Chapter 31
Riya had finally relaxed against Druve, but even in sleep she hadn't let him go. Her cheek rested against his chest, her fingers still curled tightly into his shirt, and although her breathing had softened, the slightest movement from him made her hold tighten again.
Druve was still sitting awkwardly near the edge of the bed, supporting most of her weight against himself. He knew he couldn't remain that way without eventually disturbing her, so he carefully shifted farther onto the bed.
Riya reacted before he had moved more than a few inches. Her fingers clenched into his shirt, and her other hand reached blindly for him, her body tensing as a frightened sound caught in her throat.
"I'm here, Sruthi," Druve murmured immediately, tightening his arm around her. "I'm not going anywhere."
He moved more carefully this time, taking her with him as he settled against the headboard. Riya followed every movement without waking, holding on whenever his arms shifted and relaxing only when she felt them securely around her again.
"I'm here," he whispered, drawing her back against his chest. "I'll never let you go."
The assurance seemed to reach her somewhere beneath the nightmare. The tension gradually left her shoulders and her breathing deepened, though her fingers remained stubbornly tangled in his shirt. Druve adjusted the pillow behind him and settled with one arm around her while his other hand rested protectively over the back of her head.
Several minutes passed before his own breathing finally slowed.
Only then did the panic that had taken over him begin to clear.
Druve looked down at the woman sleeping against him.
Riya.
The name brought an uncomfortable clarity with it.
This was Riya. Not Sruthi.
Yet even as his mind corrected him, his heart resisted with an intensity that unsettled him. Minutes earlier, when she had been struggling and desperately calling for him, there had been no confusion inside him. He hadn't remembered Sruthi or consciously compared the two of them. He had simply held the terrified woman in his arms as though she were Sruthi.
His gaze lingered on her face before slowly dropping toward the neckline of her dress.
The scar.
A small part of it remained visible where the fabric had shifted during her struggle. Druve stared at it for a moment before carefully moving the fabric just enough to see the healed mark properly.
His fingers moved almost subconsciously.
He ran the tip of his finger along the scar.
Riya shivered beneath his touch. Her fingers immediately tightened into his shirt and she pressed herself closer against him, a faint tension returning to her body.
Druve's arm closed around her at once. "I'm here."
She settled again.
His gaze returned to the scar. This time his finger traced it more slowly, and his heartbeat began to change.
He knew that mark.
The shape was the same. More unsettlingly, the location was the same.
Exactly the same.
Druve's fingers stilled against her skin.
Sruthi had carried that scar in precisely that place.
"How is this possible…?"
His eyes moved from the scar to Riya's sleeping face. Coincidence was the first explanation his mind reached for, but it did nothing to settle the sudden pounding in his chest. His thoughts began moving somewhere else, somewhere he wasn't prepared to follow.
Druve drew the fabric back into place.
He wasn't going to sit there and guess.
Once doubt entered his mind, he needed facts.
Keeping one arm around Riya, he reached for his phone and called.
The line connected within seconds.
"Sir?"
"Arjun."
The sleep vanished from Arjun Mehta's voice at once. "Yes, sir."
"I need you to check something about Riya Rathore."
"What am I looking for?"
"A gunshot injury. Find out when she was shot, which hospital treated her, who handled the case and what treatment she received. Check everything you can verify about her medical history. I want every detail you can find up to today."
"I'll start immediately."
"Arjun."
"Yes, sir?"
"Now."
"Understood."
Druve ended the call and placed the phone beside him. The small movement disturbed Riya enough for her fingers to tighten again, and his hand returned to her back without thought.
"I'm here."
She relaxed against him, but Druve didn't.
Something suddenly struck him.
He had never spoken to Riya about Sruthi.
Not once.
He had never mentioned Sruthi's name to her, never asked Riya anything about her, never allowed that part of his life into their conversations. Yet tonight, while trapped in whatever had terrified her, Riya had spoken Sruthi's name.
His thoughts shifted through their interactions—the arguments that came too naturally, the way Riya pushed back at him without hesitation, the banter that somehow slipped between them even when they were irritating each other. He had never thought to compare any of it before. Now there was a familiarity to that rhythm he couldn't quite ignore.
Even this closeness should have bothered him.
It didn't.
Riya was curled against his chest, her hand buried in his shirt while his arms remained around her. Druve normally guarded his space without having to think about it. Yet not once had he felt the need to move her away. Every time she stirred, his instinct had been the opposite.
His phone vibrated.
Druve answered immediately.
"Arjun."
"I checked everything I could verify, sir. There is no record of Riya Rathore ever suffering a gunshot injury."
Druve's eyes dropped toward the scar hidden beneath her dress.
"Check again."
"I did. I also contacted Dr. Sinha directly. He confirmed it himself. Riya was never shot."
Druve's expression hardened. "Then explain the scar."
"That's where it gets strange. According to Dr. Sinha, she didn't have that scar before either."
Druve went still.
"I can see it, Arjun."
"I know. He confirmed there was no previous injury there."
Druve looked down at Riya. "What happened to her?"
There was a brief pause before Arjun answered.
"About a month ago, Riya's condition deteriorated severely. Her brain activity was lost. Her heart function kept dropping. Eventually, she was declared dead."
Druve's face emptied.
His eyes dropped immediately to the woman in his arms, and before the words had even fully settled, his arms moved around her.
He gathered her closer, shifting her completely against himself until her head rested securely beneath his chin. One arm closed firmly around her while the other cradled the back of her head against his chest.
Riya stirred at the sudden movement and clutched his shirt.
Druve stilled, but he didn't loosen his arms.
His face lowered into her hair. She was warm against him, breathing quietly, her body resting securely within his hold. He stayed that way for several seconds, saying nothing, his palm moving once over her back before settling there.
Riya shifted closer in her sleep.
Druve's eyes closed briefly.
"What happened after that?" he asked, his voice quieter than before.
"She revived."
Something inside him loosened, but his arms didn't.
"How?"
"No one could explain it. She remained in the coma afterward, but when they examined her, they noticed something that hadn't been there before."
Druve's gaze lowered toward her neckline.
"The scar."
"Yes."
His jaw tightened.
"There was no wound?"
"None."
"No surgery?"
"Nothing that could have caused it. Dr. Sinha was certain the scar wasn't there before."
Druve said nothing. His hand moved once through Riya's hair before resting again at the back of her head.
"There's more," Arjun continued. "While Riya remained in the coma, she repeatedly went into severe panic. Her body would react violently even though she was unconscious. The episodes kept recurring, and eventually they shifted her home while she was still comatose."
Druve slowly looked at her face.
The terror was gone now, but traces of it remained. Her lashes were still damp, a faint tear track marked her cheek, and her fingers continued to hold his shirt even in deeper sleep.
His thumb moved gently across her cheek, wiping away the dried trace of tears.
So tonight hadn't been the first time.
His fingers brushed the damp hair away from her forehead and moved slowly through it. The memory of what he had witnessed only minutes earlier returned—the fear on her face, the helpless sounds, the way she had fought something no one else could see.
"What caused the attacks?" Druve asked, his eyes still on her.
"They couldn't identify a clear trigger. But Dr. Sinha mentioned something unusual. Even while she was completely unresponsive, there were two names she reacted to."
Druve's fingers paused in her hair.
"Which names?"
"Yours."
His thumb stopped against her temple.
Druve looked at her.
"And the other?"
"Sruthi."
His hand went completely still.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Riya remained asleep against his chest, unaware that his heartbeat had begun hammering beneath her cheek.
"Say that again."
"Druve and Sruthi. Dr. Sinha said she responded to both names even while she was unconscious."
Druve's grip tightened around the phone.
He had never spoken Sruthi's name to Riya.
Never.
"What else did Sinha tell you?"
"Very little. But he's hiding something, sir. I'm certain of that. He was extremely careful about what he revealed. He only told me this much after he understood the enquiry came from you and that you're the one protecting Riya now."
Druve's expression hardened.
"Send me everything you've found."
"You'll have it immediately."
The call ended.
Druve lowered the phone, but his eyes remained on Riya.
The information refused to settle into anything that made sense. His mind moved toward a possibility he didn't want to touch, and the moment it did, his arm tightened around her almost instinctively.
Could Riya be—
"No."
The word escaped before the thought could finish.
Riya shifted against his chest at the change in his hold, and Druve immediately ran his hand over her back until she relaxed again. His heartbeat, however, refused to follow.
His eyes stayed on her face. He wanted to see Riya and nothing more, but the scar beneath her dress was impossible to forget. So was the way she had called his name. So was Sruthi's name slipping from her lips when Druve had never once spoken it to her.
How?
Druve dragged a hand through his hair. His thoughts were scattering instead of sharpening, and the loss of control only made the pressure in his chest worse. There had to be an explanation, something real enough to stop his mind from reaching for the impossible.
Then he remembered his father.
Druve went still.
The questions about Riya's date of birth.
Why had Dad wanted to know that?
The question had seemed strange even then, but Druve hadn't given it enough thought. Now it returned with uncomfortable clarity, followed by everything else that had felt slightly off.
The mysterious person.
His father's unusual interest in Riya.
The subtle ways Rajveer had kept pushing Druve toward her without ever openly saying that was what he was doing. A suggestion here. A reason there. Somehow, whenever Druve had been inclined to keep his distance, his father had found a way to make that distance smaller.
At the time, none of it had seemed important enough to question.
Now it did.
Druve's expression changed.
Dad knew something.
The realization should have given him direction. Instead, it made his stomach tighten.
His father hadn't started behaving strangely tonight. Rajveer's interest had begun long before Druve had seen the scar, long before Riya had called his name in her sleep, long before any of these questions had entered Druve's mind.
Which meant whatever Rajveer knew, he had known it before Druve did.
Druve looked down at Riya again.
His mind tried once more to complete the thought he had already stopped twice.
Could she really be—
His chest tightened sharply.
"No way…"
There was less certainty in it this time.
Riya was Riya.
How could she possibly be Sruthi?
The question itself made his heartbeat climb.
He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to give the possibility enough space to become hope, certainty or anything else that could tear through the control he had spent years holding together.
But he couldn't dismiss it either.
His hand moved to the back of Riya's head and drew her closer, his cheek briefly resting against her hair. The contact should have steadied him.
It didn't.
Instead, the ease with which he held her only made the confusion worse.
Druve had spent seven years knowing Sruthi was somewhere. He had never accepted anything else, no matter how many people had tried to make him face possibilities he refused to consider.
But this was different.
This wasn't another clue telling him where Sruthi might have gone.
This was his own mind trying to tell him something about the woman already in his arms.
Druve's breathing grew uneven.
He looked at Riya's sleeping face again, searching it almost desperately even though he didn't know what he expected to find.
She didn't look like Sruthi.
She was Riya Rathore.
She had a family, a name, a life that belonged to Riya.
Yet beneath her dress was Sruthi's scar.
She had responded to Sruthi's name while unconscious.
She had responded to his.
And his father knew something.
Druve shut his eyes for a moment, trying to force his thoughts into order.
It didn't work.
The more he tried to reason through it, the more the possibility frightened him. Not because he believed it. He couldn't. It made no sense.
But because some part of him had already reacted before any of these facts had reached his mind.
Tonight, when Riya had cried his name, his heart hadn't asked for proof.
His eyes opened.
Riya shifted faintly and tucked herself closer against him.
Druve froze.
Her fingers tightened once into his shirt before relaxing again.
His face changed.
Could she—
He swallowed hard.
"No."
The denial was barely a whisper now.
His hand moved slowly over her hair. He was no longer certain whether the gesture was meant to comfort her or himself.
Then Rajveer's face returned to his mind.
The date of birth.
The questions.
The pushing.
The secrecy.
Dad definitely knew something.
Druve looked toward his phone.
For once, the thought of getting an answer didn't bring relief.
It frightened him.
Because if Rajveer dismissed everything, Druve could force himself back toward coincidence. He could investigate the scar, question Dr. Sinha, find another explanation and put an end to whatever his mind was doing to him.
But if his father didn't dismiss it—
Druve's fingers tightened against Riya's hair.
He couldn't finish that thought either.
His gaze remained on the phone.
He needed to call.
He didn't move.
That alone would have been enough to tell anyone who knew him how badly shaken he was. Druve did not hesitate when he wanted an answer. He demanded it, found it, tore through whatever stood between him and it.
Tonight his hand wouldn't reach for the phone.
Riya breathed softly against him.
Druve looked down.
The sight of her somehow made the fear worse.
His hand finally moved.
He reached for the phone and unlocked it, but his fingers weren't steady. Druve stared at the slight tremor for barely a second before finding his father's contact.
Dad.
His thumb hovered over the call button.
His heartbeat was too fast now.
Druve hated that he couldn't control it. Hated that a possibility he hadn't even allowed himself to finish was enough to leave his hand shaking.
He pressed the call button.
The phone came to his ear while his other arm remained around Riya.
The first ring sounded.
Druve's jaw tightened.
The second followed.
His arm closed a little more firmly around Riya, and she shifted closer without waking.
By the third ring, Druve's mouth had gone dry.
Then the line connected.
"Druve?"
Rajveer's voice was heavy with sleep.
Druve didn't answer.
His eyes remained fixed on Riya.
There was movement on the other end of the call, and when Rajveer spoke again, the sleep had already disappeared from his voice.
"Druve? What happened?"
Druve's fingers tightened around the phone.
Riya moved faintly against his chest, and his hand immediately settled over the back of her head.
He swallowed.
"Dad…"
The single word came out shaken enough to leave silence on the other end.