Chapter 6 – What He Chose to Lose

Veeresh lifted his hand slowly and pressed it against his cheek.

The sting was still there.

He let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh—but it broke halfway. “I deserve it,” he murmured to the empty cabin. “It’s alright.”

But it wasn’t.

Her voice replayed in his head, sharp and final.

I break our friendship today. You are no one to me anymore.

Those words hurt more than the slap ever could.

He dropped into his chair, elbows resting on the desk, staring at nothing. Of all the people he had crossed, outplayed, and destroyed in his rise to the top, only one had ever mattered enough to wound him like this.

Poornima.

She was the only one who had stood by him when he was nothing but ambition and anger. The only one he had trusted enough to let into the shadows of his life.

She knew everything.

The mafia connections he never spoke about.

The illegal alliances that kept his empire standing.

The blood-stained choices he carried silently.

And yet, she never used any of it.

Not once.

She never asked for favors. Never demanded protection. Never tried to benefit from his power. She stayed exactly who she was—steady, honest, uncorrupted.

She was the one who reminded him to eat when he skipped meals for days.

The one who scolded him when he smoked too much, when he drank like pain was something he could drown.

The one who sat beside him in silence when words failed.

Always there. Always choosing him.

And today, he had pushed her away with his own hands.

Veeresh clenched his jaw, his fingers curling into fists. His chest felt tight, unfamiliar, as if something vital had been ripped out.

“I lost everything today,” he whispered.

Not the project.

Not the tech park.

Not the empire he was building brick by brick.

Her.

But even as his heart screamed otherwise, his mind forced the same cruel logic again and again.

This was necessary.

If she stayed close, she would be seen. Watched. Used. Hurt. His world devoured anything soft, anything good. And Poornima was too good for it—too clean to survive the mess he lived in.

Losing her was the cost of keeping her safe.

He leaned back, staring at the ceiling, blinking hard as something hot burned behind his eyes. He didn’t let the tears fall. He never did.

“This is fine,” he told himself quietly. “This is how it has to be.”

Outside his cabin, life moved on.

Inside, Veeresh Rathore sat alone, holding his cheek, carrying the weight of a choice that had protected her—

and destroyed him.