Chapter 54 :

Anvaya's POV

So, all the time David showed his want for me, the will to have me as his girlfriend and marry me… was all fake?

The thought didn’t whisper. It crashed through me like a hammer against glass. I shattered inside, shards of myself scattering everywhere. Betrayal had weight—heavy, suffocating. It sat in my chest like a stone I could not spit out.

The one I had called cruel all this time—he had been the one who sacrificed his freedom. The one I thought was my ideal—he was always lurking behind me, weaving chains I couldn’t see, planning to cage me not out of love, but vengeance.

I had judged wrong. So wrong.

But was it my fault?

I didn’t know who was who beneath the surface anymore. Faces blurred. Words twisted. I didn’t know what love was supposed to look like, because everyone who offered it seemed to hold daggers in their hands.

“You married Viola five years ago?” My voice trembled, each syllable a fragile thing trying to survive.

“I did,” he muttered. His tone wasn’t proud. It was flat, dull, almost resentful. “But never slept with her.”

I blinked, taken aback. “What?”

Relief slithered into me, quiet and guilty. A secret breath I almost despised myself for taking. Viola was vile, venom dressed as silk. She had always wanted control, nothing more. Now that I loved him, the thought of his body entwined with hers would have cut me deeper than any blade. If he had touched her, it would have been justifiable—they were married. But he hadn’t.

And that—sounded like a shameful relief.

“Why?” My voice was a whisper, fragile as glass.

His eyes burned. “My obsession runs for you in my veins. It’s you or no one.”

The words struck like a confession and a curse at once. My throat tightened.

“Now you know me,” he said.

I did. Or so I thought. I knew who he was, who he had become. The shadows that raised him, the chains that made him. But one part of him still slipped from my grasp like smoke.

His love.

Could he love?

Someone who had never received love—how could they offer it? What did they know of tenderness, of sacrifice, of devotion? Could a starving soul feed another?

I didn’t know.

“Come,” he said, extending his hand. “Let me show you something more.”

His hand swallowed mine. His pull was strong, demanding, and yet there was a strange warmth in the grip. We left the room. The corridor stretched endlessly, silence crawling against its walls. When the elevator doors opened, the steel looked like the mouth of a beast waiting to swallow us whole.

It carried us down.

B2, the red screen glowed.

The air cooled as the doors opened.

“Don’t get scared,” he murmured, his voice a low anchor in the dark.

The corridor here was unlike the others. Darker. Its silence heavier. Golden vintage lamps flickered weakly along the ceiling edges, their glow pale, as though trembling against the void pressing in from all sides.

Guards lined the walls, tall, expressionless, bowing one after another as we passed. Their reverence wasn’t for me. It was for him. Always him.

The air seeped into my bones, cold and metallic. My skin prickled. My breath felt stolen from me.

But still—I followed.

We entered a wide basement. I froze as my senses sharpened. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

The smell. Metallic, pungent. Bitter.

Blood.

It clung to the air like a second skin. Dried, but fresh enough to sting.

I knew this smell. I had lived in it, worked with it, breathed it inside the sterile white of operation theatres. But here, it wasn’t sterile. It was suffocating. It was wrong.

My body shivered, even pressed against his warmth. Fear pressed harder—the fear of what waited beyond imagination.

The lights snapped on.

And I gasped.

David sat in the middle.

A chair of metal bound him, leather straps tightening over his wrists and ankles. His shirt was stained with blood, his hair disheveled, his lips cracked. His eyes—once the same eyes I had admired, once thought were filled with love—looked like pits now.

Once, I would have run to him. Pleaded for mercy. Begged Kaaryaksh to release him.

But not now. Not after the truth.

He wasn’t the man I had thought I’d spend my life with. He was a monster. One among the pack that had cornered Kaaryaksh, bullied him, stripped him of dignity, and left him in the dark.

Hatred bubbled in my chest, bitter as poison, burning on my tongue.

David’s gaze rose. Our eyes met.

Something flickered across his battered face.

“Anvaya,” he whispered.

And then, the tears came. His voice cracked, his words spilling out like a plea rehearsed too many times. “Anvaya, please save me. Look at what he’s doing. You’re serving him while he destroys me. I promised to marry you, remember? But he—he’s hurting me. Please, love, save me. Save me.”

I stared.

And in that moment, I saw clearly. Monsters wore beauty well. David was proof. And sufferers wore cruelty like scars—Kaaryaksh was proof of that too.

David’s voice no longer lured me. It repulsed me.

Hearing his words, knowing they didn't have even a hint of honesty even if my mistake, felt nauseous. The way his eyes were locked with mine, trying to fake each twitch of expression on his face made me hate him harder.

I let go of Kaaryaksh’s hand and stepped closer to David.

His eyes gleamed. He thought I had fallen again.

But only I knew what betrayal tasted like. Only I knew what it felt like to trust someone and watch them tear it all apart.

Vengeance ruins lives—even those who never asked to be a part of it.

I stopped before him.

“Love,” he whispered. “Please, help me. He’ll listen to you. Ask him to let me go. Then we’ll leave. Together. Away from him. You won’t suffer anymore. He’s a mons—”

My hand cut the word from his mouth.

The slap cracked against his cheek, his head whipping sideways.

I stood still. My face betrayed nothing, but my hand burned.

It wasn’t enough.

Another slap. And another. And another.

I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

I slapped him until tears poured down my cheeks, until every sob trapped in my chest broke free with the sting of my palms. His betrayal. His lies. His cruelty toward his own brother. The weight of all of it surged through me.

My palms screamed with pain, but I didn’t stop. Not until I had poured everything out.

When I finally pulled back, my chest heaved. His face was swollen, bloodied, bruised.

The girl who once ran from violence had become violence itself. This was me. Raw. Unveiled. Real.

I loathed him with everything I had.

“He’s not a monster,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “You are. You and your parents.”

My throat cracked, but I pushed on. Kaaryaksh’s childhood painted itself in my memory, the shadows he had lived through. I had been swayed by David’s words once, but Kaaryaksh had never spoken of his pain to lure me. He had carried it silently, like a wound too deep to stitch.

It was my choice now—to pity him, or to stand with him.

And I chose the latter.

“You killed the child who only wanted to live,” I said, my tears hot against my skin. “You destroyed him. You ruined his life for your own greed.”

“I loathe you, David. I trusted you. I thought of a future with you. But I’m glad Kaaryaksh came. Because now I see. You are the monster. Not him. You are the fraud in human skin.”

My voice choked. But I swallowed the sobs.

He laughed, hollow and cruel. As if finally breaking his pretence. “So he told you his sob story? Did you cry? Do you pity him? He’s pathetic. Weak. He deserved what he got as a child. A fucking weakling—”

Another slap cut through his words.

“Don’t you dare,” I hissed. “He is not pathetic. You are. You all are. Weak, pathetic parasites. Feeding on souls like his to make yourselves feel strong. And only powerless cowards do that. People like Kaaryaksh always stay strong, just like how he survived y'all's cruelty.”

"There's this saying—

Don't blame the clown for acting like a clown.

Ask yourself why you keep visiting the circus."

I wiped my tears, my voice steel. “I don’t pity him. Pitiful are people like you. Empty cans. Loud from outside, but hollow from. Y'all are the real clowns who can't face themselves. So you laugh at others. I stand with him.”

His eyes blazed as I threw the reality on his face. He deserved that. For ruining everything.

I leaned closer, my finger pointing at him. “He isn’t weak. You only made him believe he was. Because you couldn’t bear your own hollowness.”

His jaw tightened. The mask cracked.

"Got your satisfaction calling him pathetic? Weak? Pitied? That's your reality. That's his delusion you all built. You all made him believe he was weak, pathetic and pitied because you all were each one of them. You all didn't want to admit it so you put them on him."

My heart clenched. I said what he deserved to hear. His eyes flickered, jaw tightened. He knew he was finally facing the reality and even a monster falls weak when they see the mirror.

Because a mirror reflects who you are. That's why evils don't look at mirror. Even if they do, they wear skins that hide their true self.

“You’re pathetic. Weak. Worthless,” I spat, the words sharp as knives. Then I turned away.

Kaaryaksh’s eyes met mine.

For the first time, Kaaryaksh’s almost eyes softened. A ghost of a smile trembled there, uncertain, like it had forgotten how to exist on his lips. Maybe it existed for a blink. But it did. I was sure.

Those same words that once poisoned him now fell upon the man who deserved them. Sometimes words break you. Sometimes they heal you. It's not always necessary to hit physically.

David would rot. Even if his body stood, his soul would decay. Because he was shown the reality.

I reached for Kaaryaksh’s hand. His fingers were hesitant, calloused from battles both seen and unseen, but they curled around mine when I tightened my grip.

“Deal with him later,” I whispered. “Let’s go.”

I pulled him with me.

The elevator swallowed us, carrying us up, away from the stench of iron and shadows of cages. Each floor we rose felt like a layer of darkness peeling off my skin. When the doors finally opened and we stepped into my room, the air was different—warmer, safer, mine.

I turned the lock behind us with a small click that sounded louder than it should have. A final barrier against everything outside.

“Sit,” I said gently.

He obeyed, lowering himself onto the edge of the bed. He didn’t speak. He only watched me, eyes tracking every movement as though afraid I might dissolve if he blinked. His silence wasn’t cold; it was reverent, fragile, as if words might shatter the moment.

I walked to the windows and drew the curtains shut, one by one, until the world outside was sealed away. The soft dark wrapped the room, and in it, us.

When I turned back, I no longer saw the avenger, the monster they had forced him to become. I saw the child that once had his innocence stolen, the boy who had been denied warmth, denied love.

His eyes glimmered faintly, even if no smile lingered there anymore. But he was calm, not that armour to hold his power and authority. For the first time, he looked calm. Free.

Free from nightmares. Free from curses never his to carry.

I stepped toward him, my hands trembling but determined. I peeled off my t-shirt and let it fall, until I sat beside him in only bra and shorts. His breath hitched ever so slightly, unnoticeable, not with hunger, but with disbelief—as if closeness were a gift he didn’t know how to accept.

One by one, I undid the shields he wore. His tie, his coat, his shirt. Piece by piece, his armor fell away until he sat before me in nothing but boxers—bare, vulnerable, and human.

“We aren’t even,” he whispered into my ear.

A giggle escaped me, light in the heavy dark. 

Sliding out of my shorts, I tugged him onto the bed with me. I lay back, arms open.

He hesitated only for a breath before surrendering, coming to me not like a man claiming a lover but like a child starved of warmth finally allowed to touch fire. Silently, desperately, he pressed his face into my chest, his arms wrapping tight around me. His whole body trembled as if the act of holding was more overwhelming than anything else he’d endured.

I stroked his hair with one hand, fingers sliding through strands coarse with tension. My other hand held the ridges of his back, memorizing the story his scars told without words.

We lay cocooned.

Warm. Raw. Real.

“How do you feel?” I whispered into the dark.

He didn’t answer immediately. His breath stuttered against my skin before evening out. Then, a single word.

“Free.”

I smiled, my lips brushing the crown of his head.

“Don’t be that rock Kaaryaksh Oberoi now, okay?” I teased softly.

And then—he chuckled.

The sound startled me, fragile but true, spilling into the room like music stitched out of broken glass and sunlight. His first real laugh. Not the cold bark I had heard before, not the bitter mockery. This was different. Alive.

“Thank you,” he murmured into my skin, his words vibrating against me like a prayer.

“I saw myself in you,” I whispered back. “I couldn’t fight for myself, so I fought for you.”

His head lifted, his gaze locking with mine. In his eyes, I saw disbelief, wonder, and a grief so old it looked almost like relief.

“My parents never let me dance. Or read,” I confessed, my voice unsteady. “They thought knowledge would make me slip away from their grip. They wanted to control me. They burned my books. Hurt my legs when I tried to dance.”

His eyes darkened, stormy with anger not for himself, but for me. “Those scars on your legs… that’s why?”

I nodded.

His jaw clenched so tightly I could hear the grind of teeth. His chest rose and fell with the fury of someone who wanted to kill ghosts that no longer existed.

“We aren’t even,” he said again, his voice low, ragged.

I shook my head gently. “We are. They’re gone now. Dead. We’re even.”

Once I'd gone back to where I was born.

It felt weird when I revisited the home I'd grown up in, after their death. It was so empty. No one yelled at me. No one hurt me. No one marked my legs with belts and hot iron rods leaving behind deep scars, burnt my books. Rooms were empty.

I felt lonely but free. Maybe because I'd grown up between them, so I was used to whatever they gave me. I wasn't sad that they weren't alive anymore. I was free. But they were my family. Not warmly but they were, still. So the absence was felt.

The change was drastic, but I moved on with time.

And now, lying in the dark with him, I wasn’t lonely anymore.

I thought once I was meant for light. That only the bright, the pure, the untainted could hold love.

But I was wrong.

I found myself in Kaaryaksh.

And—I loved him in the dark.