The interrupted hearts

The rain had changed.

What had been a melancholic drizzle had now escalated into a fury — torrential sheets drumming against the city like nature herself had lost control. Thunder rolled low and slow across the heavens, and lightning split through clouds as if slashing the sky's very skin. It wasn't just a storm. It was an omen.

In her apartment, Ania Malik sat frozen.

Devrathor was gone from the room… but not from her.

His presence lingered in every crack of silence, in the vibration of her pulse, in the echo of his voice saying just two words: "Are you okay?"

That voice. The one that had once whispered love in her ears under the moonlight in another life. Now, it haunted her like a ghost whose story was still unfinished.

Her fingers twitched.

Then her legs moved — slow, aching, but compelled. As though her soul was leading her body toward something her mind hadn't agreed upon yet.

The rain outside the windows blurred the world beyond into watercolors of neon and shadow. Her bare feet moved across the cold wood floor until she reached the door.

She opened it — carefully, cautiously — as though afraid the moment might vanish if she blinked too hard.

But it didn't.

At the far end of the hallway, lit by the dim, flickering amber of a faulty corridor light, stood Devrathor.

He was half-turned from her, his head bowed, one gloved hand pressed flat against the wall. Rain dripped from his soaked coat, puddling at his feet. His posture was tense, strained — like a man bracing himself against a wave of something unspeakable.

She whispered his name.

"Devrathor…"

The effect was instant.

He turned — sharply, breath catching in his throat.

Their eyes locked.

And suddenly the storm outside wasn't the loudest thing anymore. It was the silence between them. Charged. Ancient. Dangerous.

Ania took a step forward.

Her muscles protested, her ribs ached, but her heart — traitorous thing — beat louder than her pain. The soft pat of her feet against the floor echoed with every step, like the prelude to a truth about to be spoken.

Devrathor didn't move. Didn't breathe.

He just watched her come.

And when she reached him, when she stood right in front of the man who had once been her everything — before the world tore them apart — she did the one thing she never thought she'd be brave enough to do.

She placed her hand on his chest.

Right over his heart.

It beat violently beneath her palm — not steady like a warrior's should be, but frantic. Wild. Alive.

"You saved me," she whispered.

Her eyes shimmered, but no tears fell. They had been spent. But her voice — raw, trembling — carried a weight only he could understand.

He looked down at her, eyes thunderous with feeling. "I would've razed the world if they'd touched you again," he said.

Her fingers curled slightly into his coat, drawing him closer.

The storm outside vanished. The hallway disappeared. There were no syndicates, no bloodlines, no betrayals, no past.

Just two souls and the breathless ache between them.

Their foreheads nearly touched. Their lips hovered — close, so close.

A heartbeat.

A pause.

A moment on the edge of something eternal—

"HEY!"

A shout — brutal, male, sharp — shattered the magic.

Ania flinched.

Devrathor's head jerked up instantly, instincts on fire. His arm moved protectively toward her as the sound of multiple feet thundered up the stairwell.

Out of the shadows came three armed men — dressed in black, radios crackling, eyes wild.

They weren't strangers.

They were Armaan's men. Her family.

"Step away from her!" one of them barked, raising a pistol.

Devrathor's eyes narrowed. His stance shifted — subtle, like a beast assessing prey.

Another of the men spoke into his comms, his voice tense. "It's him. The outsider. The ghost. Devrathor's here — right outside her door."

"Copy that — calling Armaan!" said the third, already reaching for his holster.

Ania's chest collapsed inward. "Wait—no! He's not the enemy—!"

But the guns were already drawn.

The three men lunged forward — military-trained, aggressive, loyal to a fault.

Devrathor moved first.

With one fluid step, he shoved Ania behind him, shielding her with his body like a human wall. His right arm shot forward, intercepting the first man mid-lunge. Elbow to the throat — precise, brutal. The attacker crumpled to the floor, gasping for air.

Another swung a blade.

Devrathor caught the glint mid-strike — ducked — twisted — kicked the knife out of the man's hand — then grabbed his shirt collar and slammed him against the hallway wall. A forearm crushed his windpipe just long enough to knock him out.

Then the third man raised his pistol.

Ania saw it before Devrathor did.

"No!" she screamed and lunged forward.

The gunman was shouting into his radio. "He's armed — target is hostile. Taking the shot—"

Ania threw herself between them, arms wide. "STOP! He's not the threat!"

The man hesitated — but only slightly.

Devrathor had already moved.

He reached under his coat, withdrew a small sidearm — but didn't point it.

Instead, in one slick motion, he flipped the gun away from the attacker's grip and sent it skittering across the floor. He didn't aim. Didn't shoot.

But his point was made.

He could've. He didn't.

The silence after that was deafening.

The air thickened with adrenaline, rain, breath.

One of the men — the one still catching his breath — rasped into his radio. "Confirming: subject is armed and lethal. Armaan will kill him for this."

Devrathor glared, breathing heavy, muscles tensed like coiled steel. "I'm not your enemy," he growled. "But you attacked me without a single question."

Ania stepped forward, placing herself between them all. Her heart beat against her ribs like a trapped bird.

"Enough!" she shouted, eyes flashing. "He saved me. You wouldn't have even found my body if not for him!"

The men hesitated.

Their eyes flicked to her — then to Devrathor — then back.

"He's… Devrathor," one muttered, unsure now. "We were told—"

"Then maybe it's time you asked what you weren't told," she cut in, voice slicing through doubt like a blade. "Ask Armaan what the real threat looks like."

One of the radios crackled again.

Armaan's voice, grave and cold, came through:

> "Stand down. Let me talk to her. Don't touch him unless I say so."

The shift was immediate.

Weapons lowered.

But not hearts. Not suspicion. Not rage.

Devrathor stared down the men like a lion leashed by choice.

His jaw clenched. His hands — once ready to kill — now hung at his sides, open, showing peace but holding fury.

Ania turned to him.

Her eyes flickered with too many things at once — grief, relief, regret, longing.

"I'm sorry…" she whispered, voice barely a breath.

He shook his head slowly. The storm had found its way into his eyes now — but not the kind that came with rain.

The kind that came with sorrow.

"Don't be," he said quietly. "This is the world we live in, Ania. Even love is dangerous here."

And then, without another word, he turned.

Walked down the stairwell — slow, deliberate — disappearing like mist in the rain.

Armaan's men stepped aside as he passed.

No one stopped him now.

They just watched.

Ania stood in the hallway, still wrapped in the phantom of his warmth, her body trembling. Not from cold. Not from fear.

From the ache of what almost was.

Her lips still tingled from a kiss never kissed.

Her heart throbbed with the scream of a moment ruined.

Behind her, the door remained ajar — the storm rushing in.

Inside her, another storm brewed — one that no one could hear.

And as thunder cracked the sky once more, Ania Malik stood alone — caught between two men who loved her in silence, and a world where silence was the deadliest language of all.