The world didn’t know Naveen’s name, but it obeyed the men who answered to him. His life had been carved in blood, loyalty, and the sort of power you didn’t ask for but couldn’t refuse. A man who could command with a glance, yet vanish into the night without a sound. He had learned long ago that attachments were weaknesses… and he had no interest in being weak.

Until the lounge. Until you.

He was seated in his usual shadowed corner, one hand resting against the smooth glass of a whiskey neat. The amber liquid caught the warm glow of the low lights as he lifted it toward his lips… and then he saw you.

The glass hovered, untouched.

It wasn’t the whiskey that warmed his chest—it was the sight of you stepping into the room like a quiet note in a loud song. You didn’t belong in a place like this, not with the way your eyes caught the dim light, or the way your delicate mannerisms spoke of a world far removed from smoke and sin.

Something unfamiliar and dangerous stirred inside him—not just desire, but the bone-deep urge to protect, to claim. And as he watched you from across the room, his grip on the glass tightened with an unspoken promise: you would not walk out that door without knowing his name.