# ❤️🔥 **Chapter 3: The Night Everything Broke**
580 Words
---
Aryan couldn’t sleep.
Zaria’s voice kept replaying in his mind — sharp, cold, unforgiving.
*“I’m here to make you watch while I take back everything you stole.”*
He sank into the leather couch in his penthouse, running a hand through his hair. Outside, the city lights glowed, but nothing sparked inside him.
Only memories he tried to bury.
### **Five Years Ago**
Zaria stood in front of him in a small apartment, her eyes red from crying.
“Aryan… I’m pregnant.”
His world didn’t pause. It exploded.
“Impossible.”
“You’re lying.”
“You want my money.”
“You planned this.”
He had thrown these words like stones. Each one hitting harder than the last.
Zaria cried silently. She never argued back. She only said one thing:
> “I loved you. That’s all I ever did.”
Then she left. And he let her go.
He didn’t chase her.
Because back then, he believed his father’s words—
**“Girls like her only want your name and wealth.”**
But today, she returned richer than him, stronger than him… and burning with a fire he created.
---
### **Present Day**
Aryan clenched his fists.
Had she really been pregnant?
If she had… what happened to the child?
Was there a child somewhere who looked like him?
The thought twisted a deep fear inside his chest.
He grabbed his keys and rushed out.
There was only one person who could answer his growing panic — **Kaira**, the secretary who knew everything about him and… about Zaria.
---
### **Meanwhile… Zaria stood on her balcony**, watching the moon through the glass walls of her luxury suite.
She didn’t cry.
She refused to.
Her phone buzzed.
“Ma’am, tomorrow’s boardroom takeover details are ready.”
“Good,” she replied. “Make sure Aryan Mehra attends every single meeting.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She cut the call and touched the small silver locket hanging around her neck.
Inside the locket… was a tiny photograph. A sweet face. Eyes like hers.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered softly.
“Mama will finish everything she started. For you.”
A tear almost escaped — but she stopped it.
No weakness.
Not now.
Not when she had waited five long years to rise from the ashes he left her in.
---
### **At Kaira’s Apartment**
Kaira opened the door, shocked. “Aryan? It’s 2 AM!”
He didn’t waste a second.
“Kaira… Zaria. Five years ago. Did she tell anyone else? Did she… actually… was she—”
Kaira looked away, her face pale.
“Aryan… you made a terrible mistake.”
His heart slammed against his ribs.
“What mistake?” he asked, voice shaking.
Kaira whispered:
**“Zaria wasn’t lying.”**
Aryan’s breath stopped.
Kaira continued, tears in her eyes.
“She came to me after you shouted at her. She was broken… and she really was pregnant. She had no one else to go to.”
Aryan stumbled back, feeling the ground slipping under him.
“And the baby?” he whispered.
Kaira shook her head slowly.
“I don’t know what happened after that. She left the city… and disappeared.”
Aryan closed his eyes, agony ripping through him.
He had destroyed the only woman he ever loved.
And now that she was back…
She wasn’t his Zaria anymore.
She was his **punishment**.
---
---
- Writer
