4.

♠ KISSED BY A CRIMINAL ♠

Chapter 4

The night smelled like rain, cigarettes, and bad decisions

The morning sun cutting through the floor to ceiling windows of the Rawal mansion felt less like warmth and more like an interrogation lamp.

"You will marry him, Isha. It's already decided."

Alok Rawal didn't even look up from his tablet as he spoke. He was sipping his black coffee, his crisp Armani suit perfectly pressed, looking every bit the ruthless pharmaceutical tycoon the newspapers praised.

"He is twice my age, Papa!" Isha slammed her hands on the mahogany dining table, her voice shaking with a mix of rage and helplessness. "Vikram Malhotra is a snake. Everyone in Delhi knows how he handles his competitors. You're not marrying me off, you're selling a share of your company!"

Alok finally raised his eyes, cold and entirely devoid of paternal warmth. "Zubaan sambhaal ke, Isha. (Watch your tongue, Isha.) You enjoy the luxury this family provides, so you will fulfill the duties that come with it. Malhotra Enterprises is expanding, and this merger makes us untouchable. Tumhe kya lagta hai? (What do you think?) You'll graduate from college and run away to do charity work? Grow up. The guards will escort you to campus today. Don't make a scene."

He stood up, adjusted his cuffs, and walked out, leaving Isha standing alone, her knuckles white, her chest heaving. They think I'm a doll, she thought, a dangerous fire igniting beneath her anger. They think they can just lock me in a cage.

Weeks Later at St. Stephen's College Cafeteria

The chaotic buzz of the college canteen did nothing to calm Isha's racing mind. She sat at a corner table, her laptop open, scrolling through buried public records and archived court documents.

Her friend, Kabir and kavya dropped a plate of samosas on the table, looking stressed. "Isha, seriously, tu pagal ho gayi hai kya? (Have you gone mad?) Look at yourself. You haven't slept in days. What are you even looking for?"

"A weapon, Kabir," Isha whispered, turning the screen toward him. It showed a grainy mugshot of a man with sharp, predatory features and a haunting, milky white right eye. "Vedant Chauhan. He used to be a top-tier cybersecurity expert, but seven years ago, he was convicted for a massive heist. But look at his rap sheet before that. Street fighting, broken bones, extortion. He survived five years in Tihar Jail. Rumor has it he took down four armed inmates simultaneously in the yard."

Kabir stared at the photo, wiping a sudden sweat from his forehead. "Arre yaar, yeh koi aam gunda nahi hai. (Man, this isn't some ordinary thug.) He looks like a psychopath! Isha, please, stay away. Your dad is powerful, but these dark underworld types? They don't care about your family name. Agar isne kuch kiya toh? (What if he does something?)"

"This guy looks totally a psychopath!"

And Kavya, dramatic as always, had nearly squealed after seeing his mugshot.

"Bro, if he kills us, at least he'll look hot doing it."

At the time, Isha had rolled her eyes.

Now? Now she unfortunately understood the concern.

This was exactly the kind of man girls in bad romance novels fell for before ruining their lives.

"That's exactly why I need to talk him," Isha said, her jaw tight. "Papa's guards are everywhere. Last night, one of them blocked my door when I tried to go for a walk. I need to know how to break a man's grip, and survive when the rules don't apply. Gyms teach you sport. This guy? He probably knows how to survive."

"But how do you even know where he is?" Kabir asked, lowering his voice. "He's a ghost since he got out."

Now all three of them went to search on him

"I swear to God, Isha, if we end up in a Delhi jail, I am telling my mom this was all your idea."

Kabir wiped the sweat from his forehead for the tenth time in five minutes, adjusting his glasses as they navigated the suffocatingly narrow, chaotic lanes of Chandni Chowk. The heat was unforgiving, the air thick with the smell of frying jalebis, vehicle exhaust, and old dust.

"Oh, shut up, Kabir! This is literally like being in a true-crime documentary!" Kavya bounced on her heels, her eyes wide with frantic excitement as she clutched her vlogging camera thankfully turned off. "Matlab, a real life dangerous hacker slash street fighter? This is peak cinematic energy."

"This isn't a Netflix show, Kavya," Kabir hissed, jumping aside as a speeding e-rickshaw missed him by inches. "Yeh real life hai. (This is real life.) And all this is happening after you told her about the great vedant Chauhan!!That guy has a rap sheet longer than our college syllabus!"

For three days, the trio had been wandering around Old Delhi under the guise of a "college history project," trying to track down the ghost.

The problem was, nobody knew who he was.

"Excuse me, Uncle ji? ," Kavya stopped a local vendor selling artificial jewelry, flashing her most charming, polite smile. "Yahan koi Vedant Chauhan rehte hain?* (Does a Vedant Chauhan live around here?) Tall, scary looking, has a very distinct... uh... eye?"

The vendor frowned, chewing his paan. "Chauhan? Nahi toh. (No.) Yahan toh sab Gupta aur Sharma hain. Go ask the tea-stall guy."

They asked the tea stall guy. They asked an old man who was reading a Urdu newspaper. They even asked a stray cop, which almost gave Kabir a panic attack.

"Arey beta, yahan sab shareef log rehte hain," (Look kid, only decent people live here,) a sweet old lady told Isha, handing her a glass of water. "Tum log jiska ka naam le rahe ho vo yaha nahi milega . (You're naming some thug.) Go back to your college."

"See? He doesn't exist," Kabir pleaded, pulling Isha toward the main road. "Chal na, Isha, please. Your dad's guards are going to notice we missed our afternoon lecture. Let's just go back."

Isha's jaw tightened. She looked at the crumbling, high ceilinged Havelis surrounding them. He was here. She knew it. She could feel it. "One last lane, Kabir. Just one more."

By the time night fell, a sudden, blinding Delhi thunderstorm rolled in. The sky turned a bruised purple,

"Bas kar, Isha!" Kabir groaned dramatically for what felt like the hundredth time. "We've been walking around Old Delhi like unpaid detectives since morning. My legs are filing human rights complaints."

Kavya looked equally miserable, fanning herself with a random pamphlet. "And your mysterious criminal doesn't even exist. Maybe he evaporates during daytime like Batman."

Isha tried to laugh, but frustration sat heavily in her chest.

"Isha, we have to call it a night," Kavya said, her excitement finally dampening along with her hair. "It's think the sky is going to pour, and we're getting nowhere."

Isha sighed, stepping out from under the awning to look around. Frustrated, she turned around too quickly and slammed directly into a teenager frantically trying to unlock his bicycle.

CRASH.

A cardboard box flew out of the boy's hands, spilling a bunch of metal computer fans and cables in the road.

"Hey! Dekh ke chalo, didi! (Watch where you're going!)" the boy yelled, scrambling in the rain to save the electronics.

"I'm so sorry! Here, let me help," Isha knelt down instantly, grabbing a wet cardboard box. As she handed it to him, her eyes caught the delivery slip taped to the side. It was smudged by the rain, but the bold, black ink was still readable:

To: Vedant Chauhan

Address: Lane 4, Gali Kasim Jan, Old House behind the Teak Door.

Isha's breath hitched. "You... you're delivering to Mr. Chauhan?"

The teenage delivery boy instantly froze. The anger vanished from his face, replaced by a sudden, visible paleness. He swallowed hard, grabbing his box back. "H..haan. (Yes.) Just delivered his extra hard drive."

"Is he... is he home right now?" Isha pressed, standing up, her heart hammering against her ribs.

The boy shuddered, looking back toward the dark alleyway as if a monster might jump out. "Didi, woh aadmi thoda khiskoo hai. (Sister, that man is a bit crazy.) His eye... baap re. (Oh god.) He smiled at me like he wanted to eat me. I'm not going back there even if they pay me double."

Without waiting for another word, the boy jumped onto his bicycle and pedaled away furiously into the rain.

Isha turned back to Kabir and Kavya, a fierce, triumphant grin breaking across her face despite the water pouring down her forehead.

"I found him," she whispered.

40 minutes later, she was standing near the exact address.The rain was drumming loudly against the concrete, providing the perfect cover.

After kabir and kavya went to their respective places she sneaks out again covering her face so her father's guard won't suspect her or was she hiding from that stalker?

"Okay, the front door is completely bolted from the inside," Isha whispered, shining her flashlight up the wall. "But look at that small window up there leads into what looks like a kitchen."

The smell of roasted cumin and mustard oil wafted through a small, rusty window. He's inside.

She grabbed the edge of the stone ledge, her boots slipping on the wet brick. With a desperate heave, she pulled herself up, but her weight pushed against the rotting wooden frame of the window.

Loud cracking voice

The glass shattered. Isha winced, a sharp piece cutting deep into her palm. "Shitt!" she hissed scrambling through the broken frame and tumbling onto the cold, dusty floor of the pantry.

Her heart pounded against her ribs like a trapped bird. The kitchen was pitch black, illuminated only by the faint silver moonlight filtering through the broken window. She stood up, brushing glass off her dark jeans, her breathing ragged. She instantly clenched her fists, her blood dripping onto the floorboards.

Suddenly, a shadow materialized in the doorway.

He was towering, holding a heavy iron rod casually on his shoulder. When the moonlight hit his face, Isha's breath hitched. The mugshot hadn't done it justice. His right eye was a terrifying, dead white, staring right through her.

For a second, Isha forgot every warning she’d ever heard about Vedant Chauhan.

Because criminals were not supposed to look like that. He looked dangerous, sure. Terrifying, honestly. The dead white eye alone should’ve made her back away immediately. It should’ve reminded her that this man had survived prison fights, street violence, and years of darkness most people couldn’t even imagine.

Instead, her idiot heart skipped a once than twice ohhhh God and his lips.

Why did a criminal have lips that looked so unfairly soft? Isha immediately hated herself for noticing.

This man could probably kill people with his bare hands, and her brain was busy thinking about his mouth.

Her heartbeat turned traitorous the second he tilted his head slightly, moonlight sliding across the sharp line of his jaw.

This man could probably kill someone with his bare hands, and her brain was busy staring at his mouth.

"You know, usually, people just use the doorbell," his voice echoed flat, unreadable, and dangerously calm. "Though I appreciate the dedication to breaking and entering. Very vintage."

'His voice ishaaa'

Isha slipped on a glass shard, her back hitting the counter, but she refused to look weak. She squared her shoulders, staring straight into that nightmare of an eye. She had found the perfect man, Now, she just had to convince him.

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