The chaos at home didn't die down.
Her father's name had been dragged through mud. Her mother barely stepped outside. Relatives whispered. Her younger cousin — expelled and humiliated — hadn't spoken to anyone in days.
All of it led back to one name.
Rael Valtor.
And for the first time, the ache in Ananya's heart wasn't love.
It was hate.
---
She sat in her room, alone, surrounded by broken pieces — shattered tea cups, a torn engagement lehenga, her old childhood photo albums scattered across the floor. The storm outside mirrored her own. Thunder cracked. Rain hammered the window.
She remembered his voice.
"If I can't have you, no one will."
She had once been drawn to that madness.
Now, it disgusted her.
He didn't protect her.
He didn't love her.
He tried to own her.
---
Rael messaged her. Called. Sent flowers.
She blocked his number.
Deleted his name from her phone.
But not from her memory.
Each time she heard her father's frustrated sigh, saw her mother crying alone, she felt the fury inside her twist tighter. It wasn't Rael's love she remembered anymore.
It was the destruction he left behind.
---
When he showed up at her apartment days later, drenched in rain, eyes wild with desperation, she didn't open the door. She stood behind it, listening to him bang on the wood.
"Ananya! Just talk to me!"
"No."
"Please. I did it for you. I did it *because* I love you!"
She opened the door — just enough to look into his eyes.
"You don't love anyone but yourself, Rael."
He froze.
"I hate you," she said. "And if I see you near me or my family again… I will destroy you."
The door slammed.
And for the first time since their twisted bond began, Rael Valtor was left outside — powerless.
--