The door clicked shut.
And just like that, he was gone.
The silence that followed was louder than anything she'd ever heard before. It pressed against her chest, filling the room like smoke—thick, suffocating, consuming.
Siya stood frozen near the bed, her bare feet pressed to the cold marble floor, the oversized black shirt falling just above her knees—his shirt. It carried his scent, warm and commanding. A strange comfort. A dangerous kind of safety, still feeling the ghost of Rajveer's kiss on her forehead. Her fingers unconsciously brushed the spot, as if trying to hold onto it before it disappeared like everything else in her life.
Her body was warm from the lingering touch.
Her heart… wasn't.
It was confused. Terrified. Beating like a drum with no rhythm.
She exhaled shakily.
"You're not safe here anymore."
"They found you."
"You're mine."
"You were mine the second you stepped through my door."
The words looped in her head like a forbidden melody, twisting around her thoughts like vines around a dying flower.
She turned slowly and sat back on the bed, pulling her knees to her chest, the oversized shirt swallowing her small frame, fingers tangled in the hem of the shirt as if it could somehow hold her together.
Her lips still tingled from his kiss.
And yet, her heart felt like it had been dropped into ice water.
Why did she feel like this?
She didn't even know him.
Not really.
He was a stranger.
She should be afraid. He was dangerous. Powerful. Possessive in a way that felt more like chains than comfort. A man with power, money, violence in his eyes---but softness in his hands. A man who could command armies, but looked at her like she was the only thing in the world worth worshipping.
But she wasn't afraid.
She was… safe.
And that was even scarier.
She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees. Her throat burned with unshed tears, but she didn't let them fall.
She wasn't weak.
She'd learned how not to cry.
Learned how to stay still and quiet and invisible.
Learned that love was dangerous. That kindness was bait.
She stared out the large window of the bedroom. The rain had picked up again, tracing silver lines against the glass. In the distance, the city blinked with lights that didn't care about people like her—girls who were sold, girls who were used, girls who were forgotten.
But Rajveer hadn't forgotten.
She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the windowpane.
His touch… wasn't rough. Not like the others. He hadn't once asked her to give anything. Not her body. Not her pain. He just offered his presence. His protection.
It had weight, yes—like ownership, like certainty—but there was reverence in it. Like she wasn't something to be used. She was something to be kept.
No man had ever looked at her the way he did. Like she was the storm. Like he wanted to stand in the middle of it and let it destroy him.
But why?
Why her?
She was broken. Filthy. A discarded thing wrapped in a body that had been touched more times than her soul had ever been heard.
And yet… he looked at her like she was gold.
An hour passed.
Then two.
She paced the room. Checked the window. Touched the door handle but didn't open it.
He told her to stay. So she did.
She wandered out of the bedroom after a while, unsure why her feet moved the way they. Maybe to distract herself. Maybe to breathe. Maybe because the silence in her own chest was too loud.
Siya sat on the couch, hugging a cushion close to her chest, her heart thudding with every tick of the clock. She tried to distract herself—TV, music, even reading a random magazine from his bookshelf—but nothing worked.
The house was quiet. Lavish. Every piece of furniture looked expensive, but lived----in. There were hints of Rajveer everywhere: the subtle scent of his cologne, the neat stack of unread books on the coffee table, the whiskey glass still sitting by the window.
She picked it up. The liquid had gone warm. She placed it back down.
Everything here was calm. Ordered. Controlled.
Completely opposite of what her life had been.
She was spiraling.
A few steps took her into the kitchen, where the cutting board and apple knife still sat exactly where he'd left the,
That stupid apple.
She laughed softly----more like a breath with a sound. The way he'd teased her…the way he'd smirked and offered her snacks before touching her….The way he placed her hand on him, then pulled away just to feed her a damn apple slice.
She still hear his voice:
"This isn't the thing you should lick, babygirl."
"There's something else waiting for you."
Her cheeks flushed remembering it. Her body still reacted to his voice, his gaze, his authority. But there was something beneath all of that----a tether trying her heart to him, more than just physical.
It was the way he looked at her when she said her name.
It was the way he slowed down when she whispered, "Slower."
It was the way he asked, "May I kiss you?"
Consent.
No one had ever offered it to her before. Not like that.
She returned to his room after an hour, her fingers trembling as opened the door. She didn't know what she was looking for. Maybe a scent, maybe a shadow. Maybe something to hold onto while the fear grew.
She sat on the bed.
His pillow was soft beneath her finger. She pulled it toward her and buried her face in it.
It smelled like cedar and smoke. A little wild. A little safe.
She hated that it calmed her.
Siya curled up under his blanket, her hands clutching it to her chest. The darkness in the room didn't scare her anymore. It was silence that hurt. The kind of silence that left her alone with herself.
"They tried to reach you."
"You're not safe here anymore."
"I'll send them a message in blood."
His voice echoed in her bones.
She'd seen fear before. Felt it, lived inside it. But this was new. This fear wasn't for herself.
It was for him.
And that realization cracked something deep inside her.
The memory…..
The first time her uncle sold her.
She seventeen. Still in school. Still foolish enough to believe her life might somehow be different. Her aunt had just died, and her uncle started drinking more. Gambling more. Breaking things more.
One night, she overheard a conversation. About her. Her body. Her virginity. The price of purity.
She remembered hiding in the corner, fists clenched, chest caving in.
"She's pretty. Still untouched. That what they want. You'll get good money."
She had cried that night. And then stopped. Because crying didn't change anything.
But now?
Now someone had killed for her. Bled for her. Protected her.
She didn't know what Rajveer was doing at that moment, but her chest burned with the fear that something could happen to him. That he might not return.
And if he didn't...
She didn't want to finish the thought.
She didn't just want Rajveer to return.
She needed him to.
Instead, she whispered to the silence, "Why do you make me feel like this?"
She hugged his pillow, burying her face into it, letting herself breathe him in like it was the only oxygen left in the world.
She wasn't supposed to feel this way.
She wasn't supposed to fall.
But she was falling—and fast.
She clenched the sheets and closed her eyes.
...............................
It was around 3:30 AM when she finally sat up straight.
Sleep wouldn't come. Not tonight. Not without him.
She walked to his side of the bed and sat where he had been earlier. Her fingers brushed the sheets. She imagined his arms around her. His voice. His eyes.
Was this what it felt like…..to belong?
Was this what it felt like….to be seen?
She didn't realize tears had slipped from her eyes until they touched her lips.
"I'm not ready," she whispered to no one. "But I think….I want to be."
And then softly, brokenly, to the pillow that smelled like him------
" Please come back," she whispered.
As thunder cracked outside, she stayed curled on his bed—surrounded by shadows, by his scent, and by the unfamiliar ache of wanting someone to survive just for her.
She didn't know how long she sat there, curled into his blanket, holding his pillow like it was the last piece of him she had left.
Time had stopped making sense. The night stretched endlessly, and every sound outside the walls felt like a threat waiting to slip in.
She wasn't used to this.
Caring.
Missing.
Fearing for someone else's life.
Rajveer had entered her world like a wildfire-----destructive, impossible to ignore, and painfully beautiful.
And now, in his absence, she realized just how much space he had already taken up inside her.
He wasn't gentle in the way the world defined it.
But he had held her like she mattered.
He had touched her like she was precious.
He had kissed her like she was his.
She closed her eyes, pressing her forehead to his pillow, her heart aching in ways it never had before.
"I'll kill them before they touch you again."
"You were mine the second you walked through my door."
She was terrified of what that meant.
But even more terrified of losing it.
Because for the first time in years, someone had looked at her and seen a girls, not a product.
A soul, not a service.
And now?
She wasn't scared of him leaving her broken.
She was scared of him not returning at all.
A single tear slipped down her cheek.
"Come back to me, Rajveer," she whispered to the silence.
"Because I don't think I'll survive losing you…
not after finally being seen."