Page 108 of Trapped By the Maharaja

The man froze.

“My team is already tracking them,” Ram said softly, cruelly calm. “Your wife. Your children. Your aging parents. Their names, their routines—it’s all in my hands now. Unless you tell me the truth, I will see them ruined. And when I say ruined, I mean nothing will remain of them. Nothing.”

The blood drained from the attacker’s face.

Finally, the man broke, his words stumbling out in panic. “It—it wasn’t supposed to be me. I was hired. Paid. To—” He swallowed hard, his voice shaking. “To kill the woman. Sanjana Shetty, the Devara Maharani.”

The cold clarity of those words had burned into Ram.

The man hadn’t stopped trembling, his voice cracking as he begged Ram to spare his family. Ram hadn’t replied, only given his men a look. They dragged the man away to a cell, leaving him to his fear.

Ram’s hand curled into a fist against the sheets. His instincts had been right. It wasn’t a random attack during the charity event or at the temple pond. Someone wanted Sanjana gone.

His gaze fell on Sanjana’s sleeping form. She shifted slightly, a stray lock of hair slipping across her cheek. Almost without thinking, his hand twitched with the urge to brush it back. He clenched his jaw instead, forcing the impulse away.

She had no idea of the danger surrounding her. She believed the attacks were aimed at him because in her mind, no one would bother targeting her.

He leaned back against the headboard, silent, watching her as the sun climbed higher, his mind already racing with thenext steps. He would protect her. He would hunt whoever dared touch her. And he would make them pay.

CHAPTER 46

Sanjana woke up to a steady heartbeat.

She lifted her eyes and found Ram watching her. The intensity of his dark eyes made her throat tighten.

“Why did you cheat on me, Sanjana?”

The question hit her like a physical blow.

Sanjana froze, her breath catching in her throat. She closed her eyes, dragging in a breath, forcing her voice to steady though it trembled at the edges.

“I didn’t,” she whispered. Then she forced herself to meet his gaze. “Not the way you think.”

His eyes flashed but he didn’t say anything.

Sanjana’s chest burned as the memories flooded back.

“I saw you, Ram,” she said, her voice breaking. “With Keya.”

His jaw tightened, but she didn’t stop.

“I went to your apartment that night. I needed to talk to you, and I let myself in. And there you were.” Her throat tightened, her heart aching with remembered fury and pain. “You and Keya were asleep naked in your bed.”

She recalled staring at them, feeling like the floor had been ripped out from under her. Everything she had believed and everything she trusted had shattered in that moment.

Ram’s jaw clenched, the muscle ticking, but he said nothing. His silence only made her press on, as though if she stopped now, she would suffocate.

“I was angry. I was… heartbroken.” Her voice cracked. “And then Rishan found me. He told me that Keya and you were sleeping together for a while and that he had seen you both kissing at the party and leaving together. He offered to help me get back at you. So I did the only thing I thought would make you hurt as much as I was hurting.”

She recalled the fire that had driven her to destroy everything between them.

Ram’s dark eyes blazed as he looked at her. For the first time in years, the wound between them lay bare, raw and open, bleeding into the present.

The silence was unbearable, suffocating.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low and guttural. “Keya drugged me.”

Sanjana’s heart pounded in shock. “What?”