Meher's POV

Warsaw was cold, but not colder than the nights she left behind.

Snowflakes drifted past her window like fallen prayers, but prayers had stopped working for her long ago. In this strange city, in a language she didn't speak, she found something she hadn't felt in months-silence without fear.

Seven months.

That's how long it had been since her body was claimed-without consent, without love, without choice.

That's how far along she was now-seven months into carrying the child of the man who broke her.

She didn't weep anymore. That part of her was done.

Instead, she wrapped her palms around her belly every morning and whispered,

"You are not him. You are mine. And I will never let this world treat you the way it treated me."

The apartment above the bookstore was small but safe. Ayaan had found it for her-the only soul from her past who hadn't tried to control her. He never asked what Veer did to her. He saw it in her silence, in the way she flinched when the kettle hissed, in the way her eyes never stayed on the mirror too long.

She had told Ayaan just the bare bones:

He married me without asking.

He touched me without love.

He lived with me like I was a burden wrapped in silk.

Every night, Veer would crawl into their bed not as a husband, but as a storm-leaving bruises where bangles once sat, and scars where dreams once lived.

She never screamed. Screaming meant you still believed someone would come save you.

She had stopped believing long ago.

The hardest part now wasn't the trauma.

It was the quiet.

The emptiness of safety, when your body no longer expects pain but your soul still trembles.

She watched the snow pile on the windowsill as her child kicked gently inside her. It reminded her that even after everything, life had dared to grow within her. Something innocent. Something untouched by sin.

She had never loved Veer.

Not even for a second.

But she would love this child enough to undo the legacy of everything he tried to make her believe she was.

---

Veer's POV

The palace was too big without her screams.

Veer sat alone in the bedroom he once ruled like a god. The walls still carried her scent-jasmine and something heartbreakingly soft. But now, there were no soft things left in his world. Only regrets that bled louder than his pride.

He married her because he could. Because power was something he never had to ask for.

He thought she would bend, eventually.

He didn't realize she had already broken.

Every night he forced himself into her arms, he told himself it was love-twisted, but love.

But the truth hit harder now.

It wasn't love. It was ownership.

And now she was gone.

No note. No suitcase. Just... silence.

She vanished like a ghost, and Veer-Veer, the one people bowed to-had been left behind like dust.

He couldn't forget the look in her eyes that last night.

Blank.

Like a girl who had buried her soul and was only waiting for her body to follow.

He drank. He screamed. He destroyed half the mansion searching for something-anything-that still belonged to her.

But even her bangles were gone.

And when he lay on the bed, his hands still remembered the weight of her waist.

Not from love.

But from how tightly he had gripped her to stop her from pulling away.

He hadn't just lost a woman.

He had lost the chance to ever be seen as human by her.

And now...

He didn't know where she was.

But he knew she would never come back.

Still, every morning, he woke up hoping to hear her anklets.

Every night, he reached for a woman who never reached back.

And every breath in between, he prayed to a god he never believed in:

"Let me see her once more... even if she never forgives me."

Warsaw didn't know her name, and that was the best part.

Here, Meher was no longer Meher Rathore, no longer a shadow behind a royal name. She was Maya Malik, a single mother, a successful writer, and a woman who no longer flinched at silence.

Her small rented apartment on the fourth floor had everything she needed: sunlight, bookshelves, a desk by the window, and the soft sound of her son's laughter echoing through the rooms.

It was a home she built herself.

She worked as a journalist and blog writer for a European platform-her articles were sharp, honest, and powerful. She wrote about politics, people, and pain with the kind of clarity only someone who had lived through it could offer. And the company paid her well.

So well that she was already looking at listings to buy a house.

But no matter how far she had come, the center of her universe was one small, stubborn, brilliant boy.

---

"Mom!" Ruhan yelled from the study. "Do you know Komodo dragons can eat a whole goat?"

Meher looked up from her laptop. "Ew. That's disgusting."

"That's awesome," he corrected, flipping a page in his animal encyclopedia. "They bite, then they wait for the goat to fall. Drama!"

She shook her head, smiling.

He was four. Spoke only English with a perfect foreign accent. Knew space facts like a baby Neil Armstrong. Wrote short stories in his notebook and corrected her spellings sometimes.

But what made Ruhan truly special wasn't just his brain-it was his heart.

He noticed her moods, her silences, her strength.

Once, when she burned her hand while ironing, he held her palm in both his tiny hands and said softly, "You're too brave to get hurt, Mom. Please don't cry."

From that day on, she didn't.

She carried all her wounds quietly now-because Ruhan couldn't bear to see her fall apart.

---

The bell rang at 6 PM sharp.

Ruhan's eyes lit up. "It's war time!"

He jumped from the couch and grabbed his toy blaster.

"INTRUDER ALERT!" he shouted.

"It's me, General Cookie Commander!" Ayaan's voice rang out.

Ruhan dove behind the sofa. "State your mission!"

"To deliver snacks and spoil you rotten."

"Password!"

"Ruhan-the-Rocket is the smartest boy in Poland."

"...Correct," Ruhan said proudly, popping up. "You may enter."

The door opened and Ayaan stepped in, holding a paper bag in one hand and a tub of ice cream in the other.

"You brought chocolate chip?" Ruhan gasped.

"Obviously. I wouldn't dare show up without it."

"You may now sit on the royal throne," Ruhan announced, dragging a kitchen chair dramatically. "But no speaking unless spoken to."

Ayaan bowed. "Yes, my lord. Shall I also do your homework and taxes?"

"I'm four. I don't pay taxes."

"Well, someone's been dodging responsibility," Ayaan muttered as he flopped onto the chair.

From the kitchen, Meher laughed. "You two need your own show."

"You just wish you were as cool as us," Ruhan shouted.

"I'm the one who lets you both live," she replied.

"Details, details," Ayaan said, waving a hand.

This was their evening ritual. Ruhan and Ayaan-more like co-hosts of a comedy act than uncle and nephew. Ayaan never missed a day. He never asked questions about the past. He simply came. Helped. Stayed.

Later that night, after dinner and giggles, and brushing Ruhan's teeth together in the most chaotic way possible, Meher stood on the balcony with a cup of tea.

The city lights sparkled in the dark like quiet stars.

Inside, Ruhan sat cross-legged on the carpet drawing a robot with wings. Ayaan helped color the background-badly.

"Why is your sky green?" Ruhan asked, horrified.

"I'm an artist, not a rule-follower."

"It's a crime," Ruhan said seriously.

Meher smiled, listening to them.

Her life had changed.

She had money in the bank, articles with her name on them, a child who loved her more than the world, and a friend who showed up every day just to make her laugh.

She wasn't running anymore.

She was standing still.

Rooted.

Safe.

After Ayaan left, she tucked Ruhan in.

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"When we get our own house... can I have a telescope?"

"We'll get the biggest one."

He smiled, pulling the blanket closer. Ruhan's eyes- The clone part of meher's eyes.

But.

The rest of him was Veer.

But Ruhan didn't carry Veer's rage.

He carried Meher's soul.

She kissed his forehead, turned off the light, and stepped back into the living room.

The laptop on her desk blinked with new emails.

But for tonight, she wouldn't open it.

Tonight, she would just let herself breathe.

And even if the past ever found her again...

this time, she wouldn't be afraid.

The morning sun filtered in gently, casting a soft glow on the kitchen floor.

Ruhan sat at the breakfast table, quietly stirring his cereal. No spaceship noises, no dinosaur facts, no made-up riddles. Just the quiet clink of his spoon against the bowl.

Meher noticed it immediately.

“Everything okay, baby?” she asked, packing his small lunchbox—cheese sandwiches and apple slices shaped like stars.

He nodded, but didn’t look up. “Yeah.”

“Your teacher said you’re making a solar system project today. Want to take your model?”

He shrugged. “It’s fine.”

Her heart tightened. This wasn’t her Ruhan—the one who woke up with questions and dreams in both fists. This was someone else. Someone quieter.

She walked over, knelt beside him, and gently touched his cheek. “Roo?”

He finally looked at her. And there it was—in those deep eyes framed by long lashes. Something was troubling him.

“Mom…”

“Yes, baby?”

“Do astronauts come back?”

She paused, the knife still in her hand.

“You mean… your dad?” she asked gently.

He nodded, looking down. “You said once he’s on a mission… in space. But everyone in class has a dad. I mean, they talk about them. Some dads came to school yesterday for Father’s Day...”

She felt like her heart was made of glass. A thousand cracks and still somehow holding shape.

“I saw them,” he whispered. “And I thought… maybe mine would come too.”

She bit her lip, reached for his hand. “Ruhan… I didn’t lie to you. I only told you the part I could.”

He blinked. “But why don’t we have any photos of him? Even the other kids have baby photos with their dads.”

Her breath hitched.

Ruhan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Did he not want me?”

Tears welled in her eyes before she could stop them. She quickly turned her face away, wiping them with the edge of her sleeve. “It’s not that, Ruhan. It’s never that.”

He scooted closer, wrapping his small arms around her waist.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry, Mom,” he whispered. “I won’t ask again.”

She cupped his face gently. “You can ask anything, always. You have the right. And one day… when you’re ready—I’ll tell you the truth. But not today. Okay?”

He nodded slowly, leaning into her palm.

That was the thing about Ruhan.

He was young, yes—but his soul had aged through the quiet.

Through the tears she never cried out loud.

Through the love she gave him in place of everything he never had.

---

Later that morning, Meher dropped him off at his kindergarten. She watched as he joined the others, smiling now, helping a classmate fix a bent paper rocket.

Her boy.

So strong.

So kind.

So much like her…

And yet a mirror of the man she once ran from.

---

The office was calm when she arrived. Her desk was beside a glass window overlooking the café across the street. She sipped her coffee and opened her laptop, ready to finish an article she had been researching for days—an exposé on political corruption in Central Europe.

As she opened her documents, a new tab popped up—an auto-generated draft from a Google Alert she had set years ago and long forgotten.

Her eyes scanned the name.

Then stopped.

“Veer Rathore: Business Tycoon’s International Venture Hints at Global Expansion.”

Her fingers froze.

It was a short article. A press release, really. He was investing in a European construction firm. Expanding into global trade. There was even a photo—recent, crisp.

He looked the same.

No, worse.

Sharper. Darker. More hollow.

Her stomach turned.

Why was he in the news again now?

She clicked the source and found a full-length interview, published two days ago.

“Do you regret any decisions from your past?” the interviewer asked.

Veer didn’t blink.

His face was still, carved in stone like the man Meher remembered from her worst nights. But it was the voice—calm, controlled, and yet heavy with something unspoken—that chilled her.

“Some chapters don’t end just because we close the book,” he said.

“And some vows still echo louder than silence.”

Meher sat frozen, the words ringing louder in her chest than in her ears.

She shut the laptop slowly—like it might explode if she moved too fast.

Her fingers trembled. Her breath hitched.

Even the familiar buzz of the city outside her office window felt far away now.

It was just a business interview. A man speaking in vague metaphors.

It could be anything.

It should be nothing.

But her gut—the same gut that once made her run in the middle of the night with nothing but a baby in her belly—was awake again.

It whispered like an old friend.

He’s searching. He’s getting close.

And this time, he..........

"No"......It's my overthinking. Meher assured herself.

Veer’s POV – Seeing Meher

She stood at the school gate wrapped in a long coat, the wind tugging gently at her scarf.

Her hair was tied back, her face calm but alert.

But it wasn’t just her face that stole his breath.

She looked more beautiful than he remembered—

not like a delicate flower, but like a woman carved from fire and poetry.

Her body had changed.

Softer in some places, stronger in others.

She moved with the grace of a woman who had carried pain and still walked like she owned the road beneath her.

The curve of her waist, the quiet sway of her steps—everything about her was untouchable now.

Not because she was afraid.

But because she had learned to protect herself like a queen without a throne.

Veer could barely breathe.

She was no longer the girl he forced into love.

She was a woman the world should kneel for.

Just as Veer was trying to steady his breath, the school gate opened.

And then he saw him.

A little boy came running out—

Backpack swinging, shoes slightly loose, hair bouncing with every step.

He looked around for just a second…

Then spotted Meher, and his face lit up like morning sunlight breaking through clouds.

“Mom!” he shouted.

The word hit Veer like a punch.

The boy ran straight into her arms, laughing, and Meher knelt down to hug him tightly.

Veer couldn’t move.

He couldn’t think.

He just stared.

Because the boy…

looked like him.

The sharp jawline.

The shape of his lips.

The way he held his shoulders when he stood still—it was him.

But then, the boy looked up—

And that’s when Veer saw something that didn’t belong to him at all.

His eyes.

They were Meher’s.

Big. Deep. Soft.

Full of questions and feelings too big for such a small body.

Framed with long lashes that blinked slowly, like they noticed everything.

Veer felt something tighten in his chest.

His hands curled into fists in his pockets.

This was his son.

The one he had never held.

The one he didn’t even know existed until now.

And yet… this boy wasn’t missing anything.

He looked happy.

He looked safe.

He looked loved.

By Meher.

And Veer knew in that moment—

He had lost years he could never take back.

But this time, he wouldn't fight to claim what was his.

He would fight to deserve it.