She didn't sleep.
For three nights, Anaya read, whispered, summoned, and *schemed*.
Not out of hatred. Not for glory. Not even for justice.
But for him.
Aryan.
The man who didn't ask for her heart, but owned it nonetheless.
---
She moved like smoke.
Called in debts from ministers' wives who owed her secrets.
Unsealed files from her father's old rivals.
Reactivated intelligence assets once used to trail Meher-only now, they tracked *traitors in their own government*.
And when the evidence was airtight, she handed it directly to the palace.
No grand declaration. No press release.
Just a folder. Marked with names.
And a warning:
**Touch him again, and I will erase your bloodlines.**
---
When Aryan received the security update two days later, he was speechless.
The assassination plot had been neutralized.
Half of the royal security commission had been arrested. Two foreign diplomats expelled. One private financier publicly ruined.
He knew only one person capable of orchestrating something so silent... and so absolute.
And she was waiting for him when he returned.
---
Anaya stood on the balcony in a dark maroon silk robe, hair loose, lips bare. She wasn't performing tonight. There was no seduction in her stance.
Only truth.
"Say it," she said.
He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. "Say what?"
"That you were scared."
He didn't answer.
"That you thought you'd die without telling me."
His voice was low, dangerous. "Anaya-"
"*Say it.*"
He crossed to her in two strides. Hands in her hair. Mouth on hers.
It wasn't gentle.
It was confession.
When he broke the kiss, his voice was raw.
"You scare me."
She blinked.
"You terrify me," he said. "Because I've never needed anything the way I need you."
Her heart stopped.
"And I'd rather burn this whole empire down than lose you again."
She didn't smile.
She kissed him.
Hard.
And when she pulled him to the bed, stripped him with aching slowness, rode him until the world dissolved beneath them-it wasn't about power.
It was about surrender.
Not of control.
Of *selves*.