Page 117 of Cherish my Heart

CHAPTER 56

ABHIMAAN

The air here still smells the same. A stale mix of rust, damp walls, and old, unwashed clothes—the kind of smell that clings to your skin long after you’ve left.

I push the heavy iron door open. The hinges groan, the rusted metal scraping against the concrete floor. My fingers curl tighter around the handle before I let go. The door’s frame is lined with spiderwebs—thin, silvery threads catching the faint light—and for a second, I almost see my twelve-year-old self staring back at me from the other side.

This place. The place I dreaded. The place that built me and broke me at the same time.

The first time I made real money—a big deal, one that could change things—I didn’t buy myself a car or a house. I came here. Closed this hellhole for good. Made sure the boys were shifted to a better orphanage, one where they wouldn’t be treated like we were. One that wouldn’t carve scars into their skin and mind.

And yet, here I am again.

My chest tightens. Not just from fear—though it’s there, crawling up my throat—but from what this place has cost me.What it’s costing me now. Aditi… she has no part in this war. And yet she’s been dragged into it, hurt because of me.

And Harsh… A familiar ache presses in my chest. Harsh lost his leg saving my life. I swore I’d never let anything happen to him again. It took eight long years before he could walk without a crutch. Eight years of me working, fighting, and bleeding until I could afford that prosthetic leg.

And now… he’s back here. Because of me.

I shift my grip on the gun in my hand and start walking slowly down the corridor. My boots make almost no sound, but in my ears, every step sounds too loud. I glance into each room as I pass.

Room 113.

I pause. My old room.

The door is slightly ajar. The air inside is heavier—it smells of mildew, of old blankets that were never washed, of memories that I’d rather keep buried.

Nausea rises in my stomach.

I force myself to move on. The punishment room is up ahead. My pulse spikes, that same cold fear I felt as a boy clawing at me.

I'm not twelve anymore. I am a thirty-one-year-old man. Nothing will happen to me. I have to save them.

I repeat it over and over in my head until the words start to feel like armor.

But the moment I see it—that damned punishment room—my body stiffens. The narrow, windowless walls. The iron hooks. The stains on the floor.

And then—I’m shoved hard from behind. I stumble forward into the room. There’s a man sitting on the table. The smoke from his cigarette curls lazily in the air before breaking apart in the dim light. Abdul. Anil’s right hand.

His face is older now, more lined, but his eyes… the same mean glint as before. He grins when he sees me.

“They really mean that much to you?” he says, smoke spilling from his mouth as he chuckles. “I always thought you had something in you, Abhimaan. But it seems like a woman made you soft.”

I laugh once, low and sharp. “Aditi could never make me soft. The only reason I’m in this place is her.”

He takes another puff, eyes narrowing. “Well, Anil Bhai might be taking care of your girl right now—”

I move before he can finish, fisting his collar and yanking him forward. Rage floods my veins, hot and blinding. “This is between me and him. Don’t drag her into this. Where is she?”

He smirks, unbothered. “You know I can’t tell you that, Abhimaan.”

I lean in, voice low and steady. “If something happens to her, no one in this place walks out alive.”

He laughs. I see the disgust in his eyes; he always hated me. Because when I entered, he was at his prime, and suddenly there was someone Anil paid more attention to; this narcissistic man despised me. But I know exactly how to get to him.

“You never stood a chance,” he scoffs.

“You were always Anil’s second choice.” And there it is. The thread I needed to pull.