The shouting had stopped.
Finally.
Meher sat on the edge of her bed, her fingers still trembling. The room felt small the air thick with leftover anger and perfume. Her stepmother's words still echoed down the hallway, sharp like broken glass.
"Say sorry to your sister, Meher. Don't ruin this family's peace again."
Peace.
She almost laughed.
Rhea was the picture of innocence crocodile tears, trembling lips, a perfect bandage wrapped around her wrist.
And everyone fell for it. Again.
Meher looked down at her own wrist faint red marks where her mother had grabbed her too hard. Last time, this was how it started. Bruises. Blame. Silence.
But this time… she wouldn't let it end that way.
She took a slow breath, forcing her hands to stop shaking. "You won't die for them again," she whispered, staring at her reflection in the mirror. "Not this time."
Outside, a black SUV slowed near her house. Devian leaned back in the seat, cigarette glowing faintly between his fingers. His driver spoke in Hindi, but he barely listened, he caught only half the words. Something about routes. Police. Checkpoints.
His gaze stayed on the house across the street. He wasn't sure why he'd stopped there.
Something had tugged at him, quiet, sharp, unsettling. Maybe it was the streetlight flickering like a heartbeat. Maybe it was the faint silhouette behind the curtains.
Or maybe… it was memory.
He could still feel her weight in his arms, the girl in the red dress, whispering something in broken Hindi he had barely understood.
"Zindagi… ek aur mauka…"
A life… one more chance.
He'd told himself he was over it. That he'd avenged her. That he'd buried every ghost. But tonight, his chest ached like an old wound reopening.
"Boss?" his man called softly from the front seat. "We should move."
Devian didn't reply right away. He flicked the cigarette out the window, watched the ember fade on the road, and finally murmured, "Go." Upstairs, Meher stood at her window, staring at the street. The SUV's taillights glowed red before turning the corner and disappearing.
For a moment, she couldn't breathe.
Her chest tightened like her body remembered something her mind couldn't. She pressed her palm to the glass.
Cold. Real. Present.
And yet… something about that car, that feeling wouldn't leave her. Down the lane, Devian's SUV disappeared into the night, but his thoughts didn't.
He poured himself a drink when he reached home, the city lights reflecting in the glass.
He tried to forget the face in the gym that morning. The shadow in the curtain tonight.
But both had the same quiet fire that haunted him, the same eyes that had begged him, once, to save her.
He rubbed his chest, exhaled slow.
"What are you doing to me, bambina…" he muttered under his breath. And somewhere across the city, Meher whispered into the dark,
"I'm not that girl anymore."
Neither knew it,
but destiny had just shifted its weight and both hearts had started remembering the same story… all over again.