Advik :-
The night outside the Rathore mansion felt colder than it should have when I stepped out with my family. Chachu was saying something to Dada ji, Maa was hugging Ira and Devika and saying goodbye to them... but all of it faded into a dull, distant noise.
Because something tugged at me.
Unwanted.
Uncontrolled.
Immediate.
I turned.
And there she was.
Reyna stood in the doorway, framed by the golden light behind her. She didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't even blink. Her arms were crossed over her chest like she was holding herself together by sheer force.
Her face was blank.
But her eyes...
Her eyes were anything but blank.
They burned.
With anger.
With hurt.
With a fury she didn't bother hiding.
And maybe -God help me- maybe with the ghost of the kiss I had stolen from her minutes before the roka.
Time froze.
Just me.
Just her.
And a silence so loud it felt like a gunshot.
I waited for her to glare.
Or turn away.
Or open that sharp mouth of hers and cut me into pieces.
But she didn't.
She did something worse.
She ignored me.
Her gaze slid right past me like I wasn't even standing there like I was a shadow stretched on the driveway. A nobody. A mistake she had already erased.
The dismissal hit harder than it should have. Clean. Precise. Brutal.
I wasn't supposed to feel that.
I had no business feeling that.
And yet my breath tightened in my chest, my pulse kicked hard, and her silence lodged under my skin like a splinter I couldn't pull out.
What the hell was happening to me?
I dragged my stare away from her and forced myself toward the SUV. Each step felt heavier, like something inside me was trying to stay behind- the part of me that belonged in that locked room with her, the part I should've killed the second it came alive.
But it followed me anyway.
I got into the back seat. Dada ji took the front and Papa and Chachu sat beside me, focused on their phones,unaware of the chaos spinning in my skull.
The car rolled forward.
The gates of the Rathore mansion shut behind us with a finality that punched me in the ribs.
Because all I could think about was what I had done.
And what I hadn't.
I had kissed Reyna.
Not soft.
Not hesitant.
But hard. Hungry.
Like she was something I had been starving for.
And she had kissed me back.
The memory punched through me so violently I sucked in a breath. Her mouth. Her trembling fingers. The way she melted into me before the world came crashing down around us.
And then downstairs...
The way she looked at me.
Silent.
Broken.
Angry.
Like I had betrayed her.
Like she hated me.
Like I deserved every ounce of her contempt.
Kabir chachu's voice sliced into my thoughts.
"What happened to you ?"
I didn't bother meeting his eyes. "Nothing, Just tired."
He didn't buy it. I could feel his suspicion crackling in the air. His stare carried a silent warning- Don't screw this up, Advik before he returned to his phone.
I leaned back as the convoy sped down the dark road toward the farmhouse. I shut my eyes, forcing myself to focus, to breathe, to forget.
But even with my eyes closed...
I still saw her.
Reyna.
In the doorway.
Shaking.
Angry.
Hurt.
Burning.
And the worst part?
I still felt her.
The taste of her.
The heat of her.
The pull of her.
I wanted to go back.
I wanted to see her again.
I wanted-
Something I had absolutely no right wanting.
I didn't understand what she was doing to me.
And I had no idea how the hell to make it stop
Reyna :-
The moment the Raichands' cars disappeared through the gates, Ira di's breath hitched and then she broke.
She didn't say a word.
She just turned and ran.
Her heels slammed against the marble floor, echoing through the hallway like gunshots. My heart lurched and I sprinted after her.
"Di! Ira, stop!"
She didn't.
Of course she didn't.
She burst into her room and slammed the door so hard the frames on the wall rattled. By the time I pushed the door open, she was already tearing the room apart. Pillows flew first, then books, then the vase on her bedside table shattered into glittering pieces across the floor.
The moment the Raichands stepped out of our mansion, the air cracked open like a storm.
"No! No! No!" she screamed, her voice breaking.
"Ira...!" I rushed to hold her shoulders.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" she yelled, shoving me away. "I don't want to marry that fucking Raichand, Reyna! Do you hear me?! I don't want this!"
"How can they do this to me?!" she screamed, voice shaking, hands trembling. "How can they do this?!"
"Ira- please- listen-"
"No!" She hurled her lamp across the room. It crashed against the wardrobe and exploded into jagged shards. "I am not going to marry him! I won't! I won't!"
She was crying- no, not crying but breaking. The kind of tears that come from betrayal, from suffocation, from fear.
"Ira, calm down- "
"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!" she shrieked.
Before I could reach her, before I could hold her or stop her or even breathe the door burst open again and
Papa. Maa. Aarav entered,
Their presence filled the room like fire.
Maa froze in the doorway, horrified.
Papa didn't look horrified- he looked angry.
Ira whipped around when she saw them, eyes wild and wet.
"I will not marry him!" she shouted at them, chest heaving. "You lied to me! You betrayed me! Both of you!"
"Ira!" Maa shouted, shocked. "What are you doing?!"
"What I have to do!" Ira cried. "You all scammed me! You didn't even ask me! You tricked me, Maa!"
She turned to Papa, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"And you...Papa...you promised you'd support me in my life choices. What happened to that, huh?!"
Papa's jaw tightened. His aura darkened, dangerous.
"You will marry him," he said, voice cold as steel. "Because this marriage is the only way to end our rivalry with the Raichands and expand our network."
I froze.
So that's what this was.
A deal.
A transaction.
A power expansion.
Not love.
Not happiness.
Not Ira's choice.
Just... mafia politics.
"Papa, this is WRONG!" Aarav snapped, stepping forward. "She's not some object you're exchanging for power!"
I nodded, voice trembling.
"Aarav is right. Dad, you can't force her.."
"ENOUGH!" Papa barked, his voice booming through the room. "This family doesn't need your opinions."
Ira shook her head violently, backing away from all of us.
"I will NOT marry Advik Raichand!" she screamed. "I don't even know him!"
"You don't need to know him," Papa growled. "You just need to obey."
"And what about love?" Ira shouted. "What about MY CHOICE?!"
Papa's eyes narrowed. "There is no choice here."
Aarav and I went silent, jaw trembling.
But Ira didn't.
"I said I'm not marrying him!" she cried. "Do you hear me? I won't do it!"
Devika stepped forward to touch her, but Ira stumbled back violently.
"Don't touch me!" she screamed. "Don't touch me, Mom! You're not my parents. You're liars!"
Devika's face fell, but Ira didn't stop- she couldn't. She grabbed the second lamp and flung it; it clipped the wall and shattered.
Rajveer's voice thundered through the room. "Why?" he demanded. "Why are you making a scene? Why don't you want to marry Advik?"
The room fell silent.
Then Ira said the one sentence that shattered everything.
"I love someone else, Papa."
Devika gasped.
Aarav froze.
And I...
I felt my heart stop.
Rajveer's jaw clenched.
"What did you just say?"
"I said I love someone else!" Ira cried. "And I will marry HIM. Not Advik. You can't stop me!"
For a second, I saw Papa tremble with fury.
And then-
A SLAP.
The sound echoed through the room like a gunshot.
My eyes widened as Ira's face whipped to the side, her cheek turning red instantly.
Maa...
Maa had slapped her.
"You will marry where we decide," Devika said, her voice shaking with shock and anger. "Your father has fixed your marriage with Advik, and that's final."
Ira stood frozen, tears falling silently.
Aarav stepped forward. "Maa...how could you..."
But Papa raised his hand, silencing him.
"No more arguments," Papa said. "Ira will marry Advik Raichand. And no one in this room will question that again."
Their footsteps thundered out of the room, leaving the door wide open.
Ira fell to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably.
And I...
I stood there.
Silent.
My hands shaking.
My heart trembling.
Realizing, for the first time, the kind of world...
the kind of father...
we were living under.
And the kind of hell Ira was about to be forced into.
My sister was falling apart in front of me.
My parents were crushing her without hesitation.
And all I could see behind my eyelids... all I could feel in my chest... was him.
Advik.
The man who kissed me like he needed me.
The man who walked downstairs and sat beside my sister.
The man whose family just destroyed hers.
My nails dug into my palms until they hurt.
I didn't know who to hate more-
my parents for doing this to Ira,
or Advik Raichand for being part of the reason she was breaking.
But I hated someone.
And the fire in me said it wasn't going to stop.
I dropped to my knees the second Ira crumpled, but Aarav reached her first.
"Ira... hey, hey...come here," he whispered, voice cracking as he wrapped his arms around her.
She collapsed against him, sobbing into his shoulder, her fists clutching at his shirt like she needed something—someone—to keep her from falling apart completely.
Her cries weren't loud anymore.
They were small.
Shattered.
Hopeless.
The kind of sound that made something inside me twist until it hurt to breathe.
Aarav held her tightly, stroking her hair, whispering words none of us could hear. Words meant only for broken siblings. Words meant only for wounds that parents cause.
And still- she cried.
And still- she shook.
And still- she tried to breathe and couldn't.
I slid closer and touched her back gently.
"Ira..." My voice was barely a whisper. "I'm here. I'm right here."
She didn't lift her head, but her fingers reached blindly for mine- desperate, trembling and I caught them before she slipped further into whatever darkness she was drowning in.
For the first time in my life, my parents felt like strangers.
Aarav tightened his grip around Ira as her sobs grew weaker, exhaustion pulling at her limbs.
"Rey..." he murmured, eyes meeting mine over her trembling shoulder. "We can't let them do this to her."
I nodded.
Not because it was the right thing to do.
Not because I was brave.
But because the sight of my sister crying into our brother's arms felt like something inside me had been ripped open.
Ira's voice came out in a broken whisper, muffled against Aarav's chest:
"I don't want this... Rey... please. Don't let them... don't let them ruin my life..."
Something inside me snapped.
I brushed her hair from her face, wiping tears from her cheeks even as new ones fell.
"I won't," I whispered fiercely. "I promise you, Ira. I won't let anyone hurt you. Not them. Not him. No one."
Her shoulders shook harder, but she clung to my hand like it was the only steady thing left in her world.
Aarav held her.
I held her.
And for a long moment, the three of us just breathed- unsteady, broken, clinging to each other.
In that room full of shattered lamps and shattered trust, I made a vow I felt in my bones:
I will protect you, Ira.
From them.
From the Raichands.
From Advik.
Even if it means burning everything they've built.
Because tonight, I didn't just see my sister break.
I saw something else rise inside me.
Resolve.
Rage.
And a hatred that tasted too close to heartbreak.