Chapter 55 — Mine to Protect

The silence in the room stretched after Aryan’s last words.

Heavy. Final. Uncomfortable.

Veeresh stood still for a long moment, staring at the file in his hand. Every page inside it now felt like a record of destruction—of Zoya, of Poornima, of everything that had been buried and twisted for years.

Then he slowly closed it.

A soft click echoed in the room.

Everyone looked at him.

Veeresh finally spoke.

“She got justice for my sister.”

His voice was calm, but there was something firm underneath it—something unshakable.

A pause.

“And I will be her therapist.”

Mr. Dreewan frowned immediately. “Veeresh, this is not something you—”

But Veeresh raised a hand slightly, stopping him.

His eyes didn’t waver.

“I know what I’m doing.”

Silence returned.

Aryan watched him carefully, unsure what to say.

Veeresh continued, voice lower now, but even more certain.

“She is not a case file. Not a patient. Not a problem to be solved by distance.”

A beat.

“She is Poornima.”

His jaw tightened slightly.

“And she is mine to protect.”

The word mine didn’t sound possessive in the way it once might have.

It sounded like responsibility.

Like vow.

Like inevitability.

Veeresh looked up finally.

“I will be there with her through every memory she regains. Every panic attack. Every breakdown. Every moment she forgets again.”

A pause.

“She will not go through it alone.”

Mr. Dreewan’s expression softened slightly, conflicted but silent.

Veeresh’s voice dropped further.

“And I don’t care what it takes.”

A faint edge entered his tone now.

“If the world broke her once…”

He stopped, eyes darkening.

“…I will make sure it never gets the chance again.”

Silence followed.

Not one person in the room interrupted him.

Because there was nothing left to argue.

Veeresh turned slightly, already thinking ahead—not as a mafia heir, not as Salvatore Dreewan…

But as the one person who had unknowingly become Poornima’s only anchor in a collapsing mind.

And in that moment, his decision wasn’t just protection anymore.

It was devotion—quiet, dangerous, and absolute.