The rain had always known the truth.

It fell the night she signed the papers.
It fell the night bodies dropped.
It fell every year since—on the day the threats returned with her name written in red.
And now, it fell again.
Insistent. Inevitable.

Radhika Rathore had spent years building a life high above the world.
Glass walls.
Locked doors.
A voice so polished it could cut diamonds.
To the world, she was elegance in heels, the woman who didn’t flinch.

But beneath her ribcage, a secret screamed.

There had been a man once—a genius turned monster.
A project that was meant to heal but only harmed.
And a choice.
One she didn’t make in time.

She tried to atone.
She ran.
She exposed the truth.
But monsters don’t die when you pull off their masks.
They evolve.
And they wait.

Now, years later, standing beneath a crystal chandelier at a high-society gala, she saw another man watching her from across the room.
Not a threat.
Worse—a possibility.

Christian Reyes didn’t belong to her world of shadows and silences.
He was light.
He was music.
He was everything dangerous to a woman who couldn’t afford to hope.

If he walked toward her, her past would follow him.
If he touched her, he’d burn.

And if he loved her…
He’d die.

But the thing about storms is—
they don’t ask permission before they arrive.

. . . . .