The sterile, fluorescent hum of Birla Hospital’s post-midnight corridors was a world away from the silent, marble dread of the mansion. Abhimanyu stood at the nurses’ station, scribbling final notes on a chart, his body running on the last dregs of surgical adrenaline and the far more potent memory of Aarohi’s mouth on his cock just minutes before. The complicated surgery had ended successfully, the post-op check on the patient was stable, and the few other emergency cases had been straightforward. A mechanical calm had settled over the ward. But beneath his scrubs, his skin still buzzed where her hands had been.

He needed to see aarohi. The thought was a compulsion, a physical itch in his blood. The text to Akshara—Staying at the hospital tonight—felt like a lie layered upon a lie, but it had granted him this freedom. This stolen, dangerous freedom. He glanced at his watch. 3:47 AM. Where was Aarohi?