liyaverse_x
The moment the car door opened, the questions hit like gunfire.
Cameras flashed in a strobing wall of white. Microphones jabbed forward, held by hands that seemed to multiply with every step. Mallika kept her chin level, her expression carved from stone, but the noise pressed in from every side.
"Ms. Kulkarni, why did you marry the man accused of orchestrating your father's murder?"
She didn't flinch. Didn't slow.
"Is it true you're romantically involved with your own client?"
A second voice cut over the first, sharper, hungrier for the reaction it wanted. "Since when have you been sleeping with him?"
Then a third, uglier than the rest. "You're defending a rapist because you're sleeping with him,is that it?"
The words landed like static in her ears, meant to break her stride, to catch her off guard on camera. She had rehearsed for this. She had not rehearsed for this many voices at once.
Beside her, he didn't say a word. He simply stepped half a pace closer, angling his shoulder so the nearest boom mic couldn't drift toward her, so no stray hand or shoulder could brush against her in the crush. He'd slipped his own AirPods into her ears before they'd even left the car,a small, deliberate thing, a wall of silence he'd built for her ahead of time, so the worst of the shouting would reach her only as a distant hum.
To him, the reporters weren't press. They were noise to be managed, obstacles between her and the door.
"No comment," he said finally, voice flat, final, closing the subject like a door slamming shut.
He didn't touch her. He didn't need to. He simply moved, and the crowd parted, and she walked through it like it wasn't there at all.
A reporter leaned in too close, hand rising toward her arm. He was already there,one step, no wasted motion,a wall between her and the crowd before the hand could fall.
"Don't," he said. Just that. Quiet. Final.
The man froze, hand dropping. To him, these people were nothing,insects who didn't get to come near his g