The air in the club was thick with smoke and the low hum of music vibrating through the floor. Glitter from the chandeliers caught on the mirrors, scattering into shards that seemed almost dangerous, like broken promises. She was there, spinning her hair absentmindedly, laughing at a joke she’d just made herself. The kind of laugh that made people forget the world existed for a moment—and he hated that it had such a hold on him.

Raghav Mehra had been watching her since she walked in two hours ago. His boots clicked against the floor with a predator’s precision as he made his way closer. Not a single soul in the room dared approach him, and he didn’t want them to. His reputation for violence preceded him, and yet here she was, fluttering like a butterfly in the eye of his storm.

“Tumhe yahan kaise dekh liya?” His voice was low, almost lethal, cutting through the music as he leaned against the bar.

She blinked at him, smile unshaken. “Raghav Mehra, the scary man himself,” she teased, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “Tum mujhe pehchante ho?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Pehchana nahi. Observe kiya.” He didn’t move closer, but the heat from him made her want to shrink—or perhaps lean in, reckless as she was.

“You’re full of it,” she said, brushing past him with deliberately careless grace, glitter catching in her hair. “And I like it.”

Raghav’s fingers twitched, almost itching to grab her, to stop her from walking away, and maybe…smash something. The thought made a part of him, a dark, hungry part, thrill in ways he hadn’t felt in years. “Dekho, tum yahan sirf apni duniya mein nahi reh sakti. Yahaan…mere rules hain.”

She laughed, the sound light and sharp, like glass breaking. “And if I don’t want to follow them?”

He smiled, slow, dangerous. “Phir…phir tumhe samajhna padega ke yeh jagah meri hai. Aur main…rules todne wale ko…nahi chhodta.”

She didn’t flinch. She shouldn’t have made him feel this way, shouldn’t have dared to step so close to his fire. But there was a magnetism between them that neither glitter nor gunmetal could deny. And he, Raghav Mehra, who had shattered every heart in the city without a second thought, suddenly realized—he wanted to be first to shatter hers, but maybe…carefully.

“You’re insane, you know that?” she said, finally looking up at him. Her eyes were wide, electric, almost asking for trouble.

“Maybe,” he said, the corner of his lip lifting. “But tum…tum meri ho jaogi, chahe tum maano ya na.”

She tilted her head, mock consideration in her eyes. “Mera hona? Bahut bada claim hai, Raghav.”

He leaned closer, and for the first time, the glitter in the club didn’t seem dangerous—it seemed like it belonged to her, like it sparkled just for him. “Aur main…claim karne se nahi darne wala.”

Even as the music thumped and the world spun around them, the two of them existed in that moment—one, a storm waiting to erupt, the other, a spark daring to set it ablaze.