Utsav
“Your brother is fine. Safe"
My voice cut through the heavy silence as I slid into the driver’s seat. Calm. Sharp. Authority dripping from every syllable.
Beside me, Maya sat frozen in the passenger seat, her hands gripping the edge of the seat like the world would fall apart if she let go. The moment the words left my mouth, her head snapped toward me, emerald eyes wide, searching for cracks in my tone.
“He’s out on bail,” I added, turning the key, the engine humming to life. The car glided out of the parking lot as I caught her reaction from the corner of my eye. Shock. Disbelief. Suspicion.
Of course.
“You? You took him out on bail?” Her voice stumbled, frantic, like her mind was tripping over every question at once. “Where is he? Is he fine? Did those cops hurt him? Is he injured? Tell me, Mr. Mehrotra!”
She spat the words in a single breath, a storm crammed into seconds. I didn’t interrupt. I let her spiral. I wanted to hear the desperation in her tone, the fear she couldn’t mask.
“He’s fine,” I answered after a calculated pause, my voice the same flat calm that always unnerved people. “Currently at your home. My lawyer and assistant already dropped him off.”
I felt her exhale, a trembling sigh that carried a momentary relief. But relief never lasted long with Maya Shekhavat.
“Why?” Her voice was lower now, not soft, but laced with venom. “Why did you help me? You don’t do anything without profit, Mr. Mehrotra. I know you. This isn’t help. Tell me—” her fists clenched in her lap, her jaw tightened till I swore I could hear her teeth grind, “—did you create this whole scandal?”
She turned toward me fully now, her anger radiating in every small movement of her body. Even in her rage, she was stunning—fire wrapped in silk.
“You’re right,” I said simply. “I don’t do anything without my personal profit.”
I let the words sink in, heavy and deliberate. The air in the car thickened instantly. She didn’t breathe for a second. Then the dam broke.
“How dare you?!” she screamed, her voice echoing off the confined walls. “How dare you play with my family’s life? You created this mess? Seriously? HOW COULD YOU?”
Her chest heaved, her voice cracking under the weight of fury and fear. Tears clung stubbornly to her lashes, refusing to fall.
“Why did the police listen to you and not me? Why did they let Ansh out only when you appeared? Of course! It was all your strategy, wasn’t it? You wanted to punish me… for leaking those pictures. You wanted to ruin me!”
Her voice broke entirely now, a mixture of heartbreak and rage bleeding into every word.
“You bastard!” she choked. “Why the hell did I fall for you? Loving you was my biggest mistake! My biggest one!”
Her fingers fumbled at the seatbelt as if trying to tear herself out of the car, out of my orbit, out of the web she had no idea she’d stepped into the moment our eyes first met.
I didn’t flinch. Didn’t soften. Didn’t even turn my head.
I let her scream. I let her burn herself out. Because no matter how hard she thrashed against the cage, the steel around her was mine.
When her hand shot for the door handle, I heard the metallic clink of the lock. Secured. My jaw tightened slightly.
So that’s what she thought? That she could walk into my life and walk out whenever she chose? That she could light a match, ignite a war, and then slip away untouched?
No.
Once she stepped into my territory, there was no exit.
She was mine. Not in the way love stories claim people. Not in the way fairy tales pretend. She was mine in the way a storm belongs to the sea. In the way fire belongs to destruction.
I kept my eyes on the road, my voice dropping to a lethal calm.
“If I ever see Raghav—or any man’s—hand on your back again…” I paused, letting the silence sharpen the edge of my words. “…I will break his hands. And I will claim you so raw, so completely, you won’t even understand what it means to belong.”
The words filled the car like smoke.
She froze. Not out of fear—but because she couldn’t process them immediately. I felt her gaze burning into the side of my face, wide-eyed, her breath stuttering for a moment.
“You think you can control me?” she snapped finally, voice shaking but defiant.
I allowed a faint, dangerous smile to curve my lips.
“No.” I took a slow breath, the weight of my words deliberate, unshakable. “I own you.”
Her shoulders stiffened.
“You walked into my life without permission, Maya Shekhavat. But you will never walk out. The moment you crossed into my world, the door behind you locked. You just haven’t realized it yet.”
She turned back to the window, her voice cracking but still stubborn, still clinging to rebellion.
“You can’t control me, Mr. Mehrotra. I will escape. I promise you that.”
A low, humorless chuckle slipped from my throat, and the smirk stayed.
“Go on and try, Emerald,” I murmured, using the name I’d given her—the name that marked her as mine. “Try to run. The moment you do, I’ll drag you back in with full force. And when I do… you’ll never forget who you belong to.”
The rest of the drive was silent except for the hum of the engine and the unspoken war raging between us.
She stared out the window, fists trembling in her lap, rage and pain written all over her delicate frame.
And me? I drove on, calm as a predator stalking prey.
Because Maya didn’t understand yet.
This wasn’t a game of love or hate.
This was a war of ownership.
And she was already caged.
The drive back was a tense silence thick enough to choke on. Her shoulders were stiff, her fists trembling against her lap, and yet her chin remained high. Defiant. Always defiant.
By the time we reached her home, the night air outside was still, almost eerily quiet—as if the world itself was holding its breath for what came next.
I killed the engine and turned toward her slowly.
She sensed the movement instantly, and instinct made her shrink back until her spine hit the car door. The click of metal meeting metal sounded louder than the silence between us. Her green eyes—those wild, untamed emerald eyes—locked onto mine. Defiance burned in them like fire, but there were tears there too. Vulnerable. Fragile.
God, I loved seeing her like this.
All broken. All raw. All mine.
I placed one hand on the door beside her, boxing her in, and then the other on the opposite side. Caging her completely. A predator closing in on prey that didn’t yet realize the fight was over.
A slow smirk tugged at my lips as I leaned in, my voice dropping low, smooth, mocking.
“You look beautiful, Emerald.”
Her face twisted into a disgusted sneer, and I almost laughed. Oh, how I adored that. That disgust. That fury. Because underneath it, buried in layers of pride, there was fear.
I tilted my head slightly, studying her the way a lion studies a trembling deer before the first strike.
“Those tears…” I murmured, the words deliberate, cruel in their softness. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to see you like this. Vulnerable. Small.”
I let the pause stretch, savoring the moment.
“This vulnerability,” I whispered, eyes never leaving hers, “is victory. My victory. Congratulations to me, Miss Shekhawat.”
Her breath hitched, and I leaned closer until our breaths mingled in the thin space between us. She didn’t move. She couldn’t.
“You really thought,” I said, my voice now a razor’s edge, “that I’d let you walk free after leaking those pictures to the media? You thought you’d humiliate me, ruin me, and get away unscathed? That you could play with fire and not burn?”
My gaze sharpened, piercing into her soul, daring her to deny it.
“No, Emerald. You’re nothing but a foolish squirrel that dared to cross a lion’s path. And now…” I smiled, a slow, deliberate curl of lips, “…now you’re paying the price.”
I held her eyes a second longer, then reached past her, fingers brushing the door handle, and unlocked it with a soft click.
“Go.”
Her gaze met mine one last time, defiance flaring like the last stand of a warrior who knows the war is already lost. But beneath it—oh, there it was again. The thing I craved. Fear.
Maya Shekhawat’s fear.
It was intoxicating.
She pushed against my chest with her small hands, but it was a weak motion—more symbolic than forceful. Then, as if to remind me who she was, she dug the sharp point of her pencil heel into the top of my boot. Hard.
The sting shot up my foot, sharp and deliberate.
I didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch.
I almost smiled.
She thought she could hurt me. She thought a pointed heel could pierce a man who had buried his closest people with his own hands. She thought pain could reach me. Foolish, beautiful girl.
“If you want to meet your brother,” I murmured, my voice calm and lethal, “then go, Miss Shekhawat. Or…” My eyes locked onto hers with a deadly promise. “…do you want me to lock this door again?”
Her heel stilled instantly.
For a second, we just stared at each other, the car filled with unspoken war. Then, without a word, she pulled her foot back, shoved the door open, and stepped out into the cool night air.
“Fuck you,” she spat over her shoulder, her voice hoarse but steady. She slammed her heel against the pavement in a sharp pat as if reclaiming her ground and walked toward the house.
A cat with claws.
Exactly how I wanted her. So I could break those claws. One. By. One.
I let her have her little victory march, waited until the sound of her footsteps hit the front steps of her home, and then stepped out myself. The door shut behind me with a soft thud.
My car stayed where it was.
I followed her inside.
Because the thing Maya Shekhawat hadn’t realized yet—the thing she would learn soon enough—was that this wasn’t her sanctuary anymore.
Her home. Her life.
Her entire world.
It all belonged to me now.
The moment I stepped inside the Shekhavat house, the first sound that hit my ears was a broken sob.
Maya was on her knees in the middle of the living room, arms wrapped around her brother as if she could shield him from the entire world. Her face was buried against his shoulder, her trembling hands clutching at the back of his T-shirt like if she let go, he’d vanish into the darkness that had almost swallowed him whole.
Ansh.
The boy with thick eyebrows and mildly curled hair that fell over his forehead. He had a lean, muscular build that spoke of youth and ambition. Dressed in a plain white T-shirt and black trousers, he looked every bit the handsome nineteen-year-old he was supposed to be. Except tonight, he didn’t look like a young man.
He looked like prey.
His red-rimmed eyes gave away a sleepless night spent in a cold cell, and his lips quivered ever so slightly as he clung to his sister like she was the last piece of home he had left. Sweat clung to his brow, and there was a faint tremor in his posture. Fear. The kind that sinks into bones.
I watched quietly, my expression unreadable.
The problem with boys like him is always the same. They’re soft. Too soft. They face trauma at an age where they should still be learning how to live. And because of that softness, life doesn’t just test them—it crushes them.
He was kind. I could see it in the way his hands gripped Maya without anger, in the way his eyes held no vengeance, only relief.
And kind men? Life chews them alive.
Because life doesn’t care if you’re gentle or brutal. Life doesn’t pause for kindness. It strikes. And when it strikes, it doesn’t just break bones—it breaks a man’s belief in himself. It rips the world apart until confidence crumbles into dust.
I knew that lesson.
I learned it too early. Too young.
At four years old, when my tiny hands couldn’t even hold my mother’s sari, I watched her burn alive. Watched fire devour the only softness I had ever known. Watched death reach into my home and take everything.
That was the night Utsav Mehrotra was born. Not the boy. The storm.
I had made myself a promise on that night, standing in the ashes of my childhood: Never beg softness from the world. Become the fire it fears.
And now, staring at this nineteen-year-old boy trembling in his sister’s arms, I knew exactly where life was leading him. This was only the beginning. Until Ansh learned to rise, the world would strike again. And again. And again. Until it either broke him completely… or forged him into something unrecognizable.
Did I care?
Not even a little.
Everyone pays the price of living. Some pay in innocence. Some in blood.
Maya’s soft sobs cut through my thoughts. She was kissing his forehead, cheeks, even his nose like a mother comforting her child. Her hands cupped his face so delicately it almost hurt to watch. My jaw tightened involuntarily, a muscle ticking as I looked away, giving them their fragile moment of reunion.
“Are… are you okay, beta?” she asked, her voice cracking under the weight of her tears.
Ansh nodded weakly. “Yes, Di… I’m okay. Thanks to Jiju for bailing me out.”
Jiju.
The word hung in the air like a gunshot.
My head tilted slightly, my lips twitching into the faintest smirk. Jiju? I was his brother-in-law now? The entire Shekhavat family had no idea what kind of demon they were inviting into their home with that one word.
But Maya… she didn’t correct him.
She didn’t tell him what happened in the car. She didn’t scream. She didn’t accuse me. She simply held her brother tighter and let the lie linger in the room.
Good.
That’s what I wanted. Power. Not just over her body or her heart—but over her entire world. Over her family. Over every thread of her existence until the only way out led straight back into my hands.
“Everything is under control, sir.”
Rohit’s voice cut through the heavy air, grounding me back into the moment. I turned to find my man standing near the doorway, his posture straight, his eyes calm.
“Good,” I said evenly, sliding my hands into my pockets with deliberate ease. “Make sure the paperwork is clean. And the media?”
“Handled. Not a whisper will leak.”
I gave a short nod. “Perfect. Nothing can go wrong. Not on my watch.”
As Rohit left, the living room fell back into silence except for Maya’s quiet sniffles and Ansh’s shaky breathing.
I let my eyes sweep over the scene one more time.
A broken girl clutching the last piece of her innocence. A trembling boy who hadn’t yet learned the language of survival. A family standing on the edge of ruin.
And me.
The storm they never saw coming.
Because this wasn’t just a rescue. This wasn’t kindness.
This was a move on the board. A carefully calculated step in a game that only had one winner.
Utsav Mehrotra doesn’t save people.
I cage them.
And tonight, the lock had clicked shut.
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Apologies for late update ❤🎀
"Do let me know your thoughts about this chapter in the comments section. If you liked it, please don't forget to vote. Your single vote is enough to give me the courage to keep writing more.
And please, don't judge the characters solely based on the starting chapters. There's so much yet to unfold. Especially Utsav - I know his personality might seem negative at times, but trust me, he's about to go through a powerful journey of transformation.
Let the story breathe a little before forming opinions. Big twists are coming."
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