"Aryan?" Jannat's voice broke the silence of the car. She reached over, her hand warm on his arm. "You've been quiet all night. Is it the gallery opening?"
Aryan tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Every time she touched him, the wall he built around his heart cracked. He loved the way she smelled of turpentine and jasmine. He loved the way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was nervous.
"Just thinking about the future," he lied, his voice a low rasp.
The plan was simple: Tonight was Zaid's engagement party. Zaid, who had rebuilt his life and was marrying a woman for status, was finally happy. Aryan's plan was to walk into that ballroom with Jannat—the woman Zaid had always desired—and reveal a series of documents that would bankrupt Zaid's family firm, using the insider access Jannat had unknowingly provided him. He would destroy Zaid's reputation, his fortune, and his ego in one fell swoop.
But as he looked at Jannat, he realized the collateral damage. To destroy Zaid, he had to use the information Jannat had shared in confidence. He would have to admit that their entire relationship started as a reconnaissance mission.
The gala was a sea of silk and champagne. When Aryan walked in with Jannat on his arm, the room went silent. Zaid, standing near the stage, turned pale.
"Aryan," Zaid whispered as they approached. "You... you're with Jannat?"
"We're engaged, Zaid," Aryan said, the lie tasting like ash. He felt Jannat beam beside him, her hand squeezing his.
Aryan felt the envelope in his inner pocket—the evidence of the embezzlement Zaid's father had committed, which Aryan had spent years tracking. He also had the recording of Zaid admitting to framing Aryan's father, a confession he'd tricked out of a drunk Zaid months prior.
He looked at Zaid, whose eyes were filled with a mix of envy and genuine regret. Then he looked at Jannat. She was looking at him with such pure, unadulterated devotion that it felt like a physical weight on his chest.
"Love is the only thing that can make a master architect burn his own blueprints."
In that moment, the revenge he had nursed for a decade felt hollow. If he dropped the hammer now, Zaid would fall, but Jannat would be crushed. She would see that the man she loved was a vulture who used her body and soul to settle an old score.