Reewa’s POV
I didn’t sleep a second.
Not because I was overthinking—though I was. Not because my phone kept buzzing—though it did. But because somewhere between the last course and that damn confession, my reality had tilted. Rudraksh Singh Rathod had tilted it.
"I never stopped wanting you."
Those words haunted the air like the scent of petrichor before a storm. Heavy, electric, dangerous.
Now, as the morning sun spilled golden threads through my sheer curtains, I sat on my bed—knees to my chest, still in last night’s saree blouse and pajama pants. The silence was deafening. I’d spent all night replaying the way his voice had dropped, velvet and sharp, how his eyes hadn’t blinked when he said it like a promise, not a mistake.
Rudraksh didn’t make mistakes.
He orchestrated them.
And still... there was a part of me that had wanted to believe it wasn’t just a tactic. That behind those Mafia shields and ruthless eyes, there lived the boy who used to steal mangoes with me. The one who once wrote me a letter on kite paper. The one who’d never sent it.
I looked at my phone. No new messages. Not even from Ira.
Not that I’d told her about what happened last night. How could I? How do you confess that your childhood nemesis, your brother’s best friend, your biggest ache—confessed he wanted you? Wanted you still.
I knew what this meant.
The rules of our war had changed.
He’d thrown down his sword. Or maybe... he’d sharpened it.
I stood up, tossing my phone onto the bed, deciding coffee would offer better answers. But the moment I walked into the kitchen—still blurry-eyed and heart-heavy—my phone buzzed on the counter.
A name flashed. Rudraksh Singh Rathod.
I froze.
He never texted. He called—commanded. Messaging was too... soft.
I swallowed hard and picked it up.
“11 AM. Private client briefing. RRC Boardroom. Come in red.”
Red?
My stomach twisted.
He wasn’t giving me time to breathe. This wasn’t just business
It was war.
But today, I wouldn’t break. If he wanted proximity, he’d get fire.
I pulled out the deepest red saree I owned.
Let him see I could play his game—with heels, with grace, and with fire in my eyes.
-------
The RRC tower loomed like a monument to calculated power—glass and steel wrapped in silence and secrets. I had walked into many boardrooms in my life, but none that made my pulse skip quite like this one.
Security didn't stop me. Of course not. They parted like I’d already been claimed.
As I stepped into the marble-floored corridor, heels echoing like a countdown, a strange hush fell. Executives glanced up and away. The scent of mahogany, leather, and danger floated around me like a second skin.
And then the doors to the private boardroom opened.
He was already inside.
Leaning casually against the edge of the massive black conference table, Rudraksh was dressed in a three-piece black suit, shirt unbuttoned just enough to reveal the chain that always disappeared beneath his collar. One hand in his pocket. The other swirling a glass of water like it was whiskey.
And his gaze?
It locked on me like he’d summoned me from a dream. A dark one.
“You wore red,” he said, voice low, lazy, lethal.
“I wore confidence,” I replied, keeping my spine straight and my stare even. “Your color preference was irrelevant.”
The side of his mouth curved. That signature smirk. The one that was always a second away from sin.
He walked toward me slowly, steps deliberate, eyes tracing every inch of me with shameless boldness. “You look like war, Reewa. Sweet, delicious war.”
“And you,” I murmured, stepping closer, “look like trouble dressed in a three-piece suit.”
His brow lifted. “You think I dressed for you?”
“I think you live for reactions.”
He leaned in, just enough that I could smell the musk on his skin—amber, oud, spice. “I live for you.”
My breath hitched, but I didn’t show it. Couldn’t.
“You said something last night,” I whispered.
“I meant every word.”
“You can’t say things like that,” I snapped softly, “not when you’ve spent years treating me like a pawn.”
His hand ghosted near my waist but didn’t touch. “I didn’t treat you like a pawn, Reewa. I was just too much of a king to admit I already lost to you.”
My heart betrayed me with a thud. His words had always been weapons. But this... this was different. This was armor-stripping.
Before I could form a response, a senior associate cleared his throat awkwardly at the door. “Sir. The client is ready in Room 7.”
Rudraksh didn’t look away from me. “Send them away.”
“Sir?”
“I said—away.”
The door shut again.
He turned back to me. “I don’t want negotiations. I want truth.”
“You think I’ll give you that?” I whispered, throat tight.
“I think you already do,” he replied, stepping back, gaze raking over my face like he was etching it to memory. “Even in silence.”
Before I could stop myself, I said it. Quietly. Clearly.
“Then maybe you’re right.”
Something shifted in his eyes. That ruthless glint flickered, replaced by something I wasn’t ready to name.
But I saw it.
And it scared me more than any mafia secret ever could.
---
Rudraksh’s POV
"Then maybe you’re right."
She said it.
Soft. Like a prayer. Like a promise.
And in that moment, my empire—the marble, the blood, the shadows—felt like it was built only to bring her here. To hear that.
I stood frozen, letting the silence stretch around us like a cocoon. She didn’t run. She didn’t take it back. She just stood there, eyes dark with questions, lips parted with something she wasn’t ready to name.
I’d fought wars. I’d buried rivals. I’d ruled an underground empire from the age of twenty-two. But nothing—not the gunpowder or the gold—had ever ignited me like her.
And now?
Now she was standing in the one place I never imagined she’d walk into willingly—my world. My cage.
I watched her leave without a word, chin high, red dress dancing like fire in her wake. And I didn’t stop her.
Because I couldn’t.
Because if I touched her now—I’d burn every line she drew between us.
I turned to my office, shutting the doors behind me, and opened the drawer I’d never let anyone see.
Letters.
Dozens of them. All addressed to her.
On every birthday. Every Diwali. Every summer break.
From the boy who wanted to pull her braids… to the teen who wanted to protect her smile… to the man who now wanted her whole heart, unconditionally.
Letters I never sent.
Letters I never had the courage to.
I picked up the one from her sixteenth birthday. The ink had smudged slightly in the Udaipur monsoon.
"You looked at me today like I didn’t exist. Like I wasn’t even there. I wonder if you’d ever know that I skipped sword practice just to watch you laugh with Ira. That you’ve ruined every other sound for me—because now, I only want your laugh. Happy Birthday, Reewa."
I’d written it on hotel stationery. Hid it in my suitcase. Pretended it was business.
She never knew.
She didn’t know about the tulips I bribed a florist in Delhi to deliver anonymously on her eighteenth.
Or the Goa trip—when I punched a man outside a club just for looking at her a second too long.
She didn’t know that every deal I made, every city I expanded into, had one question in mind—is she there? Will she see this? Will she hear my name and think of me?
I ran a mafia empire. Ruthless. Dominant. Feared.
But when it came to her—I was the boy again. The one with ink-stained hands and a heart full of unsent confessions.
And now… she said maybe.
Maybe I was right.
Maybe she already gave me the truth.
That small sliver of hope?
It would change everything.
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