Arnav stood over the body, his chest heaving, his hand pressing against the bleeding gash on his ribs. The white silk of his attire was ruined, soaked in blood. He looked feral, dangerous, completely detached from the billionaire prince I was supposed to marry.
Suddenly, a loud, frantic pounding echoed from the hallway outside.
“Arnav sir! Aarohi ma’am! We heard a crash! Are you alright?!” It was the voice of Vikram, Arnav’s chief of personal security. Heavy footsteps were sprinting down the corridor toward our room.
Arnav’s eyes snapped to the door, then to the unconscious assassin on the floor, and finally to me. The panic in his eyes wasn’t for his life—it was for his secret. If his security team burst through that door right now and saw him standing over a dead assassin, his five-year-old deception was over. The trap he had built would spring on him.
“Aarohi,” Arnav rasped, his voice strained as he fought through the pain of his wound. He stumbled slightly, the blood loss catching up to him. He dragged himself back toward the empty wheelchair, but he was too weak to lift himself back into it. He collapsed onto the floor right next to it.
The doorknob outside began to jiggle violently. They were going to break the door down.
