Page 172 of Since You Stole My Heart

What have I done?

After that, time stopped making sense.

The mangled car door creaked open, and someone lifted her into their arms. Hands touched her face, pressed antiseptic against her wounds, and wrapped something tightly around her bleeding leg.

Voices surrounded her from every direction. Questions. Instructions. Panic. Red and blue lights flashed across the tunnel walls in dizzying streaks.

Kashvi heard none of it.

Her eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead where her mother lay motionless.

She didn’t react even when someone finally covered her mother’s body with a white sheet.

But inside her head, she couldn’t stop screaming.

Chapter 33

Present Day

‘How could you do that?’ Siya demanded, her eyes blazing with raw fury.

Kashvi instinctively took a step back as the full force of her sister’s anguish hit her. ‘Di, please. Just listen to me.’

‘Listen to what?’ Siya shot back, her face flushed red. ‘That you caused the accident that took Maa’s life?’

Kashvi shook her head and gripped Siya’s hand tightly. ‘N... no.’

Siya immediately pulled her hand away.

Beside her, Abhay looked deeply unsettled, his attention fixed entirely on his wife. No one else had uttered a word since Kashvi told them the full story.

Agitated, Siya grabbed Kashvi by the shoulders. Her distress seemed to ripple through the room as she cried, ‘How could you do that to Maa? To me?’

Kashvi wanted to explain. She wanted to go back nineteen years and rip her terrified younger self away from that phone callbefore her father poisoned her mind. But all she could do was crumble beneath the unbearable weight of Siya looking at her like she had betrayed her.

It was the one look Kashvi had prayed never to see in her life.

When she flinched from Siya’s tight grip, Swayam cut in sharply. ‘Siya, enough. Back off, please.’

‘Back off? Did you even hear what she just said?’ Siya snapped.

‘I heard every word, but I don’t see how it’s Kash’s fault,’ Swayam said evenly, though tension radiated off him. ‘Your father manipulated the love of his six-year-old daughter and used it against his wife. He’s the only person here you should be angry with.’

The certainty in his voice stunned Kashvi into silence.

She had been so sure that once he saw this ugly, festering part of her, he would look at her with revulsion, judgment, or horror. She hadn’t looked at him even once, terrified he would finally realise she was too broken to love.

But when she finally did, his expression held only quiet understanding.

‘Maybe you should back off, Swayam,’ Siya retorted, glaring at him.

‘I won’t,’ Swayam said firmly, refusing to move away from his wife. ‘Because I care about Kash, and so do you. Maithili specifically warned us not to stress her because it could trigger another seizure.’

He regretted saying it the second the words left his mouth, but it was already too late.

Siya’s anger cracked instantly, and she turned back to her sister. ‘Another seizure? It’s happening again? Since when?’

The guilt hit so hard Kashvi felt nauseous, but there was nothing left to hide anymore. ‘A few months.’