Page 28 of Cherish my Heart

God.

I lean back. Drag a hand down my face.

This isn’t supposed to happen. People like me don’t get affected. We build empires with blood under our fingernails. We close doors on our past and call it survival. We don’t sit besidebeds of women who talk back and roll their eyes and make jokes about labor laws at ten PM.

But here I am. And I don’t even know who I’m angry at—her for being reckless, the driver for disappearing, or the city for being this goddamn chaotic. Or myself—for letting this get to me.

Because it has. I feel it in my chest. The ache. The guilt. The rage. I know technically it's a concussion and will get better soon, but I still feel these emotions. I feel that's the issue; I do not feel, I do not care.

My phone vibrates, snapping the chain of my thoughts. I take it out from my pocket and check it automatically. One new message. Unknown number. Again?

“This was just a warning. I’ll burn down everyone attached to your legacy.”

My hand tightens around my phone; the breath I take in is sharp and cold and cuts right through the hollow I’ve been pretending doesn’t exist.

So this isn’t random. This is Anil's doing. And he's not after just me anymore.

He wants the cracks. He's going to start targeting people working close to me now. I glance at Aditi again. Still sleeping. Still breathing, I notice the movement of her stomach for my own peace.

I never let anyone get close. Not since Harsh. Not since Anil. Not since I realized the cost of attachment in a world built on survival. But I let her in. Somehow. With her ridiculous attempts to change my coffee, her loud mouth, and her too-honest eyes.

And now she’s bleeding for it. I stand and walk to the window. My reflection stares back—cold, sharp, precise.

But something in me has shifted. This isn’t business anymore. He dared to touch her. And that means I’ll have to burn him down before he touches anyone else.

She stirs in the bed. I turn immediately.

But she doesn’t wake. Just shifts slightly, murmurs something unintelligible.

I sit again and stay beside her. Because the last thing she saw was fear. The next thing she sees should be safety.

Even if it’s wrapped in a man who doesn’t know how to say it out loud.

CHAPTER 17

ADITI

The ride to his place is quiet.

Not awkwardly quiet. Not even tense. Just... still. Like the world’s pressing pause, and we’re floating in the silence between two places that don’t know what to do with us.

I don’t talk. He doesn’t ask me to.

I’m tucked in the passenger seat, arms folded lightly, my head resting against the window. The cool glass grounds me more than I expect it to. I’m still wearing the oversized sweatshirt from the hospital, and there’s a faint chemical smell clinging to the fabric that reminds me where I was this morning. And how close things could’ve gone differently.

I glance sideways at him.

His hands grip the wheel tight. His jaw is clenched, like he's still fighting something he can’t punch.

Maybe he’s mad because I didn’t tell him where I lived. Or maybe he’s mad because he’s driving around his sick assistant, which was clearly not in his job description, and his time is being wasted.

Either way, the silence stretches until we pull up in front of a building that’s... not what I expected.

It’s quiet. Tucked between two grocery stores. There’s no guard, no glossy black gate, and no imported car under a dedicated porch.

Just a small staircase, a chipped railing, and a nameplate so faded I can’t even read it.

He parks. Gets out. Doesn’t say anything, just opens my door like it’s the most normal thing in the world.