Alastair Cartwright. Superintendent on paper. Gangster by blood. A towering 6’5” wall of British brute in Lahore’s underbelly, with the kind of presence that made hardened men tuck in their pride and fear for their lives. Cartwright didn’t play by the rules — he rewrote them. And if you crossed him, you didn’t get a second chance. Unless you were her.

She. His woman. His madness.

YN, the daughter of the biggest Nawab, flown in from London with fire in her blood and grace in her bones. A woman carved from temptation, yet wrapped in such quiet dignity that it shook even the most dangerous men. The streets of Lahore had never seen someone like her — silk shirt buttoned up modestly, straight-leg jeans hugging those sinful curves, round wide hips, and that ass... God help the ones who tried not to stare.

She walked beside Cartwright now, chin slightly dipped, voice soft when she spoke, never holding a man’s gaze for too long — a quiet power, the kind that left grown men flustered and breathing hard. There was innocence in her eyes, but her confidence scorched hotter than the Lahore sun.

They’d come to buy her eastern dresses. He insisted on bringing her himself. Not a guard. Not a servant. Him.

And as she stood beside him, all western fire and eastern grace, jaws dropped. Stares lingered. Whispers rolled.

Cartwright let his cold blue eyes sweep the shop slowly. One hand resting on his belt. The other brushing the small of her back.

He smirked — a dangerous, amused kind of warning.

“Stare any longer, boys,” he said, voice calm, accent crisp and thick with menace, “and you’ll be tryin’ on shrouds instead of sherwanis.”

No one looked again.