Kush Pathak didn’t need to raise his voice to command attention. He walked into a room, and silence followed. Six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, always dressed in tailored black, he was intensity personified. His dark eyes didn’t just look at peopl,e they dissected them. Born into wealth, yes. But everything he had n,ow every luxury car, every five-star restaurant under his name, every newspaper headline was earned through grit, violence, and ruthless ambition.

He was the kind of man who didn’t want for anything. Because he already had everything. Until her, she entered his world like monsoon wind through dry Delhi heat, sudden, chaotic, impossible to ignore. She wasn’t from his world. Didn’t chase clout, didn’t fawn over his last name, and certainly didn’t flinch under his gaze. When she smiled, she was unbothered. When she spoke, it was unfiltered. And when she looked at him, it wasn’t with awe. It was with clarity.

It undid him. He pursued her slowly. Quietly. But with a hunger that wrapped itself around her like smoke. Within months, she was his married in a wedding that the media called grand, but he remembered for the way she had whispered yes with her forehead against his chest. She didn’t just become his wife. She became his obsession.

Kush Pathak, the man who built empires, now memorized the pattern of her sighs. He learned what made her lips part, what made her laugh in that breathless way that made his chest ache. Every touch was a claim. Every kiss is a mark. He let the world worship his restaurants, but her? Her smile, her skin, her scent, those were his. So, when she went out one evening with friends dressed in a soft yellow kurti and those anklets he loved, he told himself to breathe. She texted him all night. Sent selfies. Laughed into the camera just for him. But then one picture stopped him cold. Two men in the background. Staring at her. Lingering.

That night, she came home humming, barefoot. She called out his name, cheeks flushed with happiness. Until she saw him standing in the hallway. Arms crossed. Jaw tight. Eyes unreadable. He didn’t speak. Just watched her for a moment. Then he stepped closer slowly. Deliberately. Like a predator closing in. His voice was low. Too low. “Tell me,” he murmured, “what made you think other men could even look at you?”

His breath grazed her skin. His hand reached out, brushing her hair back behind her ear, not tender, not rough. Just… his. And his eyes, those dark, dangerous eyes, held a promise: That she belonged to him. And the world would burn before he let her forget that.