Chapter 22 ✦ You Really Are A Madman

「 ✧ 𝐊𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐤 ✧ 」

I ran, the knife still in my hand, cursing at the payal in my ankles, jingling at my every step.

This was not how I had pictured my night to turn out when I had first planned to run away.

It was supposed to be a clean escape. I was supposed to drive to the airport, get on our plane and fly to the UK, stay at our apartment in London, and have thousands of miles between Aryan and me.

Not to have Italians try to kidnap me on the way, barely manage to escape by killing them all, only to have Aryan chase me through the forest.

I clutched the knife harder.

Running at full speed, I waded deep into the forest, hoping to get lost. That would be a better alternative to marrying him.

Maybe when this was over, and I had successfully run away, maybe when everybody had forgiven me for daring to leave, I would tell Papa that I was ready to marry. If my marriage were what he wanted, I would gladly obey.

The groom could be anyone.

Just not Aryan.

It couldn't be him.

Because marrying him would not be a punishment. It would be everything I'd once prayed for as a little girl. And I don't deserve my dreams. Girls like me don't deserve to have their wishes fulfilled. They didn't deserve to live their dreams.

They only deserved pain.

I only deserved pain.

I glanced over my shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of him.

But he wasn't there. I had expected to see him running behind me, trying to catch me, but the empty forest was not a sight I welcomed.

I slowed down to a stop and strained my ear to focus.

Silence.

In the dead of the night, the only noise that came was from the crickets in the forest and the sound my payal made whenever I moved.

My chest heaved.

'Maybe I've outrun him,' I thought, then scoffed.

'Yeah, right!' I gulped and started breathing harder.

'He is here somewhere.' I looked around, half hoping not to see him and the other side begging to catch a glimpse.

'And he was watching.'

I could practically feel his gaze.

My heart urged me to run again and get as far away from him as possible. But my brain, ever the colder voice, told me to stay still. To breathe. To think.

You don't outrun Aryan with panic.

You do it with a plan.

Only then, maybe, maybe, you stood a chance.

Because nobody could escape him.

Not even me.

After all, I had been trying to do just that all my life.

I stepped back slowly, knife tight in my hand, eyes darting across the trees, searching for a ripple in the shadows, a broken twig, anything that would betray his presence.

But there was nothing. Just leaves, branches, skittering insects, and the ghost-light of the moon spilling through it all.

And then,

"Boo."

The whisper bloomed behind my ear like a gunshot.

I screamed, body twisting on instinct, swinging the blade blindly, but a hand caught my wrist midair.

And before I could pull away, he shoved me, and I fell on the fallen leaves and big roots of the trees sticking out of the ground, with a force that knocked the wind out of me.

I gasped, coughing, chest heaving as I blinked through the sting in my eyes, trying to find him.

Nothing.

He was gone.

I looked around frantically.

"I know you are here, Aryan," I called out, eyes darting from tree to tree. I raised the knife in my trembling hand slightly and continued, "So, stop with these childish acts and let's talk and settle this."

I turned slowly, eyes locking onto a wide tree trunk ahead. Big enough to shield him. Big enough to make my heart lurch. "Come out," I said, narrowing my eyes. "Enough of the games."

I held my breath. I was sure that even the forest had held its breath too. There was a beat of silence, and then... a rustle behind me.

I spun around, blade raised.

There he was.

Aryan.

Casually walking toward me, as if this were a stroll and not a hunt. His black shirt melted into the night, his dark eyes locked on mine.

Not rushing.

Not hiding.

Because he didn't need to.

I took a deep breath and stepped back, trying to firmly hold the knife in my hand. "Aryan..." I began. "Look..." I tried.

With every step he took, I took one back. "Aryan, stop."

"Let's just... talk," I whispered, barely able to swallow the knot in my throat.

He tilted his head slightly, slow and deliberate.

But he still said nothing.

My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my throat.

"I—" The word caught. "I'm not afraid of you."

He chuckled.

Soft, low and almost amused.

My world stopped.

Aryan Rathore chuckled.

It wasn't a sound he made often.

There was something wrong with it. The rhythm, the weight, the stillness around it.

I looked closer, and that's when I saw it.

The indifference that was on his face constantly was gone.

The boredom in his eyes? Gone!

The mask had slipped.

And something inside him had... shifted.

My blood froze at the sight.

I did not like this Aryan.

And I didn't want this Aryan anywhere near me.

He didn't speak and took another step.

"I'm not scared of you," I repeated, the lie tasting like metal on my tongue.

He stopped.

And then, softly, and with that terrifying casual expression on his face, that made my skin crawl, he promised, "You will be."

I almost wanted to cry.

My visceral reaction to him didn't make sense. I had never been scared of him.

Ever.

But this was different.

This wasn't the boy I grew up loving.

This wasn't the man I had pretended to hate either.

This wasn't even the man I was forced to marry.

There was something else inside him now.

And some buried, instinctive part of me, the same part that had kept me alive when I was twelve and praying for death, that part recognised what stood in front of me.

His words from yesterday came to mock me again.

'There's a madman inside me, and it's been watching you.'

The words rang in my head.

'Don't test its patience.'

I ran from the wedding.

'Once it's unleashed, it won't stop until you're broken.'

At the look in his eyes and the very expressive expression on his face, I could tell he had plans.

'This is your only warning.'

"Aryan," I warned, my voice cracking despite the blade in my hand, "if you take one more step, I'll cut you."

At my threat to slice him, knife gripped tight in my hand, he tilted his head, not in fear, but curiosity. Then, slowly, deliberately, he reached behind him and pulled out a gun, a smile blooming on his face, completely unhinged.

"You brought a knife," he murmured, eyes locked on mine, "to a gunfight." He raised it, but didn't point. He just held it loosely.

Looking at me, he pouted, mocking the silent fear that settled in my bones.

My chest shook at him. At everything about him. The stiff, frozen and cold Aryan was gone. Gone was the man I could fearlessly call a Peasant.

And instead stood a man whom I could only call one thing.

A psycho.

"You wouldn't dare," I whispered, eyeing the gun in his hand that he callously held.

He hadn't pointed it at me.

Not yet.

But the second the words left my mouth, his expression shifted and a single brow arched, a slow smirk stretched across his face, and then he raised the gun.

The muzzle stopped barely five inches from my forehead.

The fear hit me like a slap.

And a horrifying realisation pulsed through me. This man, this thing in front of me, had let me mock him. He'd let me insult him. Humiliate him. Roast him, year after year. All of that was because he had allowed me to do so.

"Aryan, be reasonable!" I snapped. My eyes were not straying from the gun in his hand, and the nozzle that was barely five inches away from my head. "You can't kill me!"

He blinked, slowly, his brows furrowing.

Then tilted his head.

"Kill you?" he repeated, as if the thought was absurd.

My heart eased a little at his words.

Then, quieter, too soft, he said, "No, darling. I'm not." He repeated his words, assuring me.

"The Italians did."

My stomach dropped.

He shrugged, so casually it made my blood run cold. "Or at least... that's what I'll tell Viraj Thakur," he said, voice almost playful. "When I hand him his precious daughter's corpse."

And then it happened.

Bang.

The first shot rang out, sharp, deafening, as I felt it whip past me.

And then another.

And another.

A storm of bullets came toward me as Aryan opened fire.

I screamed and dropped to the ground, the knife slipping from my fingers as I threw my arms over my head. The forest erupted with sound.

Tears streamed down my face, hot and blinding, as I curled in on myself.

But the bullets didn't stop.

They kept coming over my head, beside my arms, near my feet.

I could feel the heat of them, the wind ripple that the bullets released on my skin. I could smell the gunpowder and the metal.

I could taste it.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think.

He was shooting.

At me.

"Stop! Stop!" I screamed, again and again, until my voice cracked, until the word meant nothing.

And then.

Silence.

After what felt like a thousand bullets being shot at me, there was silence in the forest again.

I could hear the crickets again.

I could hear my payal again.

And somewhere beneath my ribs, I heard my heart breaking.

Trembling, I peeled my hands from my face, just enough to look. To look at the absolute psycho of a man standing in front of me, with the gun still pointing at me, smoke curling from the barrel.

I stared at him through tears, breath ragged, chest heaving with every shaky inhale.

The man I had once dreamed of, the one my childish heart had adored in secret, had showered bullets at me.

The adrenaline rushed through my blood as another realisation dawned on me.

He hadn't missed.

He had chosen not to shoot at me.

Because he wanted me to feel every second of it.

"You wanted me to stop," he said, the gun still in his hands, still pointing at me. "So, I did."

This psycho was beyond my understanding.

"I can drop it if you'd like," he offered, eyes locked on mine. "I don't need a gun to make you understand something very simple."

He took a step closer, slow, deliberate. "You do not cross Aryan Rathore." And with that, he dropped the gun away from him, closer to me.

And I reached for it the instant it fell to the ground.

I managed to grab the discarded gun and stood, pointing it at him. My fingers curled tightly around the grip, aiming at his chest. He just stood there, calm, almost amused, with a smile stretching slowly and lazily across his face.

"Go ahead," he said. "That's the only way to stop me," he said, nodding at his gun in my hand.

He walked towards me. He just... walked toward me with the kind of steady, bone-deep confidence that made something primal twist in my gut.

I stepped back, maintaining distance.

"Go on," he said again, spreading his arms around and his voice, louder now, calling my bluff. Mocking me. "Shoot." And with an eerie confidence and a dangerous languor in his pace, he continued to walk to me, closer and closer.

My hands trembled. "I will."

Everything was seriously wrong with him. His mannerism, his pace, the expressions... his voice.

And then he lunged.

And I pulled the trigger.

I froze.

The sound of the trigger echoed through me, but no sound of the gunshot followed.

No bullet was shot out.

My hands turned clammy as I realised that the magazine was empty.

He laughed with delight, his voice booming through the dense forest, and in one swift movement, he grabbed my wrist and yanked me against him.

"You think I'd leave a loaded gun around you?" he murmured, his grip like steel, his breath warm and unhinged against my cheek. "I've seen what you can do. Nine trained Italian mafia soldiers, dead."

He cocked his head, the movement just a beat too slow, a smile grazing his bearded face while his half-lidded eyes darkened and burned with need.

"Impressive, my warrior queen." Then, he dipped his head and licked the half-dried tears from my cheek, and at the first touch of his tongue, the gun fell from my hands, and I arched against him.

My body betrayed me as it soothed under this touch.

His beard brushed against my skin as he dragged his tongue from the bottom of my cheek to the top, lingering just long enough to make me shudder. "I can taste your fear," he said and pulled back enough to look at me. "But I can't see it in your eyes, yet."

I stood still in his hold, the cold of his saliva on my cheek giving me goosebumps.

Not breathing, not speaking, not moving.

"But I will." He smiled. "It's just a matter of when."

I willed myself to move and push him. And yet, my hands and legs stood frozen. Like always.

"Cat got your tongue, darling?" he asked, his voice amused and playful. "You wanted to talk, didn't you?" Then tapped the tip of my nose with his finger. "Then let's talk."

Talk?

He wanted to talk?

After raining hellfire down on me?

After making me beg, scream, and sob beneath a hail of bullets. Bullets that missed only because he wanted me conscious enough to feel them?

The Italians had tried to kill me.

But Aryan?

Aryan wanted me to live through his version of death.

And he wanted me to talk.

"Let me go."

He tsked softly. "That's not talking, Princess. That's demanding."

Then, without warning, he shoved me.

Hard.

My back hit the hard and rough surface of the ground, skin scraping against its jagged surface. I gasped, from pain, from shock, from the hot rush of sensation that tore through my spine and ended at a part of me that came alive only in his presence.

"Let's try again," he said as he walked over to me and stood there in front of me, leaving no room for me to walk away or even attempt to stand. "Talk."

What?

What do I say?

'I understand you're upset that I ran?'

'I know I bruised your pride?'

'I am aware my actions must have caused your family pain?'

The words formed in my mind, each one more useless than the last.

You could reason with anger.

You could de-escalate fury.

You could even plead with a man.

But what do you say to a madman?

My mind scrambled to piece together a sentence that wouldn't trigger him. Anything that wouldn't compel him to actually kill me this time.

I took a deep breath and opened my mouth to say something. But like every time, my throat closed.

"Nothing to say?" He asked softly, gently looking at my open mouth, but no words came out of them. "No words for me?"

I couldn't even shake my head.

Move Kanak.

Say something.

Do something.

"It's okay," he said with a voice that was too gentle and warm for the kind of maniac he had become. "I will talk."

He took a step closer, slow and sure, like a man walking through a dream and crouched in front of me. "My turn."

"I don't care why you ran or what spooked you," he said. "Truly, Princess, it doesn't interest me. Whether it was fear, hate, or desperation. None of it matters. You could've had a thousand reasons and none of them would've changed a thing."

Then, like a beast waking from slumber, his crouch slowly opened. And without breaking eye contact, Aryan sank down onto his hands and knees.

And began to crawl toward me.

Like a predator.

Like something that had stopped pretending to be human.

My breath hitched, and I gulped at his movement. Every inch of me screamed to run, to vanish, to disappear into the earth itself.

But I couldn't move. Not as his body loomed closer, crawling up mine with the patience of a man who knew he had all the time in the world. "You could've begged. You could've screamed. You could've disappeared off the face of the earth."

He was inches away now. Hands placed on either side of me. His knees brushed my legs. The earth beneath me felt cold and damp, but I would've gladly sunk into it if it meant escaping the intensity of his gaze. A faint smile curved on his lips, the kind that didn't belong on a face this close. "And yet, you failed."

He laughed and dropped his body, sinking into me, knocking the wind out of me. His body, which had just been hovering over me, was now on me, tingling every inch of my skin it touched. His hard muscles jutted into my soft flesh and the pebbles and twigs didn't ding into my skin, as deep as his cock dug into me.

"What a delight!" He exclaimed.

"You can even feel it, can't you?" He asked and to emphasise, he rubbed himself against me, sending shivers down my spine. I arched and I gasped, as each shiver pulsed through me and awakened me.

I hated how the feel of him rubbing against me never sickened me.

And then, with maddening composure, he bent slightly, his thigh shifting beside mine, and reached down to his ankle.

A second later, he straightened, holding another small gun in his hand.

My mouth went dry.

"Aryan," I whispered, panic crackling under the surface of my voice. "Don't. Please."

But he didn't even glance at me.

"I'd been thinking," he said, admiring the weapon like it was a piece of art. "Of ways to punish you. The entire way over."

His voice was calm. Too calm. As if we were discussing dinner.

I felt it before I saw it.

The tension coiling beneath his skin, the way his muscles turned to stone against mine, was sharp and unrelenting. Like something buried too long was rising to the surface. Something that didn't like being provoked.

And I had provoked it.

"I have to make sure," he said, voice low and deadly calm, "that this doesn't happen again."

He raised the gun and tapped the muzzle against my temple.

I froze.

The cold kiss of metal against my skin made my heart want to jump out of my chest. I whimpered, a small, pitiful sound, and his eyes flicked toward it with quiet satisfaction.

"So that this," he continued, tapping the barrel again, "doesn't give you such... stupid ideas in the future."

A tear slipped down my cheek, then another. I could feel them tracking across my skin. My heart pounded so hard I was sure he could feel it against his chest.

And maybe he did. Because he leaned in closer.

"Should I tie you up?" he asked softly. "Lock you in my room?"

I choked on a sob.

"Aryan, please," I gasped and begged. "Please—"

"But you're too clever for that," he mused, as if we were still in conversation. "You'd find a way out eventually. You always do."

He tilted his head, studying me like a problem that needed permanent fixing.

"It has to be something lasting. Something you'll feel every time you think about leaving again."

His gaze swept over me. Not with lust, but calculation.

And then, his eyes glinted.

That glint terrified me more than the gun. Whatever he was thinking... I didn't want to know.

He rubbed the cold nozzle of the gun against my thigh, eyes locked on mine with a terrifying stillness. The weight of his body pinned me to the forest floor, twigs and earth digging into my back as he pressed down harder, like he wanted to bury me there.

"Should I shoot your legs?" The muzzle jabbed into my thigh, sharp and unforgiving. "To punish you?"

I cried, choking on the dryness in my throat as the tears kept coming, streaking down my cheeks. His words wrapped around me like chains, heavy and inescapable.

And the way he looked at me, calm and sure? I knew he meant every single one.

He wasn't threatening me. He was informing me.

And what gutted me wasn't just the way his body seemed to respond to my fear, to my breaking. It wasn't his cock twitching with every tear that dropped from my eyes, that I hated.

It was how mine responded to his power. To his threats.

To his voice. To his control. To the terrifying dominance curling around every word he spoke.

How this man threatened to shoot me and take away my freedom, and yet, the primal part in me purred at it.

Even after everything I had gone through. Even after everything I had witnessed.

That was the worst part.

Not him.

Me.

"Maybe I should break your ankles. Make sure you can't run anymore?" I couldn't stop the stream of tears.

"Hmm?" he said, voice calm, deliberate.

Fresh tears blurred my vision, and I gasped at the look in his eyes. The anger and betrayal swam in his eyes as tears swam in mine.

I couldn't speak. My throat closed, my thoughts scrambled. This wasn't the Aryan I thought I knew. This was the man he'd warned me about. The one I hadn't believed existed. My mind refused to work at the sight of this Aryan, and I realised how wrong I was in thinking that I could run away from him.

"Should I just ruin you for good?" he asked, jaw clenched, every word laced with venom as he sank further into me, his body wedged between my legs, his presence suffocating. "So next time you even think of running, your body remembers what it cost you?"

"Huh!" He leaned his forehead against mine, then nuzzled his face into mine. "But that would mean I won't be able to put your leg on my shoulder when I thrust into you, now would I?"

I froze, my silent cry pausing.

He smiled at that. "We are going to be husband and wife, darling." Then rubbed his nose against mine. "You didn't think it would be just in name, did you?"

"Aryan..." I whispered, willing my throat to work. Then opened my mouth to say something. Anything. But nothing came out. My mind wasn't working and the only reaction I was capable of having was the way my pussy had been reacting to his words.

"But that was delayed because," he paused. His eyes shifted, but his smile remained intact, and through his half-lidded, cold gaze, he said, "You ran."

Bang.

The gunshot tore through the woods.

I screamed and sobbed, eyes squeezing shut, bracing for pain, expecting my flesh to rip open.

But it never came.

The earth beside my leg shook. Dirt sprayed against my skin.

He'd missed.

On purpose.

Again.

I opened my eyes slowly, breath shaking, chest heaving.

And there he was.

Still staring.

Still smiling.

Unbothered.

Unmoved.

And in that moment, with the scent of gunpowder in the air and the barrel still warm in his hand, I understood something I had never let myself believe before.

I was terrified of him.

"You really are a madman," I whispered, my voice trembling, my entire body shaking beneath him. I didn't even bother to hide the fear in my voice.

And at that, he looked satisfied. "There it is," he said softly. "The fear I was waiting for." He leaned in, eyes steady, voice soft as silk. "I knew it would find you eventually."

Then he brushed his nose against mine, slow and deliberate, his breath warm against my lips. "I told you, didn't I?" he whispered, voice dark and smooth. "You'd be scared of me."

Then, as if flicking a switch, his expression lit up with feigned recollection.

"Ah!" he said suddenly, eyes widening with childlike delight. "We were in the middle of something, weren't we?"

The sudden shift made my stomach turn.

This man gave me whiplash.

He tapped his chin with the muzzle of the gun, thoughtful. "Now what was it...?"

Then the smile returned.

"Right," he said. "How you tried to run. How you failed. And how..."

He leaned forward, voice dropping to a velvet whisper.

"...it doesn't matter."

I swallowed hard.

"Do you know why?" he asked, tilting his head slightly, and for a second, I saw something unhinged behind his calm.

"You thought you had a choice," he continued, his tone still infuriatingly calm. "That if you ran fast enough, far enough, it would change the ending."

He leaned closer, so close I could feel his breath on my lips, and smiled like a man who'd already won.

"It won't."

He lifted a hand and dragged his knuckles down the side of my face, gentle, tender, but his eyes were void of warmth.

"I don't care how you come back to me."

His lips hovered beside my ear now, and his whisper felt like it burrowed under my skin. "Crawling. Broken. Chained. It doesn't matter. Because in the end... You will marry me."

He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, and the darkness in his gaze was absolute. "Because what I own, I don't lose."

That did it.

The words struck something deep in my chest, something primal, furious. A last ember trying to catch flame.

"You don't own me, Aryan," I rasped. My voice was raw, hoarse from crying, screaming, and breaking. "You never did."

He didn't move. But something in his eyes did. The smile didn't falter, but the air around us darkened.

"I chose to say yes to the wedding," I pushed on, each word scraping past the tightness in my throat. "And I chose to abandon it, too."

A breath. A heartbeat.

"I won't marry you."

.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.