The silence was almost too loud.
Kridha sat at the edge of her bed, her fingers clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes fixed on the blank wall in front of her. The night pressed in around her, thick and suffocating, but she made no move to switch on the light. Darkness felt more honest than anything else.
Her body ached– not from bruises, though there were enough of those– but from something deeper that no ointment could soothe.. The ache of helplessness, of humiliation and living a life that wasn't hers.
The confrontation still echoed in her mind like a loop.
"You're burden", Krithik had said, " A trophy he didn't even want anymore".
His voice has been cold almost bored, like he was reading a line he'd spoken too many times. She hadn't flinched then. Not outwardly. But something inside her collapsed. Something she didn't know she could rebuild.
She sat completely still now, her breathing shallow, her mind drifting to the past– the life she'd imagined before all this.
She used to dream.
A soft, wistful kind of dream. The kind of dream that blooms in a small town, where the sky is wide and everything feels possible. She wanted to be a doctor. Not for prestige, not for money. But because she wanted to help people. People who couldn't afford the medical expenses.
She remembered her first day in the city– how the traffic of Delhi had overwhelmed her, how tall buildings seemed to lean over her like giants.
But she'd smiled. She'd carried a suitcase in one hand, her dreams in the other. Her parents had waved her off from the train station, her mother's eyes misty, her father pressing a wrinkled envelope of money into her palm like it was a sacred blessing.
"You'll do well, daughter" he had said "We believe in you".
Her throat tightened at the memory.
How did everything go so wrong?
She had just wanted to study. To make them proud. To give them back. But the city didn't care about her dreams. It swallowed them. Then threw her into the clutches of a man who didn't see her.
Krithik Sehgal
Her husband. Her jailer.
She glanced towards the window. It was open. A soft breeze slipped through, ruffling the edges of the curtains. The moonlight spilled in faintly painting the floor in pale silver.
And for a second.. She thought of ending it all.
Just silence, no pain but peace but then, like a blade through the darkness, her parents' faces flashed in her mind. Her mother's soft hands, her father's hopeful eyes.
She couldn't do that to them.
So she stayed.
She breathed.
And finally, she lay down on the bed, curling in on herself like a withering petal. Too tired. Too broken.
Sleep came– not as a comfort, but escape.
And from the shadows beyond her window...he watched.
Vardaan
Silenced as the night, cloaked in stillness.
His gaze fixed on her fragile form, curled in sorrow.
"Just a glance", he whispered to the darkness, voice low, almost reverent. "For the last time".
Then he vanished like he was never there.
The next morning
The sun rose indifferently.
Kridha sat in front of the mirror, combing her hair with slow mechanical moves. Her eyes were puffy, lips pale, her saree loosely draped around her like a second skin she didn't care anymore.
She stepped into the hallway, ignoring the housemaids looking at her with pity.
That was worse. Pity was another kind of jail.
She made her way towards the back garden. It was the only place in the house that didn't smell like power and control. The flowers bloomed without asking permission. The wind danced without being told to.
And today she needed freedom.
But she wasn't alone.
She slowed as she caught sight of someone across the lawn.
A man.
Shirtless.
Moving like a predator– graceful, taunt, silent. He was practising, she realized. Some form of martial discipline. His body moved with precision, sharp and deadly, each strike a story written in muscle and memory.
Vardaan.
She knew his name. Everyone in the house did.
The maid whispered about him in hushed tones. The guards lowered their eyes when he passed. Servants said he was dangerous, soulless, someone who killed more people than he can count. Antara Sehgal had taken him in years ago, they said. Made him Krithik's shadow. The boy came from nowhere and became the blade in Krithik's hand.
She had been told– warned– not to go near him.
Now she...couldn't look away.
His back was decorated with tattoos and scars. Symbols she didn't understand, cuts that looked too precise to be accidents. There was violence on his skin, something else too– stories perhaps. Pain. A history she didn't know, and maybe didn't want to.
She didn't realize he had seen her.
Until he stopped moving.
He turned.
His gaze met hers.
For a second, his world narrowed at that moment.
He looked at her like he was trying to memorize her.
And her breath caught in her throat.
No one looked at her like that anymore.
Like she's real.
Like she was still something.
His eyes lingered—not in lust, but in recognition. Like her sorrow wasn't invisible to him.
The wind shifted her saree slightly. She instinctively reached to hold it in place, suddenly aware of her bare arms.
He didn't move closer.
Didn't speak.
But something stirred. Something dangerous.
She turned away first, her heart thudding louder than it should.
But even as she walked back into the house, she felt his gaze on her back.
Watching.
Waiting.
Not like a predator.
But a protector.
And that terrified her more.
The rest of the morning passed in dull fragments.
Kridha returned from the garden before the house fully woke. The servants moved around her like she was furniture—there, but not acknowledged. She preferred it that way. Silence, even when cruel, was kinder than the lies in smiles.
As she climbed the stairs to her wing, a voice stopped her.
Sharp. Coated in silk and poison.
"Kridha."
Antara Sehgal said
Kridha turned, spine straightening instinctively.
The older woman stood at the top of the landing, dressed immaculately as always. Her jewellery glittered in the sunlight—cold and sharp, like her eyes.
"Still wandering the garden like a lost beggar, are we?" Antara's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Should I be impressed at your resilience, or concerned about what exactly you're plotting now?"
Kridha didn't respond.
She never did. She had learned early on—responding only fed the fire. Antara didn't want answers. She wanted reactions.
But silence was never enough.
"You ruined my son's life," the woman said casually, stepping closer. "You think your innocent face fools me? I see through it. You trapped him. Manipulated him. And now you sulk around this house like some grieving widow—when my son is very much alive and regretting every moment he breathes beside you."
Kridha looked down, swallowing hard. Her fists clenched at her sides, hidden in the folds of her saree.
She didn't flinch. Not even when Antara leaned in close, her perfume suffocating.
"You think your quietness makes you noble? No, dear. It makes you forgettable."
Then, like she hadn't just spit venom, Antara turned away with a graceful flick of her hand and disappeared into the corridor.
Kridha stood frozen.
She could take the beatings. The cruelty. Even the suffocating silence of her room.
But lies?
Lies told in her name—those still hurt.
That night, Krithik was waiting.
He was already angry. She felt it before he said a word. A storm in the curve of his mouth, in the tremble of the glass he held in one hand.
"She said you talked back."
Kridha blinked, confused for a second. "I didn't—"
Wrong answer.
The glass flew.
It missed her head by inches and shattered against the wall.
"You ungrateful—!"
She backed away. Slowly. Carefully.
But he was faster.
His hand struck her cheek before she could breathe. The sting was sharp and hot. She tasted blood.
"You think you can embarrass me in my own house?" he shouted. "You think you're special because I married a fucking whore like you.
She stumbled.
She stumbled.
One heel of her sandal slipped on the smooth floor.
She reached for balance—found none—and fell backwards—
Into arms.
Strong. Familiar. Steady.
Vardaan.
He had just entered, unnoticed, like always. But this time, he didn't pass by. He didn't fade into walls or melt into shadows.
This time, his arms closed around her, swift and certain. Like instinct. Like reflex.
Like protest.
His eyes, usually cold and unreadable, flicked to her face. They found the swelling on her lip, and the angry red fingerprints on her cheek. Proof of power misused. Of silence punished.
He wasn't supposed to feel anything.
He never had.
An obedient shadow. That's what they made him. That's what he was trained to be. The perfect weapon. No hesitation. No rebellion.
But right then, something inside him rebelled.
A scream in his blood. A twitch in the command lines.
For the first time in his life, he wanted to defy.
To kill. Kill to protect someone.
To take her under his arms, shield her with his body, and make sure no one—not even his master—ever dared to raise his eyes on her again.
But it was wrong.
All wrong.
He was nothing but a shadow.
And she... she was never his to protect.
His jaw clenched, hard. His fingers tightened for a second longer than they should have. Holding her as her presence burned him.
And maybe it did.
But the fire didn't hurt.
It felt... alive.
Something he wasn't supposed to feel anymore.
Terrifying. And addictive.
He let her go.
Slowly. Reluctantly.
Not like he was releasing a burden.
But like he was surrendering something he didn't understand.
Her warmth lingered in his hands as she pulled away, unaware of the war she had just started inside the heart of a man who wasn't supposed to have one.
Kridha sat in the quiet of her room again.
This time, her lip throbbed.
Her cheek was hot and swollen.
She hadn't cried. Not when the glass shattered, not when the slap landed, not even when her knees gave out and her body found balance not in herself—but in a stranger's arms.
But now, sitting here, her hands in her lap, the silence pressed against her ribs until her breathing felt like drowning.
She let her eyes flutter shut.
The world blurred behind them—but his face stayed.
Not Krithik.
Vardaan.
She hadn't even meant to look at him. But the moment her body met his, she had felt it.
Stillness.
Not safety. Not quite.
But something... less cruel.
The way his hand gripped her arm—not possessive, not harsh. Grounding.
The way his eyes didn't dart away like the others.
He hadn't looked at her like a burden. Or a mistake. Or a scandal.
He just looked.
As if memorizing.
As if fighting something inside himself he didn't understand.
Why?
She shook the thought away.
She was tired. That's all. Her mind was reaching for comfort where there was none. He was Krithik's man. Obedient. Dangerous. Heartless.
The very walls whispered about him. Shadows moved in fear of his name. Servants told stories of how Antara found him on the streets and carved him into something useful. Something unfeeling.
A dog loyal only to its master.
But a dog wouldn't look at her like that.
A machine wouldn't flinch at the sight of blood.
And shadows... didn't catch fallen things as they mattered.
She leaned against the wall, her saree crumpling under her weight.
She thought of her dreams again. Of the classroom. The white coat. The pride in her father's voice when he called her "Doctor Sharma."
Gone.
Everything she was, was gone.
Now, even her bruises weren't hers to explain. Even her silence wasn't loud enough to be heard.
But somewhere, in the deepest part of her that still hadn't given up, something stirred.
He saw me.
Just for a moment.
Someone saw me.
Not the wife. Not the deal. Not the burden.
Just... her.
She closed her eyes again.
This time, not to forget.
But to remember the one look that didn't strip her, but held her together.
Even if only for a second.
Even if it would never happen again.
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