The two men engaged in a brutal, silent tango of death in the center of our bridal suite. No words were spoken. Only the heavy, ragged breathing and the dull thuds of flesh striking flesh echoed through the room. I pressed myself harder against the bedframe, my hands over my ears, watching the violent silhouettes dance in the moonlight.
Arnav was a master of close-quarters combat, but the assassin was heavy and wearing reinforced armor. The attacker managed to slip a hand into their tactical vest, pulling out a wicked, serrated combat knife. The blade caught the moonlight, flashing silver.
The assassin slashed wildly. Arnav dodged backward, but the tip of the blade tore through his white wedding shirt, leaving a dark, rapidly widening stain of crimson across his chest.
“Arnav!” the scream died in my throat.
Ignoring the wound, Arnav ducked under the next wild swing, grabbed the assassin by the tactical vest, and used the attacker’s own weight to slam them violently against the heavy oak wardrobe. The wood splintered with a loud crash.
Before the assassin could recover, Arnav locked his forearms around the man’s neck from behind, applying a lethal sleeper hold. The assassin thrashed wildly, their boots kicking against the floor, trying to find leverage, trying to reach the knife. But Arnav’s grip was an iron vice. Slowly, the attacker’s movements grew weaker, their limbs going limp, until finally, they slumped forward, completely unconscious or dead.
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.
“Aarohi… listen to me,” Arnav whispered fiercely, staring at me from the floor, his face pale under the moonlight. “You have to choose right now. If you open that door and tell them I walked… you walk away free, but my enemies will hunt you down to eliminate the witness. If you want to survive the night, you have to help me hide this body and get me into that chair before they smash the lock.“
“I… I can’t…” I stammered, looking at the blood, the dead man, the shattered wardrobe.
“Decide!” he hissed, as a heavy shoulder slammed against the outside of the door, making the wood groan. “Are you my wife, or are you their next victim?“
My hands stopped shaking. A strange, cold clarity washed over me. I looked at the man who had just saved my life, and then at the door that was about to splinter open.
I scrambled across the floor, grabbing the heavy, dead weight of the assassin by his boots, dragging him into the deep shadows behind the velvet curtains. My red bridal sari was stained with the assassin’s blood. I rushed back to Arnav, grabbing him under his arms, using every ounce of my strength to haul his heavy, muscular frame back into the wheelchair.
Just as his limp legs settled onto the footrests, the lock gave way with a deafening CRACK.
The door flew open, and Vikram burst into the room, his gun drawn, followed by three heavily armed guards. They flooded the room, flashlights cutting through the darkness, illuminating the chaos.
They saw the shattered wardrobe. They saw the blood on the floor.
And then, the flashlights hit us.
I was on my knees, sobbing hysterically, my red sari soaked in blood, clutching the wheels of the chair. Arnav sat there, his head slumped back, his eyes closed, his shirt torn open to reveal a bleeding, vicious stab wound to his chest, looking entirely like a helpless, paralyzed victim who had been brutally assaulted in his own seat.
“Oh my god! Sir!” Vikram shouted, rushing forward. “Secure the perimeter! Call the medical team now!“
Two guards rushed to Arnav, while Vikram knelt beside me, his hands on my shaking shoulders. “Ma’am! What happened? Who did this?!“
I forced the tears to stream down my face, letting out a primal, terrified shriek. “A man… a man came through the window! He had a knife! He… he tried to kill Arnav! He stabbed him!“
“Where is he?!” Vikram demanded, his eyes scanning the room.
I was about to point toward the balcony to create a fake escape route, when suddenly, a faint, metallic clink sounded from behind the velvet curtains just a few feet away.
Everyone froze.
The guards slowly turned their flashlights toward the heavy curtains. The fabric wasn’t still. It was moving.
The assassin wasn’t dead. And he was standing right behind me.
Before Vikram could raise his weapon, a hand shot out from behind the curtain, grabbing me by my hair and yanking me backward with brutal force. A cold, sharp blade pressed tightly against my jugular.
“Back off!” a raspy, blood-choked voice snarled into my ear. “Back off or I cut her throat right now!“
Vikram and his guards raised their weapons, their faces tight with tension. “Drop the weapon! You have nowhere to go!“
“I go through the front door, or she dies!” the assassin screamed, dragging me backward toward the balcony, the blade cutting a tiny line into my skin. A warm trickle of blood ran down my neck.
I gasped, looking frantically across the room at Arnav. He was still slumped in his wheelchair, playing the part of the unconscious, paralyzed husband. His eyes were half-closed, his head tilted back.
But beneath the shadow of his long eyelashes, I saw it. His amber eyes were wide open, staring directly at the assassin’s exposed throat. His right hand, hidden from the guards’ view by the armrest of the wheelchair, was slowly slipping back toward the tactical silencer pistol hidden in his vest.
If he fired, he would save my life, but he would reveal his secret to Vikram and his entire security team, destroying his five-year war and exposing himself to every cartel in Mexico. If he stayed still, I would die.
The assassin tightened his grip on my hair, pulling my head back further. “I said drop the guns! I’ll count to three!“
I stared at Arnav, my heart stopping, waiting for the choice that would decide whether I lived or died
