The city of Mumbai never slept, but tonight it felt cruelly awake.

Poornima sat at the corner of the same bar that had witnessed her heartbreak hours ago. The music throbbed, lights flickered, laughter echoed — but all she could hear were Simon’s words replaying in her mind like a curse.

> “She’s just timepass.”

“You’re the one I’ll marry.”

Each word tore through her like glass.

The waiter placed another drink in front of her. She didn’t usually drink — she never had, actually — but pain made strange things seem easy. The bitterness burned down her throat, but for the first time, she didn’t care. She wanted the ache to fade, the world to blur, the memories to drown.

One drink. Two. Three.

And suddenly, the world didn’t feel heavy anymore. It just felt… empty.

She stumbled out of the bar, her heels clicking unevenly against the pavement, tears mixing with the rain that had started to fall.

> “Why wasn’t I enough?” she whispered to no one.

“Why did he lie?”

And then, she bumped into someone — hard, solid, unmoving.

A man.

He stood tall in a black shirt, sleeves rolled, eyes cold and unreadable. The streetlight caught the sharp line of his jaw, the faint scar running down his neck. He didn’t flinch, didn’t move — just looked down at her, calm and dark as a storm.

Veeresh Deewan.

But Poornima didn’t know his name. Didn’t know that the man she just collided with was the most feared name in the underworld.

Her tears broke again, and before he could say a word, she reached up, cupped his face — and kissed him.

Not a soft kiss. Not careful. It was raw, desperate, trembling — a cry for comfort from a girl who had just watched her world fall apart.

> “You’re my first kiss…” she whispered brokenly against his lips, voice shaking. “He—he cheated on me because I said no… no to physical intimacy…”

Her voice cracked as she fell against his chest, sobbing uncontrollably.

Veeresh’s hands twitched — he wasn’t used to softness, to being touched without fear. Women usually trembled in his presence, but this girl… she was trembling for another reason entirely.

He could have pushed her away.

He should have.

But he didn’t.

Instead, for the first time in his life, Veeresh Deewan let someone cry on his shoulder.

The rain fell harder, drenching them both — her tears mixing with the storm, her pain soaking into his silence.

And though she didn’t know it, that one mistake — that one drunken kiss — had just bound her to a man darker than any heartbreak she’d ever known.