《 7 》

◇ Anvitha ◇

' By the way ,Anvitha . Did you take your pills this morning. '

'Anvitha . Did you take your pills this morning .'

'Did you take your pills this morning .'

' Take your pills .'

'Your pills. '

'Pills.'

Fuck .

Fucking fuck.

Fuck my mind. No fuck him .

After getting a single sentence from a 'nobody ' i lose my mind .

My mind is occupied by this sentence.

I don't realize that a single sentence can hold this much power on me .

I need to get this out of my system. And need to take some actions.

But how the hell he got to know about them even Alka, Vikram and Tanishkha never mentioned about it.

When the closest person to our family doesn't know about it than how a stranger can be .

Or may be they know but doesn't say it.

No , we are not strangers. Strangers don't no anything about each other . But he know more about me , even more than I know myself.

He had upper hand in this case . From when he start observing me . How much he know.

Is he a stalker.

Does he hire someone for it or he do it by himself.

I need to stop this . I am just overthinking . But on the other hand I can not neglected what I heard .

what he said .

I close my eyes and feel the water dripping from my head to my body .

The water was cold.

Not refreshingly cold. Not the kind that wakes you up or soothes your nerves.

It was bone-cutting, soul-flaying cold.

And I welcomed it.

I stood under the stream for so long that the skin on my fingers started to wrinkle, and my pulse slowed. I wasn't just washing off the sweat and grime of the night. No. I was trying to wash him out of me.

Out of my mind.

Ryan Raichand.

The name felt like ash on my tongue, and yet it lingered like perfume in the back of my throat. I couldn't swallow it down. Couldn't spit it out.

Why the fuck was he occupying my thoughts like this?

He'd said exactly one sentence to me.

And yet, his voice echoed louder than most people who've screamed at me my entire life.

Did you take your pills this morning?

Those words replayed on a loop while I stood under the punishing cold.

I don't like it when someone know something more than me .

More than me.

I gripped the edge of the marble shelf in my shower, breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth, over and over.

He knows something.

He knows.

What it could be ?

I don't know how. I don't know what. But something inside me is clawing at my insides, telling me that his knowledge isn't surface-level.

It's deeper.

Familiar.

Darker.

Insidious.

Dangerous.

I scrubbed my skin harder, as if trying to erase the ghost of his smirk.

Those beautiful light brown eyes with thick eyebrows . Lighter than mine. Sharper. Like they could read minds and break spirits at the same time.

He is beautiful In a dangerous way .

The kind of beauty a person should admire from far and if you go close it can swallow you alive .

He has wavy hair.

Dark brown wavy hair .

How beautiful He do looks when those waves fall's on his forehead.

And for one second, just one, I felt like I'd seen them before. Those same pair of brown.

In another life?

In a nightmare?

In a memory?

In past ?

Where ? I can't remember it .

I don't know.

I don't fucking know.

But I know this - Ryan Raichand is not just a business partner. He's a fucking puzzle box, and I'm not going to sleep until I figure out what's inside.

I turned the water off and stepped out, steam curling around my legs as I reached for the blood-red robe hanging on the hook.

Blood red - how appropriate.

I tied the sash around my waist and moved across the marble floor of my bedroom, wet footprints trailing behind me. The cold was still inside my bones, but it was a different cold now. Strategic. Focused.

As I picked up my phone from the side table, my fingers moved on instinct. Muscle memory. I hit the contact saved under a name most people wouldn't look twice at:

"RAVEN."

He picked up on the second ring.

"Yes, Miss Ramaswamy."

"I want surveillance," I said, voice clipped, cold. "On Ryan Raichand. Full background check. Schedule. Associates. Family. His position in his father's company. I want every single goddamn detail on my desk before sunrise."

A pause. "Any specific limitations?"

"No. I want everything, including the dirt. Especially the dirt."

"Understood."

I hung up.

Raven is the only one whom I can trust .

Appa gave him to me as a guard.

He is my personal guard. Who can do anything I say without asking any questions . I know him since the age of nineteen. As he follows me like a shadow. He tag along with me everywhere I go .

He really help me during my training time. He is may be 5 or 6 yr old. He never disclose anything about his personal life . He kept it' professional '

His words not mine. But after Appa ,if anyone I can trust it's him. And one of the few people I do care about .

If Ryan thought he could play games with me, he clearly hadn't been briefed on who the fuck I was.

I walked toward the glass doors of my balcony, unlocking them with a click, and stepped out into the night air. It kissed my wet hair, cool and soft. The stars blinked above like tiny reminders that the world was much bigger than our secrets.

But mine felt big enough to consume galaxies.

I folded my arms over the silk of my robe and stared up.

My heart was heavy, not because of fear-but because of uncertainty. I hated the not-knowing. The half-truths. The feeling of being out of control.

And Ryan... he knew I was spinning.

He saw it. Exploited it.

But the next time we meet, I'll be the one with the upper hand.

Still, before I do anything else-I need to have a word with Mihir.

He knows something. I've always known he does.

The way he looks at me sometimes- like he wants to say something, but doesn't. Like he's biting back answers.

And tonight, I'm done waiting.

Mihir's silence is no longer an option.

Tomorrow... he talks.

Whether he wants to or not.

I need answer of my question.

Questions which occupied my mind all the time.

Questions which I can't ignore anymore.

Questions which hold the power to shatter me.

Questions which can consume me whole .

And when I found the answers I know nothing will remain same.

Because they hold the power the destroy my life completely and still I will sink deeper to find them.