The fall felt like an eternity suspended in a single heartbeat. Reyansh twisted his body in mid-air, his muscles screaming in protest as he forced Sia's head against his chest, shielding her with his own frame. They crashed through the thick, frozen branches of an ancient oak tree before hitting the muddy, rain-soaked earth with a bone-jarring thud.
The impact knocked the breath out of Sia's lungs. For a moment, there was only darkness and the smell of wet soil.
"Reyansh..." she wheezed, her voice a ghost of a sound.
There was no answer. She struggled to sit up, her injured wrist flaring with a white-hot agony that made her vision swim. Beside her, Reyansh lay motionless. His face was pale, smeared with dirt and blood from the slice on his neck, and his breathing was shallow. The explosion above them illuminated the garden in a hellish glow, casting long, dancing shadows of the burning mansion.
"Reyansh! Wake up!" Sia crawled toward him, her hands trembling as she grabbed the lapels of his ruined suit.
She shook him, her heart hammering against her ribs. In this moment of utter devastation, the hatred she had clung to felt like a distant, faded memory. The man who had handcuffed her, the man who had mocked her, was the same man who had just used his body as a shield to save her life.
Reyansh's eyes flickered open, his pupils dilated with pain. He coughed, a harsh, wet sound, and reached out to grip Sia's arm. His touch was weak, but his eyes were fixed on her with a frighteningly intense possessiveness.
"Are you... hurt?" he managed to rasp, his voice barely audible over the crackle of the flames above.
"I'm fine, but you're bleeding again," Sia sobbed, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his side with a piece of her torn saree.
The Unwanted Romance was no longer a game of power; it was a desperate battle for survival. Reyansh reached up, his hand cupping the back of her head, pulling her forehead down to rest against his. The heat from his skin was the only thing keeping the freezing rain from numbing her soul.
"The twin..." Reyansh whispered, his grip tightening. "If he's alive... he's the one. He's the one who killed my father. He's the one who framed yours."
"We have to go, Reyansh. The guards will be here any second, and we don't know who they work for anymore," Sia urged.
She helped him stand, his massive weight leaning heavily on her small frame. Together, they stumbled away from the burning wing, disappearing into the thick fog of the estate's forest.
They found refuge in an old, abandoned stone boathouse by the estate's private lake. It was freezing, and the wind howled through the cracks in the walls, but it was hidden from the main house.
Sia sat Reyansh down against a stack of old oars. She moved with a mechanical precision, tearing strips of cloth and cleaning his wounds. Reyansh watched her every move, his gaze heavy and unyielding. Even in his weakened state, he looked like a predator guarding his prize.
"Why didn't you leave me back there?" Reyansh asked suddenly, his voice cutting through the silence. "You had the chance. You could have run to the police. You could have been free of me."
Sia paused, her hands covered in his blood. She looked up at him, her eyes burning with a mixture of defiance and a vulnerability she couldn't hide. "Because I want the truth more than I want my freedom. And because... because I'm not a murderer, Reyansh. I'm not like the people in this house."
Reyansh reached out, grabbing her injured wrist—the one she had mangled to escape the handcuffs. He pulled her hand to his lips, kissing the bruised skin with a reverence that made Sia's breath catch in her throat.
"You are a Thorne in spirit, Sia," he murmured against her skin. "Violent, stubborn, and utterly intoxicating. When this night is over, the world will know you are innocent. But it will also know that you belong to me. Not because of a contract, but because you chose to bleed for me."
The tension in the boathouse was suffocating. Sia wanted to pull away, to scream that she would never belong to him, but the way he looked at her—as if she were the only light in his dark, crumbling world—made her heart betray her.
Suddenly, the silence was shattered by a low vibration. It was Reyansh's phone, miraculously still working in his pocket. He pulled it out.
It was a video call.
He swiped the screen, and the image that appeared made Sia let out a strangled cry.
It was a hospital room. Sia's father, Deepak, was lying in bed, but he wasn't alone. Standing over him was a man whose face was identical to Reyansh's, but his eyes were filled with a cold, hollow madness. He was holding a syringe over Deepak's IV line.
"Hello, Brother," the twin whispered into the camera, his voice a perfect, chilling mirror of Reyansh's. "You survived the fall. Impressive. But can our 'dear' father-in-law survive a cocktail of air bubbles and potassium?"
"Don't touch him, Aryan!" Reyansh roared, the name slipping from his lips as if a suppressed memory had finally broken free.
"Aryan... so you do remember," the twin laughed, a sound that lacked any humanity. "Mother thought she could erase me. She thought one king was enough. She kept me in the shadows, fed me the scraps, while you got the name and the empire. But I'm the one who did the dirty work, Reyansh. I'm the one who took out the old man when he realized Mother was skimming the accounts."
Sia's world crumbled. It was true. Her father was innocent. The betrayal had come from within the Thorne bloodline.
"What do you want?" Reyansh hissed, his knuckles white as he gripped the phone.
"The microchip. The second encryption key is hidden in the locket Mother wears around her neck. Bring it to the old shipyard at dawn. Alone. If I see a single police car, or if Sia isn't with you, the old man dies. And then, I'll come for Mother."
The screen went black.
Reyansh looked at Sia. The fury in his eyes was eclipsed only by the dark, obsessive need to protect what was his. He stood up, the pain in his side seemingly forgotten in the face of this new threat.
"We're going back," he said, his voice a lethal velvet. "We're going to take that locket from my mother's neck. And then, I'm going to kill my brother with my bare hands."
"Reyansh, it's a trap," Sia whispered, grabbing his arm.
He pulled her into him, his hand winding into her hair, forcing her to look up at him. "It is a trap, Sia. But he made one mistake. He thinks he's the only monster in this family. He's about to find out that I'm the one who was raised in the light... just so I could learn how to hide the shadows better."
He leaned down and kissed her—a hard, demanding, and desperate kiss that tasted of salt and blood. It was a promise of a future that was either going to be built on the ruins of their enemies or buried in their graves.
Author's Note
The twins are revealed! 🩸🎭 Aryan Thorne has stepped out of the shadows, and he's holding Sia's father's life in his hands. The Unwanted Romance has turned into a suicide mission as Reyansh prepares to face his own reflection. 🥀⛓️
Can Sia and Reyansh infiltrate the mansion and take the locket from Gayatri? Or is the "Mother" of the Thorne family already waiting for them? 🏰🕵️♂️
To my 5.1k readers—the stakes have never been higher!
📚 Add to your Library to see the confrontation with Gayatri in Chapter 23!
💎 Drop your Power Stones—Let's hit that goal to see Aryan and Reyansh face off!
💬 Comment below—Who do you think is the real villain? Gayatri or Aryan? 🧐