CHAPTER 28! CLUB #2
He walked toward the private bar in the corner, his steps slow. "You looked at me like I am a monster when in reality you merry one. He is a devil. And somehow, I'm still the villain. Pyar Karta tha main tumse."
"You don't know anything about him," she snapped, her voice dropping an octave.
"And you never loved me. Pyaar? Tum sirf cheezon ke malik banna jaante ho. Insaanon se pyaar karna nahi."
His smile sharpened, turning into something deeply manipulative.
Samarth's eyes dropped to her left hand, zeroing in on the heavy diamond band of her wedding ring.
His expression instantly soured into something bitter and ugly. "Shaadi se surname badal jaata hai, Aadhira. Aadat nahi. Tell me something... does he touch you? Does he look at you the way I do?"
"I am glad he doesn't not because he is not you, Tumse ghinn aati hai mujhe," she whispered.
"You were supposed to marry me!" Samarth suddenly erupted, slamming his glass onto the counter. "You're still mine!"
The room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. Aadhira didn't back down.
She needed him distracted. Her eyes dived subtly past his shoulder, tracking the sleek black smartphone resting face-up on the glass coffee table behind him.
Stepping forward, she closed the distance, adopting a compliance she didn't feel. She reached out and picked up the bottle of whisky.
"Drink first," she said softly, pouring a heavy splash into his glass.
"If we're going to talk about the past, you're going to need it."
Samarth smirked.
He took a long, deep draw from the glass, leaning back against the bar counter.
"Show me the files, Samarth. Delete them in front of me, and we walk away. No harm done."
"No," he said simply.
Her jaw tightened. "You promised."
"I lied," he countered, taking a predatory step toward her. "Still so stubborn. I'm going to enjoy fixing that."
As he lunged forward, his hand reaching out to grab her wrist, Aadhira's survival instincts took over.
She braced her weight and shoved him hard against the chest. The force caught him entirely off balance.
His arm flailed, knocking his whisky glass off the counter; it shattered into a hundred glittering shards against the floor.
In that split second of chaos, Aadhira turned and dove toward the glass table. Her fingers clamped around his phone.
But her triumph lasted exactly two seconds. Before she could punch in a single digit, Samarth recovered with a snarl.
He seized her arm, twisting her wrist with brutal force. A sharp cry escaped her lips as the phone slipped from her grasp, crashing violently against the marble floor.
The screen shattered into a spiderweb of dead pixels.
"No!" Aadhira gasped.
Rage exploded across Samarth's face. "You stupid, arrogant-"
The door opened. Quietly. Which somehow felt worse.
Aryav stepped inside.
Nobody announced Aryav Singhania. Nobody needed to.
The moment she saw him, her knees almost gave up.
Relief hit so hard it scared her.
Idiot.
Since when had seeing Aryav meant she could finally breathe?
Main pagal ho gayi hoon kya?
Behind him stood Shourya, his expression mask of familial fury, alongside Vivaan, who was casually leaning against the doorframe.
Standing slightly behind them was Kashvi. Aadhira looked at her friend, eyes wide with a mix of shock and betrayal.
Kashvi refused to meet her gaze, staring firmly at the floor. In that quiet instant, Aadhira understood: Kashvi had never intended to stop her. She had intended to save her.
The second Aryav's shadow crossed the threshold, Samarth's bravado cracked entirel.
His breathing hitched, coming in ragged, shallow gasps. He licked his dry lips, frantically pulling out a secondary, smaller device from his inner jacket pocket, lifting it with a shaking hand.
Aryav didn't move. Didn't blink.
"Why it's always you , Why.
Don't come any closer," Samarth warned, his voice cracking as his thumb hovered over the screen. "I swear to God, I'll do it. One click and it's out."
Shourya laughed. Quietly. Like he'd just heard something thoroughly amusing.
"You think that's the worst thing that can happen tonight?"
Aryav looked at the device in Samarth's hand. Then he looked back at him.
"Press it."
Samarth froze.
Aryav didn't blink.
"I'm waiting."
Samarth's hand trembled violently, the terror entirely consuming him.
"Main sach main press kar dunga ARYAV?"
Aryav looked at him almost with boredom.
"I already erased everything."
A thick, agonizing silence stretched across the room. Samarth frantically tapped the screen, his thumb flying across the glass, but the display remained stubbornly dead, showing a total loss of network connectivity.
Real panic completely took hold of him. In a blind, unhinged frenzy, Samarth grabbed the nearest full bottle of whisky from the bar counter and flung it with everything he had left.
The bottle struck Aryav's shoulder with a brutal crack. Glass exploded. Amber whisky splashed across black fabric.
Then came the blood.
Slow. Bright. Wrong.