"He loved once—with a heart wide open and hands unguarded.

But betrayal forged a blade from his broken ribs.

Now, he doesn't bleed.

He makes others bleed for daring to touch what’s his."

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Rain lashed against the glass walls of Aarav Singh Rathore's penthouse like a warning. The sky above Mumbai was a canvas of black and lightning, each thunderclap echoing like the after shock of a heart broken beyond repair. Inside, the lights were dimmed low, casting moody shadows across the polished marble floors and silver-framed memories that no longer held value.

Aarav stood alone, a figure carved from control and chaos.

In one hand, a glass of aged whiskey trembled, the amber liquid catching brief flashes of lightning from the outside world. His other hand twitched near the screen in front of him—grainy CCTV footage on loop. Over and over, betrayal played in front of him like a bad film he couldn’t walk out of.

Reyansh Mehra—his brother in every way that mattered, his business partner, the man who knew every piece of him—stood with the enemy. The rival conglomerate that had once brought Rathore Industries to its knees. But worse… beside Reyansh stood a woman.

A woman he had once dreamed of marrying.

Rhea.

Her identity was half-hidden beneath a scarf and oversized sunglasses, but Aarav knew. Recognition was bone-deep. You didn’t forget the curve of the shoulder you kissed goodnight for two years. You didn’t unlearn the silhouette of the woman who said she’d stand beside you for life.

She had said forever — while laying down the knife she’d eventually plunge in his back.

The ice in his glass clinked mockingly as his grip tightened, knuckles whitening, jaw set so hard it ached. The tension snapped.

He hurled the glass at the wall.

Shatter.

A storm outside. A storm within.

The man who once believed in love, loyalty, and brotherhood was now buried beneath shards of lies and the echoes of a whispered goodbye.

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> They were my home. My constants. The ones who knew my heartbeat and called it theirs. And they sold it. For what? Power? Money? Spite?

> I would’ve walked away, you know. If Reyansh had confessed. If Rhea had cried truth instead of lies.

> But they didn’t.

> They buried me alive and danced on the grave.

> Now? I dig myself out. As something else. Something darker.

He picked up his phone, his voice cold, calculating.

“Dev.”

“Sir.”

“Find every person Reyansh Mehra has ever protected. Every soul he’s ever cared for. And especially…” he paused, eyes narrowing.

“…her.”

There was no confusion on Dev’s end. Just silence, followed by, “Understood.”

Aarav ended the call and turned to the mirror across the room.

His reflection stared back.

Impeccable suit. Storm-touched eyes. A ghost where a man used to be.

This is who you made me.

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Three Years Later

The Mehra mansion stood like a relic of better times—elegant, stately, and full of secrets. Rain pattered on the ornate windows as tension choked the room.

“Inaaya… you can’t be serious.” Mr. Mehra’s voice cracked.

But Aarav was.

He sat across the polished dining table, calm and composed, like he had walked in not as a ghost from the past—but as a god of wrath and reckoning.

“I want to marry your daughter,” he repeated.

Inaaya stood at the door—drenched from the rain, her paint-streaked hands frozen in place, her breath caught somewhere between horror and heartbreak. The canvas bag on her shoulder slipped, brushes clattering to the floor like broken arrows.

She had returned from college expecting warmth. Family. A quiet evening.

Instead, she walked into a warzone.

Her father's face had gone pale, his hand trembling.

“She’s only twenty-two, Aarav.”

“I’m thirty-four. Not ancient,” Aarav replied, voice smooth like poisoned silk.

Mr. Mehra stood, anger flaring. “This is a joke. You want to marry my daughter just to humiliate me?”

Aarav’s lips curled into something that might have been a smile, if it weren’t so cold.

“Oh no, Mr. Mehra. I want to marry her… to own you.”

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The floor disappeared.

It wasn’t just what he said—it was how he said it. Like it was inevitable. Like I was an asset being acquired.

I hadn’t seen Aarav in three years. Not since the night he vanished after everything fell apart—after my brother’s betrayal, after Rhea, after the fire that burned through their lives.

He was different now.

Taller maybe. Broader. Colder. Dangerous.

His gaze burned as it landed on me. There was something unspoken behind those eyes—something possessive, something cruel, something… broken.

He remembered me.

But not like before. Not as the girl who painted on the terrace and brought him coffee during late meetings. Not as Reyansh’s baby sister who used to look at him like he hung the stars.

Now, he saw me as something else.

A price.

A pawn.

A weapon.

My voice was stuck in my throat.

I wanted to speak. To say no. To scream. But the truth was—

I didn’t know how deep this revenge ran.

I didn’t know if it would swallow me whole.

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She still had paint on her hands.

Still wore her emotions like an open wound.

Still looked at me like she didn’t know if I was the man from her memories or the monster everyone whispered about.

You're not the man she once knew, something inside me whispered.

No. I am worse.

But when her eyes met mine—stormy, unsure, soft in all the ways I didn’t deserve—something twisted inside me.

Not guilt.

Not weakness.

Possession.

She was everything Reyansh had tried to keep from the world. Everything good he had left. And now, she would belong to me.

To Aarav Singh Rathore.

Forever.

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He wasn’t supposed to look at me like that.

Not after everything.

Not after breaking.

Not after disappearing.

I had crushed on him once—naively, hopelessly. When he laughed. When he brought me sketchbooks from Paris. When he treated me like I was someone.

But this man?

He didn’t laugh.

He didn’t soften.

He didn’t offer anything but chains.

Still, something inside me flickered.

Maybe it was memory. Maybe madness.

But I felt it. The pull.

And I hated myself for it.

This wasn’t love.

This was war.

And I was the battleground.

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She thinks she’ll resist.

She thinks she’ll say no.

But she has no idea how far I will go. How deeply this grudge has burrowed into my bones.

I had died once—on that rainy night when Rhea and Reyansh shattered everything.

Now?

I wasn’t a man anymore.

I was a storm.

And Inaaya Mehra?

She was mine to claim.

Willing or not.

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> Aarav would not just take her name. He would take her light. Her laughter. Her freedom. He would build an empire with her inside the walls, trapped and beautiful and his.

> Because when Rhea whispered, “I never loved you,” and walked away, Aarav Singh Rathore stopped being human.

> Now, all that was left…

> Was vengeance.

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To be continued...

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