«Ding—»
Basement Level 3, Parking Space B-88.
Tara Singania stepped into the city’s most exclusive private parking garage, her ten-centimeter red-soled heels clicking against the concrete. Her silver Bentley had barely come to a stop when a dark figure knelt before it.
Not security.
A man. Wearing faded overalls, sleeves frayed and worn, carefully wiping mud from her tires with a gray cloth.
“What are you doing?” she asked coldly.
The man didn’t look up. Instead, he gently placed a rose on her windshield wiper. Dewdrops clung to the petals, like unshed tears.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Miss Tara,” he finally spoke, his voice so low it was nearly swallowed by the hum of the ventilation system. “Fifteen years… You’ve finally returned.”
She frowned. He was a stranger. And yet those eyes—black, deep, still—seemed to pierce through every layer of her armor.
She turned and walked away.
Three hours later, she was locked in a heated argument with her fiancé at the “Cloud Peak” café.
“Are you really going to destroy ten years of love just for some family empire?” She slammed the contract onto the table.
“Tara, you’re insatiable,” her fiancé sneered. “Who do you think you are? Without my father’s backing, you wouldn’t even get past the boardroom door!”
At that moment, commotion erupted outside the glass walls.
The same man—the one who’d cleaned her car—walked in.
Carrying a black briefcase.
A waiter tried to stop him, but he simply said, “I’m a Singania.”
Silence fell across the room.
He opened the case—neat stacks of 2 million rupee bundles, perfectly arranged.
“Miss Tara,” he slid the case toward her in front of everyone, “this is your first investment fund. Not ransom. An invitation.”
Her pupils contracted sharply.
Singania… That was her mother’s maiden name.
And this man—should have died in the fire fifteen years ago.
That night, he met her atop the city’s highest library. Towering bookshelves stood like prison bars. Moonlight sliced through the narrow gap between copies of *The Communist Manifesto* and *The Avenger’s Notebook*.
“You’re not a janitor,” she gripped her handbag chain tightly. “You’re… the illegitimate son my father expelled from the company.”
“To be precise,” he smiled faintly, “your half-brother, from our mother’s side. Before she died, she entrusted me with her shares—on one condition: to bring you back from them, by my own hands.”
“Bring me back?” she scoffed. “Or take revenge?”
He stepped closer, fingertips brushing a loose strand of hair near her ear.
“Do you think I hate you? Tara, I burned more than just that building… I burned every single agreement you signed betraying me.”
“Now, it’s my turn to ask—”
“Will you rebuild Singania with me? Or keep playing their puppet?”
Wind rustled the pages, loud and sharp.
Like the prelude to a storm.
