Chapter 46 :

11:45 p.m.

Anvaya's POV

I was in my bedroom.

The A/C hummed like a distant warning, its low drone settling into the silence as I sat on the bed, typing. The next laundering case, the next acquisition of a man's life, was already halfway through my fingers—alongside a proposal to Hogwarts, a yakuza—delivered to Drake, my consigliere.

Hogwarts had built his empire on the agony of others, harvesting blood, sweat, and tears from those foolish enough to stand against him. But greed rots discipline, and discipline is the only thing that keeps a man alive in this world. He'd grown careless. The narcotics his company slipped between the lines of pharmaceuticals had left enough of a trail for the Japanese government to taste the truth.

They had him cornered. I had him caged.

Men in his position don't beg for help—they sell themselves to the highest bidder. And in this case, the highest bidder was me.

He signed without hesitation.

Now forty percent of his drug operations in Japan bore my name, his empire polished and strengthened, yet chained to my will. His survival was not his own—it was a gift I allowed him to keep.

From this day forward, his "medication" would move through one of my hospitals in South India, handled by the medical mafia, and tied directly to the Japanese network. His safety was a transaction, one that could be voided the moment I found him... inconvenient.

One word from me, and there would be no body to bury, no name to remember.

I leaned back, smirking faintly. Men like Hogwarts never realized the moment they ceased to be kings and became property.

Closing the laptop, I picked up a file from my company, lying previously on the bedside stand. Unsigned papers flipped between my fingers, eyes scrutinizing the printed letters, through the glasses resting square in my nose bridge.

Anvaya.

My sweet sin.

Her frozen face flashed on the pages like a printed memory, the silky softness of her skin and sweetness from the kiss crawled up my soul, as if desiring for more.

I never needed to remember her.

For, she never left my mind.

Her futile tries to drift away, hide in shadows just to escape me, get back the freedom she owned once—never didn't leave me amused.

The entertaining fact was that she forgot the shadows she hid in were mine, the walls she thought was just a step away from her freedom was all an illusion. I created it all. I created the illusion only to break it for her.

She needed to realize that I was her escape.

And now, that truth was carving into her bones. Under her skin. On her mind. In her soul.

I never took her identity, her freedom to speak, live and feel. She had what belonged to her. Just in my terms.

I didn't control her, but she relied on me.

The door clicked open, but I kept my eyes on the file. I didn't need to know who it was. Her heels clicked on the ground, nearing my side of the bed and halted.

Viola sat down on the chair by the bed, her strong feminine perfume now invaded the fragrance Anvaya had left in me. Viola's presence was always undeniably strong and demanding.

"Won't you look at me?" she asked, keeping down her handbag.

I nodded. Eyes set on her.

"How was your day?" she asked again.

"Good."

"I see. After all, your puppet was around your fingers, so I presumed, it'd be good."

"You know me very well, Viola." My voice was calm, steady. Eyes set on her.

She smiled, hollow as always—her eyes a mirror of the turmoil she desperately tried to hide, but her efforts faltered.

"Who is she to you?"

I just looked at her.

"Who are you to me?"

"Your wife."

"You've got your answer," I replied curtly, calmly enough to press down her suspicion. Her gaze was sharp, never unforsaken toward Anvaya's topic between us.

She chuckled, "You're very smart."

I didn't respond.

"But you've been really less obedient, Yaksh, do you realise that?" her voice was tinged with dislike toward my supposed to be changing behaviour toward her.

"Am I?"

She gave a subtle nod, "You're."

"You don't get to slip away when under my control," she muttered, standing up and walked closer to me.

"Should I remind you who you were and who I let you be?" she whispered, bending to my face level.

I stiffened, absorbing her words.

They weren't a threat.

They were a reminder.

A reminder I avoided.

I didn't respond. Just looked into her eyes—gleaming with satisfaction from her control on me. She treasured control. She despised disobedience.

But precisely—she was fixated with her control on me.

I wasn't her fixation. My weakness was. Initially.

But now, she wanted me too, along with my weakness.

"You don't need to remind me, Lucien," I muttered, my voice low in surrender.

Her eyes flickered the slightest at the name—a name forbidden, written under the skin for concealing.

But sometimes, we need to give a part of us to get what we want. So was her never talk about the lore locked with me, just like my weakness locked with her. We were bound to each other in terms we never decided. They were decided before we were born.

Bringing her hand to my face, she trailed her fingers down my left cheek before curling around my nape, bringing our faces closer.

"I hate disobedience," she muttered. Her lips falling on my lips for a second before they locked with mine.

"I know."

"So stop clinging to your puppet. She's a weakling, she won't survive your mess," she said, more like a warning. "She hates you. Just let her go."

I didn't respond. Just looked into her eyes.

Letting go of me, she stood back on the ground and unbuttoned her white peplum, slipping it down to let it meet the ground. Soon enough, her white dress was pooled around her feet, leaving her behind in a white lingerie.

Nothing was covered. Nothing.

My eyes remained locked with hers.

A whispering smirk hung by the corner of her lips, as she got on the bed, on her knees, over my legs. Her perfect curves hid her identity, something she never let slip.

Yet I knew.

I knew the cracks. I knew the dips on her body that no one had seen.

"Can she please you like me?" Viola questioned, curling her thumbs under the lingerie shoulder strands, pulling them down to her arms when I gripped her waist and flipped our bodies.

She was pinned down.

She chuckled, "Already proving me wrong." She bit on her lower lip, seductively, slowly. "I like it."

"You know I love you a lot, right, Yaksh?" she continued despite my silence and straight eyes, wrapping her arms around my neck.

I nodded, "I never forgot."

"Good boy."

I stood up on my knees, as I looked up at her hands locked to the headboard with handcuffs.

She gasped, "You tied me up? How come I not know?"

I chuckled, "You were expressing your love for me, Lucien."

Her jaw squared, eyes morphing into pure displeasure, hatred for the known, bur just between us.

"Don't use that name." She gritted. "Understood?"

"Then... I shall be free from your clutch?" I questioned back and was just met by her silence.

Getting down the bed, I walked over to the floor cabinet nearby, pulling out a drawer and fumbled for the searched thing. My fingers flipped meds after meds inside, some empty, some new, some used.

And there laid the black glass bottle.

Picking it up, I dropped two pills on my palm, before tosing them inside the glass of water kept on the cabinet. The pills instantly fizzed into bubbles, mixing with the clarity of the liquid.

Picking it up, I moved back to her frame, lying silently staring at me.

My hand forwarded the glass to her lips, pressing slightly to urge her to take it. She did. Viola gulped the water in three go, unmindful toward the medicine.

"Now be obedient, yes?" I muttered, setting down the glass.

Her eyes were glassy. Not just abyssal, but glazed with haze. The stoicity in them weren't from control and power, rather from obedience and acceptance.

Lucien—was tattooed on her right clavicle, in black. Under it laid a date.

A date significant to her more than anything.

1.12.1992

I looked at her for one last time, before walking away.

"Don't leave me... please." Her desperate tone cut through the silence in the room, halting my steps. But I didn't turn around.

"But you said I'm being disobedient," I reminded her.

The sound of the metal handcuffs clicking against the headboard betrayed her struggle to break free.

"I'm sorry... please don't leave me," her words slurred, as if slipping through fog on an empty road. Low. Humming. Obscured.

She never apologised. But again, it wasn't Viola Oberoi or Viola Dokuhana Moriyard—it was Lucien. Just Lucien.

And Lucien knew better than disobeying and controlling. She was two personalities—none that belonged to her. To see, she didn't even exist. Just her flesh, blood and skin were given a name.

For the rest, she existed between the two worlds made for her. She existed between them. Not in one of them. And there ceased her existence. She physically existed, but her soul didn't. They existed under the two names given to her.

That's all.

"I'll be back." I muttered before closing the door behind me.