a man her soul had somehow recognized before her eyes ever could. 

Every morning, just before Vedant left her room, he'd spray the same room freshener she used — so no trace of him lingered behind. 

And every single time he prepared to slip out, she would stir in her sleep, turning here and there — because the warmth she'd had all night had vanished. 

That sight, every morning without fail, pulled him deeper than anything else had managed to. Because it told him he wasn't the only one who felt the pull of whatever existed between them — even if she didn't understand what she was reaching for yet — meant everything to him.

“If you can’t sleep again, then why are you destroying my sleep too?” Vidhi grumbled, throwing her hands in the air clearly done with her best-friend being her sleep-enemy. 

“Akele uthke maja nhi ayega na…”Aashi batted her lashes in complete innocence, lips twisting in a mischievous smile.

[Where's the fun in waking up alone?] 

Vidhi's face contorted in disbelief. She nodded lightly, pointing a finger at Aashi and lunged toward her — but Aashi was faster, already spinning around to run.

To her utter bad luck, the moment she turned she collided straight into someone. Before the impact could send them both to the ground and turn them into the afternoon's entertainment for the entire college, the guy's arm wrapped around her waist and caught her wrist in one smooth motion, suspending her mid-fall. 

One of Aashi's hands was held by him, the other had landed on his shoulder, her eyes shut tight. 

The guy just stared at her — forgetting entirely that they were now surrounded by practically the whole college.

He didn't let go. Didn't pull her back to the ground either.

After a few seconds she peeked one eye open to check she hadn't fallen — and the moment she saw a stranger holding her, she straightened herself immediately.

She yanked her hand from his shoulder like the contact had burned her and rubbed her palm against her jeans. The guy said nothing. Just kept staring, making no attempt to remove his hands.

She cleared her throat, very aware of every student watching them. Still, he didn't move — and his lips twisted into a slow smirk that had no warmth in it whatsoever,

"I never knew the great Aashi Khanna would fall for me." His smirk grew wider as his words grew bolder.

Her brows pinched together. Then she twisted her wrist sharply in his grip, freeing herself. "This much delusion isn't good, Mr." She dug her nails sharply into the arm still around her waist and swatted it away.

He raised a brow, glancing at his wrist where her nails had left crescent marks. No girl had ever dismissed him like that — his ego stung from the sheer audacity of it, and in front of the whole college no less. "Feisty. But don't you think it's too early to be marking me?" He smirked, holding up his wrist.

Aashi tilted her head slightly and let out a quiet laugh — she knew exactly what he was trying to do.

"One thing you’ve got right. I am very feisty…" She trailed off, letting him think she was agreeing. He raised a brow.

"But not for you. And I don't mark dirt as mine." The sly smile that followed landed like a clean hit. It did more damage to his already bruised ego than the words themselves. 

The students around them exchanged gleeful looks — because everyone at Crestwood knew Aashi Khanna, and everyone knew her particular way of bruising egos.

But the guy in front of her wasn't some ordinary college boy. 

Laksh Goyal. Known across Crestwood for one thing — playing people. He moved through girls the way most people moved through seasons: easily, without attachment, always onto the next. They came to him willingly, drawn in by money and the particular confidence of a man who had never been told no. He was the only son of the Goyals, whose hospital chains stretched across all of Northern India. He was used to getting what he wanted. 

"Dirt?" Laksh's face shifted into something harder as he repeated the word. He took a step toward her — the kind of step designed to make someone step back. 

She didn't move an inch. Chin up, eyes steady, not a trace of fear.

"Aren't you one?" she shot back, every trace of the gratitude she might have felt for being saved evaporating the moment she caught the way his eyes had raked over her.

"Tsk, tsk." He held her gaze. "Too much attitude for such a pretty face." His eyes moved over her again, slow and deliberate, in a way that made the skin crawl.

She smirked right back at him. "Tsk tsk. Too much cockiness for such an assholic face."

The effect was instant. Her friends in the crowd burst into laughter, along with a good portion of the other students. A few controlled themselves, not wanting to deal with Laksh's anger later.

Laksh looked seconds away from exploding. His jaw tightened, his face burned. Until today no one in this college had dared to laugh at him — and now, because of one girl, his image was crumbling in real time.

"You—" He pointed a finger at her.

"Yes, me," she said simply, lips pressed in a thin line.

He glared hard at her, nose flaring in anger. She looked back at him with pure indifference, as if dealing with people like him was just part of her routine.

Neither of them backed down — eyes locked, both trying to finish the other without touching.

Then Laksh smirked at her, and clapped in a mocking manner. “Seems like the Khanna princess was never taught manners.” He bent slightly forward, coming on eye level with her. 

Aashi’s brow furrowed in confusion, while now the indifference in her eyes was replaced, just briefly, with something harder. She hated that phrase — Khanna princess — and the way it erased everything she was down to just a surname.

"Instead of thanking me for saving you," he continued, satisfaction flickering across his face as he watched her jaw tighten, "you're here mocking me. Didn't your father teach you even that much?"

Silence.

The kind that feels like a held breath. Even the surrounding noise seemed to pull back.

Because everyone present understood — this was the moment. After today they wouldn't just be passing strangers. They would be two people actively trying to pull the other down. And both of them were very good at that.

Aashi's doe eyes narrowed dangerously. Her teeth ground together, jaw set, hands fisted at her sides — controlling every urge to send her fist directly across his creepy face.

She took a deep breath, caging her urge to give him black-blue bruises. 

And smiled — a smile more dangerous than anything she'd said yet, the kind that visibly unsettled the confidence Laksh had walked in with.

She stepped forward, looked him dead in the eyes, and said in a firm, mocking tone — "From what I can see, it looks like Goyal's magarmach is the one lacking basic decency."   

[Crocodile] 

His jaw tightened, he opened his mouth. But she didn't let him.

"What? Did your father forget to teach you how to respect a woman instead of looking at her like a piece of meat?" She tapped her chin lightly, tilting her head. "Or did he only teach you how to poke your useless foot in someone's path so you could swoop in and play the hero?" 

Laksh's eyes went wide.

He had done exactly that. When he'd spotted her running, he'd deliberately planted his foot in her path — convinced that Aashi would fall for his charms the way every other girl did. He'd imagined it would make him more famous, having a girl like Aashi Khanna on his arm. It had all fallen apart spectacularly under her CCTV eyes.

The crowd murmured among themselves, discreetly passing quiet mocking looks toward Laksh, whose ego was now in pieces under her glares and words.

But she wasn't finished — not after he'd brought up her father.

"And about manners — my father taught me plenty of them. He also taught me how to show people like you their place." Her chin lifted. Her voice didn't waver. 

"Never. Ever. Go. On. My. Father."

She raised her finger at him, punctuating every word for every single person present. 

With that she turned to leave. Her friends started moving toward her, the crowd beginning to disperse with barely concealed laughter directed at Laksh.

But he wasn't finished absorbing this much insult. He took long strides toward her, jaw set, rage barely contained.  "Where do you think you’re going?"

Every student froze again. Who wants to miss this big gossip?

Aashi sighed heavily and turned back around. Looked at him with the specific brand of boredom she reserved for things she'd already grown tired of. "What? Want me to bruise your already fragile male ego more?”

She shook her head slightly and continued in a voice so sweetly pleasant it was almost violent given the situation. "Even if you want that, I'm not free. Unlike your father, who apparently only taught you how to be a spoiled kid jumping like a monkey on his father's money — my dad taught me to value money and be ambitious. So unlike you, I have my own company to run instead of whoring around."

She ended it with a tight-lipped smile and turned away.

Laksh looked, at that moment, like he might genuinely explode. Fire practically leaving his ears. He wanted to kill her then and there. He'd heard about her — everyone had — but hearing about Aashi Khanna's sharpness and standing in front of it were two entirely different experiences. 

He'd made a mistake coming at her, and he knew it, and that made the humiliation worse. His image was destroyed. But he couldn't back down now. He would make sure to return every bit of this in the worst way possible.

His knuckles had gone white. His face was red. He pointed at her, voice low and gritted "Game on, Khanna. Just wait and watch how I fuck that attitude of yours."

"You fucker — how dare you?" Ankit and Raghav's faces morphed in immediate anger. Both surged forward to deliver punches.

But Aashi stepped between them before they could reach him, stopping them with a look. They held their ground, still seething. 

Shivani and Sai stared at Laksh with open disgust.

Vidhi — who had been building to a boiling point from the moment he opened his mouth — was already past the point of holding back. 

While Aashi was busy stopping the boys — planning to handle the slap herself — Vidhi's patience ran out. Her knee connected hard with Laksh's abdomen.

He doubled over with a groan, clutching his stomach.

Aashi turned to Vidhi with an annoyed look. "I wanted to do that," she whined, pouting slightly.

Vidhi didn't even glance at her. She kept her eyes on Laksh like a laser, piercing his soul. "Talk to her once more like that, and next time it'll be your pea size dick which you love to bury in your whores.” She pointed a finger at him. "Know your limits."

The whole college stared at the scene with open mouths. Laksh's already hanging-by-a-thread image received its final blow. What Aashi had started, Vidhi had finished. Their friend group exchanged quiet victorious looks. Aashi was still throwing an annoyed glance at Vidhi for stealing her chance to do that.

Then a loud voice cut through the crowd from behind. 

"What is happening here?"

The crowd parted. Anmol walked through.

Every student straightened immediately. Laksh's friends came forward to help him stand. "You all got one free period and this is what you're doing with it?" Anmol snapped, scanning each of them. All heads dropped, shivering under glare. 

Because it didn't matter who you were at Crestwood — Anmol Bansal's presence commanded a specific kind of respect and admiration from every single student, without exception. 

No one spoke a word, all heads looking at the ground silently listening to his scoldings. Anmol scanned them like a scanner when his eyes landed on Laksh, hunched slightly, one hand still pressed to his stomach.

"What happened to you?"

Laksh stayed quiet — knowing full well he was the only one at fault here.

"Will any of you speak?" He pressed his fingers to his forehead, patience visibly thinning.

Sai stepped forward with confident strides and held out her phone. She played a clip — she had started recording from the very beginning — initially just to tease Aashi about the collision later, with no idea how quickly things would spiral. The clip played from the moment Laksh had caught her, through every exchange, right up to the end. 

Laksh glared at her. Sai rolled her eyes at him, earning a badly suppressed laugh from her group.

Anmol's expression hardened progressively as the video played. By the end, he looked up and fixed his gaze on Laksh with the kind of finality that didn't invite discussion. "You apologize to Aashi. Right now."

Laksh's eyes went wide. He opened his mouth — Anmol got there first. "Right now, before I have your TC prepared." His voice left no room.

Aashi folded her arms across her chest and smiled at Laksh with precisely the amount of satisfaction the moment deserved. He was glaring back at her with everything he had. The rest of the students watched quietly with full interest.

"Sir—"

"NOW." 

Anmol's voice filled the corridor. Every person present flinched slightly. Even those not directly involved. 

Laksh's jaw clenched so hard it was audible. He swallowed the humiliation because he couldn't afford to upset Anmol and have a TC.

"S–so–sorry," he whispered — barely audible even to the people beside him.

Aashi raised a brow. A quiet laugh escaped her watching him struggle with a single word.

"Louder," Anmol said flatly, glaring hard.

"Sorry." Louder this time, clear enough for everyone.

But Aashi wasn't done. "Sir, I can't quite hear him," she remarked, blinking with complete innocence at Anmol, who sighed at her antics. Her friends bit their lip hard to contain their laughter. 

Before Anmol could order again, Laksh looked at her and snapped. "What? Having hearing problems besides being bitchy?"

"What? Having delulu problems besides being a manwhore?" she fired back instantly.

"Who do you think of yourself? Huh?" He snorted

"Charming, clearly." She flipped her hair.

"There's nothing charming about you."

"You seemed to think otherwise when you were playing the hero, didn't you?"

"That—"

"ENOUGH." Anmol's voice silenced the corridor completely.

Both of them were still glaring at each other.

"Laksh, a proper apology. Now," Anmol ordered, then looked at Aashi with an even look. "And this time, hear clearly." 

Neither of them argued. Neither of them wanted to push him further.

"Sorry," Laksh gritted out. Loud. Clear. An apology with absolutely no meaning behind it— while internally he was already planning exactly how he would make her regret every word of today.

Anmol nodded, then looked at Aashi, who had been preparing to say otherwise. She caught her professor's glare and closed her mouth.

"I heard that," she said after a beat. Then — "But I don't accept forced apologies."

She turned on her heels and walked away, her friends falling into step beside her.

“In my office. Now” Anmol gave Laksh one last warning look and moved off.

Behind them, the murmur of the crowd picked up again, the story already forming and spreading about how the boy famous for his spoiled image and his father's money had just been thoroughly, publicly, and completely dismantled by Aashi Khanna in the span of ten minutes. 

His only mistake was thinking he could walk up to her and turn on the charm.

And that was the beginning of his demise — because he didn't know that Aashi only stopped at words.

But the man behind her was far from done.

ABODE

Vedant watched the whole ordeal through the camera feed, and what his sources hadn't already told him, the footage filled in. Every second of it was enough to drop the temperature of his home office by several degrees — a sharp contrast to the rising primal anger building in him.

His eyes turned black. His jaw tightened so hard his teeth were practically begging for mercy.

He didn't like the way that fucker's arm had been around his Dove. He wanted to burn his hand clean through the camera screen, just like something in his chest was burning watching a scene that should never have happened.

"Aarav," he seethed, gaze fixed on the screen. Every muscle in him wanted to straddle that guy — and he would do that for sure no matter how she had handled it. 

"Yes, Boss," Aarav gulped, his stomach coiling. Because the man sitting in front of him right now looked exactly like Vedant before Aashi — not a single trace of softness, just unhinged, concentrated rage that could burn cities to the ground.

"Bring this guy to me," Vedant ordered coldly, a dangerous smirk settling on his face as he mentally planned the boy's funeral with his own hands.

Aarav didn't dare look at him directly. He nodded quickly. "Yes, Boss."

The office door opened. Both men looked up — though Vedant barely pulled his attention from the screen, busy planning the most lethal death in history and a part of him already knew who is this much free these days. 

"What are you two watching?" Dhruv walked in with his usual confident stride, both hands in his pockets, completely unbothered by the sub-zero atmosphere, as if the temperature in the room wasn't actively trying to freeze everyone in it. 

"A video from madam's college," Aarav replied in a carefully low voice, trying not to draw more of Vedant's attention.

Dhruv's brow furrowed. He moved behind Vedant, who was replaying the clip again and again— zooming in on the exact moment when some bastard's hands had been on her.

Each replay stoked the fire higher. His fist clenched slowly, knuckles going white, and then he slammed it down on the desk. "How dare he." It came out as a growl from somewhere deep in his chest. 

Neither man in the room flinched. They had seen this side of Vedant before. But something like — this specific, blinding kind of rage over one person — this hadn't happened in the past month. Ever since he found his Dove, his anger had been surprisingly contained. Until now.

"What are you still doing here? Go get him," Vedant said, fixing Aarav with a stare that made the man's insides rearrange themselves. Aarav turned immediately to leave.  

"Wait."

Dhruv's voice stopped him at the door. He turned to face Vedant, who was now looking at him with eyes that could cut glass.

He exhaled. "What exactly do you think you're doing? She handled him on her own. Very well, might I add."

Vedant stood from his chair, the metal scraping against the floor in a sound as threatening as its owner who was on the verge of losing. "So what? No one had the right to touch her or speak to her like that." His jaw was clenched too tight. The image was still burning behind his eyes — someone else's arm around her waist, like it had any business being there. Like a blade between his ribs that kept twisting.

Dhruv didn't move from his spot — too used to Vedant's anger to waver. He dragged a hand through his hair and pushed out a breath. "Why are you not seeing the simple thing here — if you kill him, you're making her problem worse, not better. The moment he turns up dead, the first person they look at is Aashi — she's the last one he was publicly at odds with. Everyone in that college saw it." 

"I'll handle it," Vedant replied flatly.

"Sure. You'll handle the case, the police, the law…" Dhruv paused, letting that sit for a second before adding quietly, "But what about Aashi?"

Vedant's expression shifted slightly. 

Dhruv continued, in the tone of a best friend who had long made peace with the fact that his sharp, calculating, terrifying friend had zero functioning brain cells when it came to the love of his life.

"Won't it raise suspicions — that the very day after their fight, the guy just dies? We've both seen how smart she is. She won't ignore that. She'll start connecting things. And then she'll start digging." He held Vedant's gaze. "And boom — she finds out about you. And you are not planning that face reveal anytime soon, are you?"

Vedant stayed silent for a long moment, working through it.

Much to his dismay, Dhruv was right. Again.

But this didn't mean the bastard was walking away clean. He couldn't kill him — fine. But he could ensure that arm would remember, for the rest of its life, where it had been and what it had touched. 

And he would find a way to make it look ordinary enough that nothing pointed back to her.

A growl cut through his thoughts.

He turned toward the sofa in the corner of his office — the one tucked in the darker part of the room, almost hidden from view. And there sat Ace, sprawled across it in all his glory.

Ace rose from the sofa, his large paws landing on the floor with a soft thap-thap that somehow matched the elevated heartbeats of two of the three men in the room. Neither Dhruv nor Aarav had registered his presence until this moment — and if they had known earlier, they would have found other arrangements.

His dangerously gleaming golden eyes were the first thing visible as he moved out of the shadow. Dangerously bright, catching every available sliver of light. Then his face — with those teeth that had torn through prey without a single ounce of mercy.

He walked straight toward Dhruv.

Dhruv was behind Vedant before Ace had taken three steps, both hands clutching the back of Vedant's shirt like it was a life raft. "T-tell hi-him to stay away from me." His voice had gone somewhere between a whisper and a prayer, knuckles white.

Aarav had pressed himself flat against the door like he was blending himself with it, one hand already finding the handle, entire body prepared to be elsewhere. He was calculating exactly how quickly he could open it and be on the other side if Ace so much as looked his way.

"I have a job for you," Vedant said, his voice softening at the edges as he extended a hand to ruffle Ace's mane.

Ace swatted it away with supreme indifference and pushed his nose pointedly toward Vedant's other hand — the one with the ring. 

Vedant let out a short, purely sarcastic chuckle and narrowed his eyes. He hadn't realized he was raising a competitor in his own home. If he was possessive about his dove, Ace was no less so about his mother.

He remembered the days he was still making sense of the storm she had created in him — not yet knowing what to call it, not yet understanding what was happening. Ace had sensed the change before Vedant could name it. A warmth. A peace in his father's eyes that hadn't been there before.

One day Vedant had told him about Aashi. He had even shown Ace the painting he'd done of her. Ace's eyes had softened — the same way his father's did. And that was the moment two of the most dangerous beings on this earth had quietly, completely bowed to her.

But it didn't end there.

Ace was feared by everyone in Vedant's world — no matter how powerful or fearless they considered themselves. If Vedant was inhumane, his lion was feral. His loyalty had always, without exception, belonged to Vedant. His father's word was final.

Until he got his mother.

He had never met her. All he had of her was what his father told him, what he overheard people saying, the paintings on the walls of their home — and the ring on his father's finger.

"You're still sulking?" Vedant sighed, narrowing his eyes at Ace who was giving him a very deliberate side-eye while staring at the ring. "She will be with us soon. Then you can meet her."

Ace shook his head slightly — as if to say that he knew exactly how long his father's soon had been. A month of the same promise and counting.

It had started when Ace discovered Vedant's nightly visits to Aashi and trailed behind him the whole day with the hope of finally meeting his mother — only to be crushed when he was left behind every single time. In revenge, he had defied Vedant's orders for the first time in his life. 

If he was told to tore a prey, he'd let it go. He'd shooed the guards away, cleared escape paths — creating more work for his father so he'd have no time to leave.

But nothing was ever going to keep Vedant from her. No amount of extra work, no chaos. He returned to her arms every night regardless. The only place that had ever truly felt like it was meant for him.

But the sulking had continued.

"Fine. This job is about Dove anyway," Vedant said, shaking his head slightly — knowing precisely where both their weak points were.

The effect was instant. Ace's ears came forward. His head snapped toward Vedant. The gold of his eyes lit with something unmistakably eager — because this was the first time he'd been given something to do for her. He practically vibrated with the restraint of not visibly jumping. 

Vedant smiled at his enthusiasm. He loved the way Ace loved his Dove without ever having met her in reality. She had wrapped two of the most feral creatures on this earth around her finger without even knowing it existed — and that thought alone filled his chest with something warm.

Dhruv stared at the two of them from behind Vedant's shoulder in complete disbelief. His eyes twitch with the absurdity of whatever this supposed deadly creature is doing. He still couldn't coexist in a room with Ace without fear. And yet somehow a girl this creature had never laid eyes on had become so important to him that he was sulking at his own owner for her.

"Good boy," Vedant said, moving to ruffle Ace's mane with the hand that wore her ring. Ace leaned into it — or more accurately, into the ring — pressing his large head against it with the kind of quiet, absolute devotion that made Dhruv feel slightly insane. 

Vedant crouched down to his level, one hand still moving through the thick fur, "You have to tear someone's arm apart," he gritted, voice dropping low, jaw tight — the image from the camera still burning behind his eyes.

His expression turned cold, then his lips curved into the kind of smirk that promised someone's worst night. "But not completely. Make sure he is alive — just a very bruised arm that knows its place."

Ace stared at his father radiating quiet, controlled danger. He didn't fully understand why — but it was something to do with his mother. That was the only qualification that mattered. He pressed his head deeper into Vedant's palm — agreement, in the only language he used. 

Vedant's smile sharpened. A predator looking at another predator and finding perfect understanding. "I'll take you out tonight to finish it." He stroked his head once more before rising back to his full height. 

"Such a devil," Dhruv murmured from his corner.

Vedant rolled his eyes and looked past him at Aarav, still flattened against the door like wallpaper with a pulse. "Find this bastard's location, abduct him, and drop him somewhere near the Abode. Make it look like a standard ransom kidnapping — nothing that points anywhere." He paused, glanced at Ace, and the smirk returned. And then Ace will handle the rest." 

Dhruv and Aarav both stared at him. He was absolutely not letting this go until blood had been spilled.

Aarav nodded — what else was there to do. He waited a beat for further orders. "Anything else, Boss?" 

Vedant sat back in his chair. On one side, Dhruv had finally emerged from hiding and pulled a chair to sit beside him. On the other, Ace had settled — and was staring at Dhruv with completely blank golden eyes, which was somehow worse than if he'd looked threatening.

"Hmm," Vedant nodded, pointing at a stack of files. "I've signed these, take them. And what about the report I asked on Imperial Crest?"

"Almost ready, Boss. Just a few minor things left to review," Aarav replied, stepping forward carefully to collect the files, eyes tracking Ace the entire time. Duty before life.

Vedant hummed, fingers moving across his laptop. "Did Erwin report anything unusual about the weaponry shipment?"

"No, Boss. It seems Malhotra has taken the warning."

Vedant looked up from his screen slowly. His gaze settled on Aarav without blinking, lips pulling slightly at the corner. "He hasn't. He is waiting for me to lower my guard so he can strike again. A greedy man like him never steps back."

Understanding settled over Aarav's face. He had assumed that after Vedant's last move — which had dismantled half of Malhotra's legal and illegal business both — the man would be scared into retreating. But Vedant's expression told a different story entirely.

"You can go," Vedant dismissed him with a wave, and Aarav left after greeting both men, the door clicking shut behind him.

Three of them remained.

Ace made no move to leave — he settled in beside Vedant, knowing full well that they were about to talk about his mother, and he was not going to miss a single word of it.

Vedant rolled his eyes at him and leaned back fully in his chair. Dhruv dragged his chair a little closer to the side.

"Still afraid of him?" Vedant said, the ghost of amusement in his voice, knowing very well how much his best friend is afraid of his pet. 

Dhruv scoffed loudly — and was about to say something when his phone pinged. His hand went to it immediately. He read whatever the message said, and a small, involuntary smile crossed his face before he could stop it.

Vedant had been watching with narrowed eyes. He always was. He noted every flicker — the way Dhruv's eyes moved, the way the smile came before he could compose himself, the way he checked the phone the second it rang. "Who are you so busy with?" He tilted his head slightly.

Dhruv fumbled. He closed the phone and set it face-down on the table. "No — no one." The words stumbled out of him, which only made Vedant's eyes narrow further.

Silence filled the room.The comfortable kind, on Vedant's end. The deeply uncomfortable kind, on Dhruv's. 

Vedant's gaze stayed on him — patient, unreadable, the kind that could read a soul without asking a single question. Dhruv smiled awkwardly, deliberately looking everywhere except back at him.

After a stretch of quietly suffocating seconds, Vedant spoke. “You had done something.”

It was a statement rather than a question. 

Dhruv's expression flickered for just a second before he pulled it back together. He laughed — too loud for the quiet of the room. "What would I do?"

Vedant's expression didn't change. If anything it settled deeper. "Stop it before it makes you regret. There will be no turning back." A pause. "Or second chances."

Dhruv stilled at that — caught off more than he let show. He knew Vedant had some idea, even if not the full picture. But he steadied himself and answered firmly. "I won't regret a single thing."

Vedant raised a brow at the certainty in his voice.

He didn't know exactly what Dhruv was hiding. But he knew this — whatever it was, Dhruv had done it for him. He could see it. And he knew him. He knew the guilt his best friend had carried for years over things that had never belonged to him in the first place. And he knew that when Dhruv looked like this — certain, unbothered by being read — he had already made his peace with whatever he'd set in motion. 

He just hoped Dhruv knew what he was walking into.