CHAPTER 46! HIS OBSSETION #2
Shourya stood beside him, hands clenched tightly in his pockets.
"A proposal came," Veer said heavily as Aadhira walked in. "From the Singhanias. Mrinalini-ji wants you to marry Aryav."
Aadhira stood by the door, her expression still and unreadable.
A long, heavy silence stretched over the room.
Veer looked at his daughter's pale face and softened his voice.
"You don't have to answer now, beta."
Aadhira looked down at the document on the desk.
"No," she said softly.
She took a quiet breath.
"I'll marry him."
"Are you out of your mind, aadhi?" Shourya slammed her bedroom door shut behind them a moment later, gripping her shoulders tightly.
"People stay away from Aryav Rai Singhania, Aadhi! They survive him."
"I know," she murmured.
"No, you don't!" Shourya snapped, his voice shaking.
"He isn't cruel, Aadhi. He simply doesn't notice when people bleed around him. And yet you want to marry him?"
Aadhira pulled back gently, staring at the floor. "Please... Bhai, I want to merry him."
Shourya stared at her, completely unable to understand her decision.
"Fine," he said, stepping back in frustration. "If you're doing this, it happens on our terms. An engagement now. But no marriage yet. Italy first. You finish your design contract in Milan."
"Thank you," Aadhira whispered.
She turned to look out the window, knowing that a few years far away was the only way she could hold herself together until she could come back permanently for her son.
In his top-floor office, Aryav stood near the glass window, looking down at the city skyline.
His secretary stepped inside, holding a signed leather binder. "The Agrawals have accepted the proposal, sir. Miss Aadhira has agreed to the engagement before leaving for Milan."
"Good," Aryav said.
"Set up the Italy security team."
The secretary paused. "Should the team intervene if something happens?"
"Only if necessary," Aryav replied, turning back to his desk.
The secretary waited for clarification.
"She doesn't know they're there," Aryav said, picking up his pen.
"Make sure it stays that way."
The air inside the grand study of the Rai Shinghania estate didn't just grow cold; it froze.
The truth lay bare on the mahogany table-a heavy, suffocating weight.
The revelation of what had happened seven years ago, of a nineteen-year-old girl broken in the shadows of an empire, hung between them like an executioner's axe.
Shaurya Agrawal stood across from the man he had called his brother in everything but blood.
His hands were trembling-a rare, visceral fracture in his flawless composure.
"Say he's lying," Shaurya whispered, his voice dangerously low.
Silence.
"Say none of this happened."
Aryav Rai Shinghania didn't blink.
He sat behind his desk, a cigarette resting between his fingers, the smoke curling around him like even the air refused to stay near him.
The force of Shaurya's fist rattled the heavy desk, but Aryav's head only snapped to the side.
A thin line of crimson bloomed at the corner of his lip.
Aryav could have defended himself.
He didn't.
Some verdicts deserved no appeal.
"She was nineteen," Shaurya's voice finally broke, the ruthless lawyer entirely replaced by a devastated brother. "She should've been studying... not signing away her own child."
Shaurya looked at him, his expression hardening into pure, unadulterated betrayal. "I trusted you with her. I trusted you with everything."
Across the room, Tara choked back a sudden, breathless laugh.
It sounded broken, her signature humor completely hollowed out.
She forced a painful smile through her tears.
"Idiot girl..."
Everyone looked at her.
"She used to ask me if the blue frosting looked too childish," Tara whispered.
No one understood.
"It was Ayaan's favorite," she added softly.
"She made it in his first birthday."
Silence crushed the room as the image took hold-in his first birthday aadhira alone, baking a cake for a son who didn't even know her name.
Reyansh stepped forward, the flirtatious charm completely wiped from his face. His eyes were wet as he stared at his older brother.
Arjun's fists clenched, his jaw working as he stared at the blood on Aryav's face.
Beside him, Aarush remained dead quiet. His eyes weren't angry; they were devoid of life.
He didn't issue threats.
He simply stared at Aryav as if looking at a stranger.
Roshni Bua walked slowly toward the desk, her eyes searching Aryav's stone-cold face, desperate for a sign that this was a nightmare.
"Aryav...?"
Her voice cracked on his name.
Aryav didn't look up.
He couldn't.
In the corner, Vivaan Khanna stood like a shadow. The loyalist who would die for Aryav without hesitation was visibly shaken.
"Boss..." Vivaan hesitated, his voice low in the quiet room. "I would've followed any order."
A heavy pause followed.
"I'm glad you never asked me to carry that one out."
Aryav tapped the ash from his cigarette. His fingers were completely still, his composure a terrifying mask over a ruin.
"The day I saw her..." His voice dropped to that quiet, restrained depth.
"I knew. She would become my obssetion... or my greatest weakness."
He looked at the blood on his knuckles, then out the grand French windows.
"She became both."
A beat.
"I failed."
The Judgment
The heavy double doors opened, and the true weight of the dynasty stepped into the room.
Rajendra Vikram slowly removed his spectacles with deliberate calm.
His eyes, holding the weight of a true king's mindset, settled on Aryav.
"A king protects what is his," Rajendra said softly, his presence commanding absolute silence.
"Today... you forgot you were one."
Vikrant Rai Shinghania stared at his son with a terrifying hardness. "I taught you to win. I never taught you to fear love."
Ishaani looked at Aryav, cold and analytical.
"You planned everything. Except the life you were planning."
Kavya's sharp voice dripped with quiet venom. "You spent your life making monsters fear you. Congratulations. You've become one."
Arjun said nothing.
He didn't offer a lecture, a threat, or a glance. He simply turned around and quietly walked away.
Finally, Mrinalini Devi stepped forward.
Regal. Unreadable.
The silent architect of the legacy held Aryav's gaze.
"The Rai Shinghanias do not abandon their daughters," she commanded, every syllable carrying absolute authority.
"Bring my daughter-in-law home."
No one argued.
The head of the empire had left his own family entirely without words.
The family cleared out, leaving behind a silence far heavier than the confrontation itself.
Only Vivaan remained, standing by the door, waiting.
Aryav crushed the cigarette into the crystal ashtray, the fire dying out against the glass. "Find my wife."
"Rules?" Vivaan asked bluntly.
Aryav's eyes darkened, an uncanny coldness settling over his features.
"None."
He stood up, adjusting his cuffs with slow, deliberate precision.
"She should be safe," Aryav commanded, his voice devoid of warmth.
Late that night, the estate was quiet.
Aryav stood alone in his private chambers.
He approached the heavy wooden desk and unlocked the bottom drawer-the one place no one, not even Ayaan, was ever permitted to touch.
Inside lay the fragments of a life he had dismantled.
A sleek fountain pen she had used during exams.
A withered, pressed flower from a garden she had walked through years ago.
A crumpled paper she Torn because the design trun out wrong.
And at the very back, a silver bracelet.
She lost playing with ayaan.
She had spent weeks looking for it.
Aryav never joined the search.
It had never been lost.
He turned the silver chain over in his palm, his mind drifting back to the quiet moments before the storm-to the bedroom where she used to sleep before fear took over.
The blanket had slipped that night. He had fixed it before leaving.
He locked the drawer.
Outside, the empire slept.
Somewhere beyond its walls, his wife did not.
For the first time in seven years... Aryav Rai Shinghania no longer knew which of them was truly imprisoned.