Riya slept for almost four hours.
No one in the house treated those hours as ordinary sleep.
Her mother remained beside her, leaving only when Rana quietly insisted she eat something. Vikram moved between the bedroom and the hallway several times, each time finding some excuse to return. Rana spoke to the doctor twice, then disappeared downstairs to deal with security arrangements that had already begun changing around the house.
Druve waited.
He hated every minute of it.
He had spent seven years learning how to wait because he had never been given another choice. Waiting for phone calls that brought nothing. Waiting outside offices while men searched records he had already searched himself. Waiting for people to remember a face, a name, a vehicle, a date. Waiting for every new possibility to become another dead end.
He had learned patience because desperation without patience made people careless.
That didn't mean he had ever learned to tolerate it.
Rajveer found him near the window at the end of the hallway, phone in one hand, his attention divided between the security updates arriving on the screen and the closed bedroom door.
"You've checked that door more often than your phone," Rajveer remarked.
Druve didn't look at him. "I'm waiting."
"I noticed."
"You asked for a few hours."
"And you've managed nearly four without threatening anyone. I'm impressed."
Druve finally gave him a look.
Rajveer's mouth shifted faintly. "There he is."
"Dad."
"I'll stop."
Druve returned his attention to the screen. Men were already being placed around the Rathore property without attracting unnecessary attention. He had rejected two of the positions himself and changed the access protocol for anyone entering the main residence. Rana's people were experienced, but Druve wasn't interested in trusting experience that had already been breached once.
Protecting Riya was supposed to be simple.
Keep her alive.
Get the answer.
Find Sruthi.
Nothing more.
The bedroom door opened before his thoughts could go any further.
Vikram stepped out and immediately noticed him.
For several seconds, the two men simply looked at one another.
"She's awake," Vikram said.
Druve slid his phone into his pocket.
Vikram didn't move away from the doorway.
"She's tired."
"I won't take long."
"You don't know that."
Druve's expression cooled slightly. "Move."
Vikram folded his arms. "She's my sister."
"And?"
"And whatever you want from her can wait if she's not ready."
Druve stared at him.
From several feet away, Rajveer quietly decided not to interfere.
Druve stepped closer. "Ask her."
Vikram's brows drew together.
"Ask her if she's willing to speak to me. If she says no, I walk away."
The answer clearly wasn't what Vikram had expected.
Before he could respond, Riya's voice came faintly through the partially open door.
"Who are you fighting with?"
Vikram glanced over his shoulder.
"No one."
"Then why do you sound annoying?"
"I always sound like this."
"That part is true."
Despite himself, Vikram smiled.
Then Riya asked, "Is Druve there?"
The smile disappeared.
Druve heard it too.
Vikram looked back at him.
Neither man commented on the fact that she had remembered the name after hearing it only once.
Vikram opened the door wider.
"She wants to know if you're here."
"I heard her."
"Try being normal for five minutes."
Druve walked past him.
"That was not a joke," Vikram muttered.
The room was quieter now.
Riya was sitting slightly upright against the pillows, her hair loosely gathered away from her face. Some colour had returned to her skin, though exhaustion still remained beneath her eyes. Her mother sat beside her, and Rana stood near the foot of the bed.
When Druve entered, Riya looked at him immediately.
Her eyes remained on him for a moment before she glanced around the room.
"Can I talk to him alone?"
Vikram frowned. "Why?"
"Because all of you staring at me while he talks isn't exactly relaxing."
"No one's staring at you."
Riya looked pointedly at him.
Vikram folded his arms.
She raised her brows.
Her mother smiled despite herself.
"Fine," Vikram muttered. Then he looked at Druve. "Don't tire her."
Riya sighed. "I'm sitting right here."
"I know."
"Then stop giving him instructions like I'm not."
Vikram gave her an irritated look.
Riya smiled sweetly at him. "Bye."
He shook his head, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him.
Her mother leaned down and kissed Riya's forehead before following him. Rana stayed for another moment.
"You're sure?"
"I'm fine, Dad."
Rana looked toward Druve, then back at his daughter. "Call us if you need anything."
"I will."
The door closed behind them.
For the first time, Druve and Riya were alone.
He had spent almost four hours thinking about this conversation. There were questions he needed answered, questions he had repeated so many times in his head that he should have been able to ask them without hesitation.
Riya spoke first.
"Did you hold my hand?"
Druve stopped.
"What?"
"Before I woke up." She looked down at her hand. "I remember something. Not properly. Just… someone holding my hand."
"I didn't."
Riya looked up at him.
"Oh."
The disappointment was small, there and gone almost immediately as she lowered her eyes.
Druve noticed.
"You did."
Her eyes came straight back to him. "What?"
"You held my hand."
Riya stared at him. "I did?"
"And you wouldn't let go."
Colour rushed into her cheeks.
"I was unconscious!"
Druve's brows lifted slightly. "I noticed."
"Then it doesn't count."
He stared at her.
Riya turned her face away, cheeks growing warmer.
"And you could have just said I held your hand. The wouldn't let go part was completely unnecessary."
Something inside Druve stopped.
It wasn't what she had said.
It was everything around the words.
The blush she was trying to hide. The way she turned away when she was embarrassed. The slight irritation that appeared because being annoyed was apparently easier than admitting she was embarrassed at all.
Sruthi.
For one impossible second, the years between then and now seemed to disappear.
Riya glanced back at him.
"What?"
Druve said nothing.
Her brows pulled together.
"What?"
Again.
That expression.
Druve had seen it countless times before—the impatience that came when Sruthi knew he was thinking something and refused to tell her what it was.
Riya touched her cheek.
"Why are you staring at me? Is there something on my face?"
"No."
"Then?"
"Nothing."
She narrowed her eyes. "That was definitely not a nothing stare."
Druve looked away.
A soft laugh escaped her.
His chest tightened.
Sruthi.
He looked back at Riya.
She was still smiling, apparently amused by him now.
"Are you always this strange?"
Druve's eyes narrowed. "I'm strange?"
"Well, I'm not the one staring at people and refusing to explain why."
"I wasn't staring."
"You were."
"I wasn't."
Riya's smile widened. "You really were."
Druve went quiet.
That only seemed to amuse her more.
"Fine," she said. "We'll pretend you weren't."
The cheerfulness in her voice, the playful surrender that wasn't a surrender at all, the smile she couldn't quite suppress—
Sruthi.
Again.
Druve's jaw tightened.
Riya noticed immediately.
"Now what?"
"Nothing."
"There it is again."
"What?"
"Nothing." She mimicked his flat tone so badly that it was clearly deliberate.
Druve stared at her.
Riya tried to keep a straight face.
She failed.
The smile broke through.
And suddenly it wasn't one thing anymore.
It wasn't simply the blush or the argument.
It was the way her embarrassment disappeared beneath teasing. The way her eyes brightened when she was amused. The way she couldn't leave his seriousness alone without poking at it until she got a reaction.
Sruthi had been like that.
Bright even when he wasn't.
Cheerful enough for both of them.
Always finding something to tease him about.
Always dragging a response from him when he would rather remain silent.
Riya tilted her head.
"You're doing it again."
Druve didn't answer.
"Seriously, what is wrong with you?"
The question held no offence. Only open curiosity and the faintest trace of laughter.
And that made it worse.
Druve had come here for answers.
He had waited four hours for the chance to ask about Sruthi.
He needed only to say her name.
Instead, he was standing in front of Riya unable to get past the fact that every few seconds she did something that made a memory strike him without warning.
Riya shifted against the pillows.
"You waited all this time to talk to me. Aren't you going to ask me something?"
Druve looked at her.
This was the moment.
Ask.
He had spent seven years chasing possibilities far weaker than this one. Riya had reacted to Sruthi's name while unconscious. She had cried. Her pulse had changed. She had held his hand and refused to release it.
He needed to know why.
Riya waited expectantly.
Then her eyes dropped briefly to her own hand, and the colour returned faintly to her cheeks.
"And we're not discussing the hand thing again."
Druve froze.
Riya looked back at him. "I'm serious."
He could almost hear Sruthi saying it.
That was enough.
Druve turned toward the door.
Riya blinked.
"Where are you going?"
He kept walking.
"Druve?"
His hand closed around the door handle.
"Wait."
He stopped, but didn't turn.
"You haven't even asked me anything."
For a second, neither of them spoke.
Then Druve opened the door.
Riya stared at his back.
"Seriously?"
He walked out.
The door closed behind him.
Riya remained silent for a few seconds, staring at the place where he had been.
Then she looked down at her hand.
Her cheeks warmed all over again.
She immediately frowned at herself.
"I was unconscious," she muttered, as though that settled the matter.
Her gaze returned to the closed door.
He had waited almost four hours.
He had argued with Vikram to get inside.
He had wanted to speak to her badly enough that everyone in the house seemed to know it.
Then he'd come in, told her that she'd apparently refused to release his hand, stared at her as though she'd done something incomprehensible and walked straight back out without asking a single question.
Riya shook her head.
"What a strange man."
Outside the room, Druve kept walking.
He didn't stop near the door. He didn't look back.
He needed distance before someone saw his face and asked the wrong question.
For seven years, memories of Sruthi had been all he had.
He remembered the obvious things. Her face. Her voice. Her laughter.
But time had never taken the smaller things either.
The way she blushed when he embarrassed her and immediately argued instead of admitting it. The way she teased him when he became too serious. The little tilt of her head when she was curious. The brightness that seemed to follow her even when she was irritated.
Those were the things no photograph could preserve.
And somehow, in a few minutes with Riya, Druve had remembered all of them.
He had gone into that room intending to ask her about Sruthi.
He hadn't even managed to say her name.
Druve continued down the hallway.
For the first time since learning that Riya might be his only real clue, he wasn't impatient to question her.
He was afraid of what looking at her again might make him remember.