A U T H O R ' S P O V

A week passes quietly, yet the atmosphere around the families feels strangely tense. Both the Rathores and Ahujas are prepared for the engagement ceremonies of Abhiraj–Raisha and Vishal–Aakriti, and the arrangements are kept small and private. Abhiraj insists on a low-profile event because the last thing he wants is a grand celebration that might lure his enemies toward his family. Everything is ready behind closed doors, elegant and intimate, far away from the public eye.

But just a day before the ceremony, the Ahujas bring forward an unexpected issue regarding their daughter Aakriti. Their family astrologer claims that Aakriti's horoscope has a serious flaw, something that makes it extremely inauspicious for her and Vishal to meet before the wedding. According to them, even a single encounter before the wedding could bring misfortune to the marriage.

The Rathores are not that superstitious, and they do not believe in such horoscope-based restrictions. Still, they respect the Ahujas' sentiments and agree that if this is important for Aakriti's well-being, then they will follow it.

However, a complication arises.
If Vishal and Aakriti cannot even meet for their own engagement, then celebrating Abhiraj and Raisha's engagement on the same day creates an imbalance. It appears unfair—one son stepping into a new journey with full rituals while the other stands aside because of circumstances he cannot control.

The Rathores do not want either brother to feel overshadowed or less valued. They want equality in their family more than they want ceremonies. So, after a long discussion, they make a decision that surprises everyone.

They cancel both engagements.

Abhiraj and Raisha's engagement is placed on hold, not because of any issue between them, but because the family wants both sons to stand on the same ground. Vishal cannot have an engagement right now, so Abhiraj's celebration is also postponed. The Ahujas feel furious yet decide to stay silent and agree to this.

Nobody realizes that destiny is quietly weaving its own plans, ones where both brothers' futures are tied deeply to the Ahuja sisters in ways none of them can yet understand. The pairings that exist today are not the ones fate intends for them.

Time, however, reveals everything.

Rishi spent the entire week trying to gather information about the mysterious girl who stole his best friend's heart in just a few minutes. Every lead disappears into nothing. It feels as if the girl never existed, and the absence of any clue keeps irritating him. Still, with the engagement done and the wedding fixed for three months later, he finally hands over the investigation to his personal investigator.

He turns back to work, both corporate and underground. He has slacked off for a week and now the backlog is overwhelming. More importantly, he has a critical mission ahead: stopping the trafficking of five hundred children and two hundred virgin women who are being transported from India to Italy this month. Ever since he and Abhiraj took control of most of the Italian mafia's operations, their enemies have multiplied. However, they are prepared. They have already trained a special women's unit to take the place of the trafficked women during the rescue. It is dangerous and complicated, but they trust in the strength, courage, and fury of the women who are ready to destroy anyone who harms their dignity.

Tonight, after finishing his work at 11 p.m., exhaustion hangs heavily over Rishi. For the past three days, he has been training the women's unit while also attending continuous corporate meetings. Meals are skipped and sleep is almost nonexistent. His mother and Atharv keep insisting he eats properly, but work swallows him completely.

He stands from his chair, his back aching and eyelids drooping. He bids Atharv goodbye. Atharv notices the pale skin, the dark circles, and the way Rishi's movements have slowed down. Anyone can see he is overworked.

"Sir... I will drop you home," Atharv says softly.

Rishi shakes his head. "No, Atharv. Your sister is getting married. You work at home and you work here, and you are doing just as much as I am. Go home and rest."
Atharv feels warmth in his chest because even in his state, Rishi notices and cares. That thought brings another question to his mind: Is he only an employee to Rishi?

"Then let me call the driver," Atharv insists.

Rishi raises his hand slightly. His voice is firm but gentle. "I want to drive myself. I need the silence and the road."

Atharv reluctantly agrees. Rishi leaves the office building with slow and heavy steps. His tie hangs loose, and every blink lasts longer than it should.

He reaches his Jaguar XF. The sleek black body shines under the streetlights. The car feels familiar and comforting. He gets inside, and the soft leather almost pulls him into rest. His fingers tremble slightly as he starts the engine. The powerful roar fills the quiet parking lot. It is a sound he usually enjoys, but tonight it feels distant and muted.

He drives out onto the nearly empty highway. Cool night air enters through the half-open window and brushes against his tired face. His right hand taps lightly on the steering wheel as his breathing begins to calm. For the first time in days, he feels a moment of peace.

Then it happens.
A car from the opposite lane suddenly swerves straight into his path. The headlights shine directly into his eyes, bright and blinding. At the same moment, a stray dog slowly walks into the middle of the road, completely unaware of the danger.

Rishi's heart jumps. He reacts instantly.

He yanks the steering wheel to the side to avoid the dog and the oncoming car. The tires screech sharply against the asphalt. The Jaguar skids and tilts dangerously as it veers too close to the roadside divider. He tries to correct it, but the car slams into the divider with a violent crash. Concrete cracks and metal bends. Fragments of the barrier fly through the air like sharp stones.

One rusted iron spike breaks loose and shoots through the open window. Before Rishi can process the moment, the jagged metal pierces deep into his left arm. Pain bursts through his entire body, sharp and burning making him scream. Blood gushes immediately, warm and fast, soaking his shirt and dripping onto the leather seat. His vision blurs and his pulse thunders. His breathing turns harsh and uneven. He presses his hand over the wound, but the pain is savage, and his fingers shake uncontrollably.

For a moment, everything tilts. The edges of his sight turn dark. His eyelids feel heavy.

But he forces himself to stay awake. He cannot collapse here. Not on an empty road.

He gathers all the strength he has left and restarts the Jaguar. Every movement sends a new wave of pain through his arm, but he pushes through. The wheels drag slightly, and his blood drips onto the console, but he keeps driving.

He aims toward home because that is the only place he can reach before he loses consciousness.

Abhiraj's penthouse is too far, and he will not make it that far.

Home is close enough.
Home is possible.
He has to try.

Wounded and bleeding, he drives through the night, fighting the darkness with every single breath.

When Rishi finally pulls into the driveway of his home, his strength is almost finished. The Jaguar XF, which usually carries the proud roar of a beast, now releases a weak hum as he switches the engine off. He remains seated for a moment, his forehead dropping onto the steering wheel, his breaths uneven and heavy. His arm throbs with every heartbeat, as if the wound itself is pulsing in anger.

The right sleeve of his shirt is completely soaked, the dark stain spreading slowly like ink on paper. He forces the car door open and stumbles out. His shoes crunch softly against the gravel. The house stands silent, its windows dark, and everyone inside is asleep. He silently thanks God because he does not have the strength to answer questions right now.

Step by step, he drags himself up the staircase. His hand slides along the banister, leaving faint smudges of blood that he is too exhausted to see. His legs tremble underneath him, but he pushes forward, breath after breath, until he reaches his room. He shuts the door, turns the lock with shaky fingers, and immediately pulls out the first aid box from the cupboard.

He sits heavily in the chair, his chest rising and falling in slow, painful breaths. His fingers tremble as he opens the bandage roll. He pours spirit onto a cotton pad and presses it to the wound. The sting hits him like fire. A raw groan escapes his throat, deep and desperate, but he keeps going. His jaw tightens so forcefully that veins stand out in his neck. Rust, dirt, and tiny metal shards cling stubbornly inside the flesh, and he bites his lip hard enough to draw more blood while trying to clean it.

By the time he finishes, the bandage he wraps around his arm looks messy, pulled too tight, and filled with desperation rather than skill. He leans back, face pale and sweating, convincing himself that this temporary fix is enough for tonight.

His eyelids begin to droop when a soft voice cuts through the silence.

"Rishi?"

His eyes snap open instantly. His grandmother is standing in the doorway, a light shawl loosely wrapped around her shoulders. Her frail silhouette is surrounded by the dim hallway glow. For a few seconds she only looks at him, confused, but then realization hits her, and her hand flies to her mouth.

"Rishi, tum kya kar rahe ho?" Her voice trembles with fear and anger.
(Rishi, what are you doing?)

Before he can react, she hurries into the room. Her slippers make soft thuds on the floor as she approaches him.

"Nani, please—" he begins, but she is already grabbing his wrist.

The half-tied bandage slips away in her fingers, exposing the angry wound. Her breath catches. Shock, fear, and heartbreak flicker across her face.

"Yeh kya haal bana liya hai apna?" she whispers sharply. "Khoon beh raha hai. Loha laga hai. Are you not in your senses at all?"
(Look at yourself... what have you turned into?)
(You're bleeding. There's metal stuck in you. Are you not in your senses at all?)

She pulls away the entire cloth and exposes the gash under the light. Rust stains show clearly, making her horror deepen.

"Hai Bhagwan. Itna gehra ghaav. Infection ho sakta hai." Her voice shakes violently.
(Oh God. This wound is so deep. It could get infected.)

Rishi tries to avert his eyes. Pride mixes with shame inside him. "Nani, it is nothing. I was managing. Please, do not worry."

She looks at him, disbelief written plainly on her face. "Nothing? Yeh tumhare hisaab se kuch nahi hai?" Her voice breaks with emotion. "Khoon behate hue ghar aa rahe ho. Khud se isko bandhne ki koshish kar rahe ho. Ye kaisi laparwahi hai, Rishiraj?"
(Nothing? This is nothing according to you?)
(You come home bleeding, trying to wrap the wound yourself. What kind of carelessness is this, Rishiraj?)

She cups his face suddenly, her palms trembling against his cheeks. "Tum hamare jigar ke tukde ho. Tumhe pata bhi hai agar tumhe kuch hota toh hum sab ka kya haal hota?"
(You are a piece of our heart. Do you even understand what would have happened to all of us if something happened to you?)

Her words cut deep. Rishi swallows hard, guilt rising inside him like a tide. "Nani, main bas aap logon ko disturb nahi karna chahta tha. Raat bahut late ho gayi thi."
(Nani, I just... I didn't want to disturb you all. It was already very late at night.)

Her tears finally spill. "Disturb? Disturb na karne ke chakkar mein tum apni jaan ki parwah nahi karoge? Yeh kaun si samajhdari hai? Tum dard chhupake sochte ho hum khush rahenge. Sach yeh hai ki tumhare dard se hum sab ko dard hota hai."
(Disturb? To avoid disturbing us, you won't even care about your own life? What kind of sense is that? You hide your pain and think we will stay happy. The truth is that your pain reaches all of us.)

He lowers his gaze. His fingers curl weakly in his lap.

She picks up the spirit bottle again with trembling hands and begins to clean the wound properly. The sting of the antiseptic makes him hiss sharply. He squeezes his eyes shut.

Her voice softens but remains firm. "Ab sach batao. Kaise hua yeh sab? Sach mein batao. Baat chhupane ki himmat mat karna. Tum jhoot bologe toh hum tumhari aur Abhiraj ki mafiagiri nikal denge. "
(Now tell me the truth. How did this happen? Tell me honestly. Don't even try to hide anything. If you lie, I'll knock the mafia out of both you and Abhiraj.)

The threat is emotional, not literal, but it shakes him.

Rishi's voice cracks as he finally speaks. 

"Nani, there was no enemy... it was my fault. I was a little sleepy. Then suddenly a car came in front of me. And a dog ran onto the road too. I tried to brake and move to the side. The car hit the divider. The window was open and an iron rod came inside... straight into my arm. But I handled it. I somehow managed to get home."

Her hands freeze. The cotton in her fingers stops midair. She closes her eyes and whispers a small prayer under her breath.

"And after reaching home, you were trying to take care of all this by yourself." She wipes her tears with the edge of her shawl. "Good that I was awake. Otherwise you would have been lying here unconscious."

She does not tell him the real reason she is awake, because she came to talk to him about something important.

Rishi looks away again. "I just didn't want to trouble you. You haven't been keeping well."

Her voice turns gentle yet firm. "Trouble? Is there anything more important to us than your life? We can handle a hundred troubles, just never hide anything from us again."

Her hands continue working with slow, careful precision. After cleaning the wound nicely, she removes every last bit of rust, applies ointment, and blows gently whenever he clenches his teeth in pain. She works the way she used to when he was a child. Her scolding, prayers, love, and worry all blend into one long stream of muttering.

Finally, she wraps his arm with fresh bandages. The folds are neat, perfect, and full of protective love. She ties the final knot firmly, as if sealing his pain away.

"Tomorrow morning you're going to the doctor. You must take the tetanus injection. This wound is not small, Rishi. This is not a joke."

His throat tightens. His chest feels heavy with emotion and with fear. He nods quietly, unable to argue. "Yes, Nani."

She pulls him close, pressing his head to her chest. Her shawl smells of sandalwood and warmth. She cradles him gently, whispering into his hair with a trembling voice, "My child, learn to take care of yourself."

She strokes his hair softly. Then she releases him, brushes his cheek with her thumb, and says, "I'll bring you some food."

Rishi nods silently.

She walks out of the room with a worried heart, but halfway down the hallway an idea sparks in her mind. The thought brings a small, knowing smile to her lips, a plan already forming quietly in her mind.

The early morning arrives quietly. Pale sunlight slips past the curtains and spills gently onto the floorboards. The room breathes in a slow rhythm, quiet and golden. Rishi lies flat on his stomach, sprawled carelessly like someone who fought a silent war through the night and surrendered to sleep only because his body gave up. The faint warmth of sunlight touches his bare back and he groans. He shifts, annoyed, refusing to wake, but the moment he tries to stretch his right arm, agony rips through him. His breath stutters. His muscles lock. His eyes snap open.

A burning pulse travels up from the wound and he closes his eyes, teeth clenched. He waits for the pain to settle, then lets out a breath that trembles at the edges.

"Brilliant, Rishi. Truly brilliant. You never learn," he mutters. "I should not have slept. Those medicines hit me like betrayal. Now look at this. It feels like fire under my skin." He mutters, voice thick with frustration.

For him, this kind of wound is practically routine. A knife, a bullet, a metal rod, a shard of glass, he has taken all of it before. Ankush, Abhiraj's uncle, always patches him up with expert hands. Ankush is a reputed doctor, one of the best in the family hospital, named after Aparna, his only sister. And every single time, Ankush scolds both Rishi and Abhiraj for their recklessness. Yet both boys only smile and walk out again, because in their world justice demands blood and pain is just another price.

He sits up slowly, the pain reminding him of everything that happened, and everything he tried to hide. His hand rests near the bandaged wound. The memory of last night flashes clearly in his mind. His grandmother's trembling voice. Her tears. Her anger that rose from love. Her hands that touched him as if he was still her little boy who scraped his knee and cried into her lap.

Half an hour later, he steps out wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. Droplets slide down his back, glinting in the sunlight. He walks to his wardrobe and pulls it open, trying to pretend the day is normal. It is not.

The door to his room opens slightly. A tall figure stands there. His father.

Randhir Singh Chauhan.

A man whose silence has more force than another man's shouting. His posture is straight, commanding, yet in his eyes sits a quiet tremor that only family can see. He looks at his son, then at the bandage. There is no shock in his eyes. Only a deep, unsettled pain. The kind of pain that comes from seeing your child bleed.

"Dad," Rishi whispers.

Randhir lifts his hand in a firm gesture that stops him from saying anything more. He steps into the room without a word. But the silence he carries is not empty. It is full of questions and fear, forged through years of holding his family together.

Rishi watches him silently. A tightness forms in his chest, squeezing around his heart as it is always harder to face a parent's quiet disappointment than a gun pointed at your face.

He looks at his father and something inside him becomes quiet, almost scared. He can fight problems without hesitation. He can walk into storms like they mean nothing. He can carry pain on his shoulders as if he was born for it. Yet the moment he stands in front of the people who love him, he feels small in a way he never shows.

It is strange how life works. Strength roars outside the house, but inside, the heart whispers. Courage is loud in front of enemies, but silent in front of family. A man who never fears wounds suddenly becomes careful when he sees worry in his father's eyes. Not because he is weak, but because love asks for something that battles never do.

Pain only asks him to be strong. Love asks him to be open.

Pain makes him raise his guard. Love makes him lower it.

Pain demands resistance. Love demands honesty.

He loves his family and they love him back with twice the warmth he gives.

That is why it becomes difficult. The world outside is simple. Either you win or you lose. But family is different. Here you are not fighting to prove your strength. You are trying to protect the hearts that protect you.

And in this truth, he understands something very real about the world. The bravest people are not the ones who stand tall against danger. The bravest are the ones who let themselves be seen by the people they cannot afford to lose.

Here, in front of his father, he is not the fearless man everyone knows. He is simply a son who loves too deeply to hide.

Without saying anything, Randhir walks past Rishi and opens the wardrobe. He takes out a half sleeve shirt, choosing a loose one so it will not press on the wound and so the doctors can examine it easily.

Everyone in the family knows the truth. Rishi is scared of injections, and that is why he always avoids going to the hospital, even when his injuries are serious. But this time he has been caught by his grandmother, and now both his parents and grandmother are determined to take him for proper treatment.

Rishi has no idea what the day is quietly weaving around him. He believes it will be nothing more than another stubborn debate about the hospital, another round of excuses, another attempt to run from the same fear he has carried for years.

What he does not see is how destiny is arranging something entirely different for him alone, like a moment so gentle it almost hides behind his fear, a moment soft enough to make even his stubborn heart hesitate.

He thinks he will be surrendering to his family's insistence, but in reality he is about to step closer to a sweeter kind of surrender, one that will touch him long before he understands it.