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Updating before the target gets completed but make sure you all complete the target in next chapter!
******
POV AUTHOR
The moment Tara’s body collapsed to the floor, the world seemed to fracture.
Time cracked-then stopped.
Vihaan’s terrified scream shattered the silence.
“MUMMAAA!”
People turned, startled. Games continued beeping, lights flickered, children laughed obliviously-but for one man, the rest of the world faded to black.
He was by her side before anyone else could even move. Swift. Precise. Deadly calm.
His knees hit the floor with a thud, but his hands didn’t tremble. They moved with cold expertise-two fingers on her pulse, the back of his hand on her cheek, his other hand already checking her breathing.
“Tara…” he murmured, but the name fell off his lips like a curse he hadn’t spoken in over a decade.
She was unconscious.
But alive.
For now.
His jaw clenched, nostrils flaring slightly as he controlled the storm inside.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not here. Not her
Vihaan, frantic, ran to him, tears rolling down his flushed cheeks. His tiny hands clutched the man’s sleeve, voice shaking.
“Uncle… Uncle, kya hua Mumma ko?!” (Uncle, what happened to Mumma?!)
The man didn’t respond-not immediately. He didn’t even flinch.
His eyes were locked on Tara’s face, now pale and still.
“She’s breathing,” he muttered finally, voice clipped, colder than ice-but underneath that chilling calmness, a war raged.
His grip on her wrist was firm. Too firm. Like if he let go, she’d vanish again.
Then came his voice-low, commanding, the kind that silenced rooms and ended discussions.
“To the car. Now. We’re taking her to my hospital.”
One of the guards, stunned, hesitated. “Sir, should we call an emergency-?”
“No.” His voice dropped into a lethal whisper.
“I. Am. The emergency.”
No one argued again.
In one fluid movement, he scooped Tara into his arms like she was made of porcelain. But the sharpness in his eyes said otherwise-he was holding something more dangerous than glass.
He wasn’t just carrying an unconscious woman.
He was carrying everything he had buried under blood, ash, and years of silence.
Vihaan ran beside him, stumbling a little to keep up, clutching his teddy as if it were life itself.
“Mumma… please wake up… don’t sleep… please…”
Tears streamed down his face, but he didn’t slow. The man didn’t spare him a glance, but his pace quickened.
Because he heard it.
That child’s voice.
Pleading for her.
It made something inside him-something locked away behind years of ruthless ambition and surgical precision-begin to crack.
Not now.
Not again.
********
The glass-paneled entrance of Starlight Medical Hospital gleamed under the California sun, a fortress of clinical perfection built on precision, status-and fear.
It wasn’t just a hospital.
It was a kingdom.
And he… was the king no one dared to cross.
The heavy glass doors slammed open as the guards moved ahead, clearing the path. And then, he walked in-a storm in a tailored black coat, carrying Tara in his arms like a fallen queen.
Her head slumped gently against his chest, the cascade of her hair brushing the fabric of his shirt, unconscious. Unaware.
But every step he took sent a silent scream through the sterile halls.
Nurses straightened their uniforms, doctors paused mid-consultation, and the interns?
They nearly dropped their clipboards.
Whispers exploded like wildfire in hushed tones.
“Is that him? Dr. V-“
“Wait… he’s never brought anyone in himself-“
“Is that… that’s Dr. Tara Sharma?! What the hell-“
He walked straight through them like death in slow motion-his face unreadable, jaw locked, eyes straight ahead.
Unflinching. Cold. Deadly calm.
The hallway seemed to stretch before him, people instinctively forming two perfect lines, backs straight, heads down. No one dared breathe too loudly, let alone speak to him.
Then came the trembling nurse, rushing forward with a stretcher. “S-Sir, please, we’ll take her-“
He didn’t even stop walking.
“Touch her,” his voice sliced through the air like a scalpel dipped in venom, “and I’ll have your license shredded before sunset.”
She froze in her tracks.
The stretcher clattered to a halt. She stepped back as if the devil himself had looked her in the eye.
A junior doctor-new, clueless, bold from inexperience-stepped forward. “Sir, protocol states that-“
“Protocol dies today,” he said without blinking, eyes glinting like ice under steel. “Move. Aside.”
The poor doctor nearly stumbled backward.
He didn’t wait for their permission.
Why would he?
He owned the goddamn hospital.
He slammed open the emergency doors with his shoulder, carried Tara inside like she belonged nowhere else, and kicked the door shut behind him with brutal finality.
The sound echoed like a gunshot.
******
Inside, the air changed. Gone was the hospital’s clinical chill-now it throbbed with memory and madness.
He laid her gently-too gently-on the observation bed.
The machines beeped softly as he pulled gloves on with surgical precision. But his hands-those hands that had saved lives, ended careers, performed miracles-shook. Barely. But they did.
The room fell into a heavy stillness.
He took a step back, hands on the counter, breathing hard-but not from exhaustion.
From restraint.
From the weight of seeing her again.
But nevertheless her checked her vitals, murmuring observations under his breath. Her heartbeat. Her oxygen level. Her temperature.
“Still stubborn,” he muttered, almost to himself.
Once he was done checking her up he gave her an injection and sat beside the bed, gloves discarded, jaw clenched. His usual calculated stillness was present, but something behind those storm-grey eyes was dangerously alive.
He shouldn’t have seen her like this.
Not now.
Not this way.
He knew she was in LA. He’d known for months. Maybe years.
She was one of the top doctors in the city-the hospital’s pride, the heart of the Emergency Wing. Her reputation had reached his ears long before fate threw them into this cruel intersection. He had stayed away, built walls, built silence.
Because if she saw him…
He closed his eyes for a second.
He was supposed to be dead.
And now here she was, barely breathing, her pulse like a whisper beneath fragile skin.
His gaze dropped to her hand-faint calluses from surgical tools, a thin bracelet, too loose on her wrist. He hated how small it looked now. He hated how hollow her cheeks were. She looked like she carried the weight of a world that should’ve never been hers.
And he knew why.
He was the reason.
The fire that had once been Tara-the girl who laughed too loud, who danced in the rain, who believed in forever-that fire had flickered the moment he vanished from her life… in blood and glass and fire.
And he had stayed gone. For her.
But now?
Now, fate had dragged him back. And she was lying there unconscious, unaware that the man she had buried in her past was sitting beside her, breathing the same air again.
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, elbows sharp against bone. His fingers intertwined as he stared at her face, a face that haunted the edges of his nightmares and dreams alike.
His throat tightened, but his voice didn’t waver.
Not even now.
He whispered it like a prayer-
“Tara…”
The word burned. But it was a sweet burn.
It tasted like amrit and ashes at once.
Like everything he’d lost… and everything he’d come back for.
He watched her chest rise and fall, and somewhere in the back of his mind, a vow carved itself into stone.
He was back.
And this time-he wasn’t going to lose her.
No matter what it cost.
Because whatever piece of her had died with him thirteen years ago-he would bring it back.
Even if he had to set the whole damn world on fire to do it.
******
Vihaan sat outside the room, his teddy squished under his arm. His eyes lit up when he saw him.
“Uncle! Mumma? Mumma thik hai na?” (Uncle, is Mumma okay?)
The man knelt, this time slower.
“She’s awake. She’s fine,” he said simply. No smile. No warmth.
Vihaan beamed. “Thank you! Aap superman ho uncle! Maine bola tha na Teddy wala uncle bohot ache hain!” (You’re like Superman, Uncle! I told Mumma you’re a good man!)
The man didn’t reply.
Didn’t correct him.
He just stood up and turned to one of his security guards. “Stay with the boy. No one gets near him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then he walked away.
His shoulders straight, his face unreadable.
But inside?
Inside, he wasn’t composed.
He was burning.
Because for thirteen years, he had trained himself to be untouchable. A ghost. A man feared in boardrooms and revered in operation theatres.
But now?
Now the one woman who could undo him with a single look had seen him.
Fainted at the sight of him.
And he had no idea what to do next.
******
A soft rustle disturbed the sterile silence of the room.
The ECG beeped steadily beside her, the cold scent of antiseptic clinging to the air. Tara’s fingers twitched against the blanket, lashes fluttering open slowly. The white ceiling blurred into focus, and for a moment-she didn’t remember where she was.
Then the memories crashed down like a tidal wave.
Vihaan.
The game zone.
The teddy.
Him.
Her breath caught in her throat as her body jerked lightly, and that’s when she heard the voice.
“Tara meri jaan!” (Tara, my life!)
Manav was by her side in seconds, eyes wild, worry written all over his face.
“Are you okay? Are you feeling dizzy? I’ll call the doctor-wait, don’t move-“
But she reached out and caught his wrist.
Her fingers trembled, but her grip was firm.
“Bhai…” her voice cracked, hoarse and fragile. “Bhai, I… I saw him.”
The words felt like glass on her tongue.
Manav froze.
He didn’t meet her eyes.
He didn’t have to. The silence spoke for him.
“…I know,” he whispered.
Tara blinked, and then the storm broke inside her.
“You knew?!” Her voice shattered, rising. “You knew and you didn’t tell me?!”
Manav tried to steady her as she pushed herself upright, her fingers clawing at the sheets, at his shirt, her eyes wide and brimming.
“You all lied to me,” she choked. “You all kept me in the dark! For years! Why, bhai? Why would you do this to me?!”
Her chest heaved with sobs now, uncontrollable, raw. Her hands clutched his arm like he was the only thing keeping her from falling apart.
“He died, Manav. I buried him. I spent thirteen years mourning him! I built a life over his ghost! And now… now he’s just back?!”
Her voice cracked again.
“Why now?!”
Manav held her close, his own heart ripping apart inside his chest.
He couldn’t look at her-because he had no defense. No lie strong enough to ease that pain in her voice. He had promised himself he’d protect her from this moment, and here it was, breaking her all over again.
“I’m sorry, Tara…” he whispered, wrapping his arms tightly around her. “I just got to knew about this 2 weeks ago and I didn’t know how to tell you… I didn’t know how to break you again.”
She sobbed into his chest, fists clinging to his shirt like she was clinging to sanity.
“He left me, bhai… I died that day… he let me die!”
Manav’s eyes burned, but he stayed strong-for her. He ran a hand over her hair, murmuring quiet, broken comforts.
“He’s not here to hurt you,” he said softly. “Whatever he’s here for… I won’t let him touch you again if you don’t want him to.”
But Tara wasn’t listening anymore.
She was lost in a storm-her soul caught between a love that had once been her everything, and a betrayal so deep it never stopped bleeding.
She didn’t even realize she had started to tremble until Manav tucked her into him tighter, like he could shield her from memories.
But some ghosts don’t knock before returning.
Some ghosts break the door down.
And now, he was back.
Not as a memory.
But as a man.
******
Hey, lovelies! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don’t forget to hit that vote button and leave your thoughts in the comments. Till then byy see you soon ❤️
Thank you for your love and support!
Love from,
Miss Sharma ❤️
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