Chapter 2. I Despise Her
Some ruins still bleed. Especially the ones we built with love and tore down with silence.
~ Aksh Raghuvanshi
Lucknow's skyline flashed by the tinted glass of the car window, a mix of fading gad and dying blue. I leaned back into the leather seat of the SUV, feeling the fatigue coil inside me like an old, familiar snake. Courtroom battles always took something from you, time, energy, blood, maybe even a piece of your soul but today's hearing had stolen something deeper.
"She looked like she wanted to kill you," Rudra said from the passenger seat, a smirk tugging at the edge of his mouth. "That whole courtroom was holding its breath like a soap opera climax."
I didn't say a word. Only kept looking straight.
"She, of course, being Ritvika Roy," he said with a chuckle. "Or should I say... your personal nemesis."
"Don't start," I muttered, my tone as dull as the road we were traveling on.
"I mean, come on. That line she threw at you? " Kings who lie bleed the same as traitors" dude, that was straight-up Bollywood."
I clenched my jaw, forcing my gaze onto the road, counting the dividers like sins. One, two, three…
Ritvika Roy.
Just the name scraped something raw inside me. I should have known she'd defend her father like a goddess guarding her temple. She had fire in her eyes and venom in her tongue. And that was the problem, wasn't it?
She had the power to affect me even now.
Even after all the things that she had done.
Even after she left me bleeding in the ruins of what we had once promised each other in secret smiles and stolen moments.
The court was only the battlefield. The real war between us had started long ago, quietly, subtly, with unanswered calls, missed messages, half-told truths. And then came the avalanche. Accusations. Betrayals. The feeling of being punched in the chest by the one who used to be your home.
"Anyway," Rudra said, cracking his knuckles. "Avni's engagement's in three days. That should be fun."
My shoulders finally relaxed a little. Avni.
My little sister.
My fierce, complicated, reckless Avni.
"She's excited," I said, softer now. "She acts like she's not, but she is, you know."
"Yeah, she definitely should be. I mean, I still can't believe I'm going to be your brother-in-law."
By now I was grinning. "Trust me, I'm still in denial too."
Rudra chuckled, stretching back. "You know Ritvika's coming, right?"
Of course she was.
She and Avni had been inseparable once. Diary sharing. Fighting together during the hostel wars. Doing the same college internship. Helping each other through breakups and, like the Oscars, celebrating every single little victory.
That was before everything shattered.
Before I had to choose between justice and love.
And I had chosen justice. Or at least that's what I kept telling myself.
"She better not make a scene," I muttered, more to the window than to him.
"She might. Especially when she sees you all dressed up in your sherwani."
I turned sharply. "Rudra, "
"Kidding, man. Sort of."
He looked out the window for a moment, then his voice became even quieter.
"Are you completely sure about this case, Aksh?"
That question hit harder than I expected.
I had asked myself that, too, beneath every legal brief, behind every cold stare I aimed at Ritvika in the courtroom.
What if Harshvardhan Roy was innocent?
What if the man she was always defending so fiercely was not guilty of funding terrorism?
But then again, what if he wasn't?
Truth wasn't a mirror. It was a cracked lens, and depending on where you stood, the reflection changed. I had evidence. Transactions. Names. Patterns. But I also had a history with Ritvika that muddied every clear decision.
"I'm sure," I said eventually, more out of habit than belief.
Rudra didn't pressure me. He just nodded and turned up the radio a bit. Some old Kishore Kumar songs came out into the silence, and for a while, we just drove.
By the time we reached the Lucknow Palace, our family home, all sandstone glory, and imperial corridors, the sun had disappeared. The sky was the colour of faded bruises, and lanterns had been lit along the garden path. Familiar footsteps crunched over gravel. Servants bowed. Somewhere, my mother's voice was shouting instructions over phone calls for the engagement.
Inside the house was chaos. Avni's laughter came from upstairs, mixed with Chachi's endless commentary on decor and theme colours. I saw Ishani writing down things into a planner and Avyukt trying to get hold of flower boxes that looked as if they were attacking him.
Normalcy. It was startling.
Especially after the courtroom storm.
"Aksh bhai," Avni shouted from the stairs. She was in a robe, wet hair trailing down her back, a towel slung over her shoulder. "Where is Rudra?"
"Here," Rudra said, strolling past me like he is the owner of this palace.
Avni gave a look at how smug he was and threw the towel on his face.
I watched them from a distance, my sister and the man she loved. They had been through hell together. Nearly died for each other. And somehow, they still believed in things like loyalty. Truth. Forever.
Maybe they were lucky.
Maybe they were just naive.
. . .
Not long after that night, I sat on the terrace alone, nursing a glass of whiskey and my own unravelling thoughts. The city stretched out like a map of secrets, some mine, some hers.
And then my phone lit up.
Ritvika Roy.
A part of me wanted to let it ring. To watch the name flicker and die.
But I picked up.
"What?" I uttered, the tone of my voice was cold.
"Tomorrow," she snapped. "Be at the archives by ten. I need files from the '92 defense funding act. If you try to delay this with your usual power games, I will personally file a petition."
"I don't take orders from you."
"No," she replied with a bit of sarcasm. "You just destroy people who don't kneel."
Silence.
That old ache twisted inside me again, deep, ugly, familiar.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I said, and ended the call.
I stared at the skyline. Lucknow was twinkling in the distance, completely unaware, untouched while I was consumed by flames inside. It was getting quite easy for me to hate her now.
Hell, it had become second nature. A muscle memory. I could close my eyes and conjure her face, her fury, her fire, her defiance, and my chest would tighten with a rage so dense it threatened to choke me.
But even then… it never felt clean. Never felt like justice.
It felt like drinking saltwater when you're dying of thirst. The more I swallowed, the thirstier I became. The more I despised her, the deeper she crawled under my skin.
Because every time I looked at her, every time she stood in court, chin raised, voice steady, defending that man, I didn't just see Ritvika Roy, my ex-lover, my former mentor's daughter, my once-in-a-lifetime.
No.
I saw the reason Avni almost died.
That car blast still haunts me in slow motion, the fire, the scream, the silence that followed. I remember holding Avni's bloodied body, the weight of her limp form against my chest, thinking, this is it, I've lost her.
I have seen Rudra's hands trembling as he was trying to stop the bleeding when the wound was getting worse during the recovery process.
I remember Ishani vomiting when she saw the burns.
I remember rage. Boiling, pulsing rage. Not the kind you feel in the courtroom. The kind that claws into your ribs and builds a nest there.
And when the names were revealed and the puzzle pieces started coming together, it was not only a matter of betrayal. It was destruction.
My own Chacha, Indertej. The man showed me how to play chess.
Ashwin, my friend. Rudra's best friend. Basically family.
And, of course, Harshvardhan Roy.
The dignified patriarch. The man who shook my hand once and called me beta. The same man whose transactions now sat folded in government folders, marked with red ink and damning signatures.
I believed he was involved. There wasn't a doubt in my mind. He had blood on his hands. Whether he ordered it or allowed it, it didn't matter. Avni's blood was on those hands.
And Ritvika… she didn't just stand beside him.
She fought for him.
She clawed and cried and screamed that he was innocent. She accused me of being the villain. She gave me a look as if I were the monster for going after her monster.
And that… that was unforgivable.
She became the face of my rage. My grief. My guilt.
Every time I think of Avni in that ICU, hooked up to machines, struggling to breathe, Ritvika's voice plays in my head.
Telling me I'm wrong. That I'm cruel. That I've lost my humanity.
Maybe I have.
But I almost lost my sister.
So yeah.
I hate her.
I despise her.
I hate that she looks me in the eye and doesn't flinch. That she still carries herself like some tragic heroine while the ashes of everything I once believed in crumble around me.
I hate the way she says my name now.
Like it's something bitter she can't quite spit out fast enough.
But the worst part, the part that haunts me more than the betrayal, more than the courtroom sparring, more than the sight of blood on Avni's hands,
Is that I still remember how she used to say it.
Aksh.
Soft. Reverent. Like it meant something. Like I meant something.
Back when we were still two foolish hearts dreaming of a future.
Back when I didn't know the girl I loved would one day become the enemy I couldn't outrun.
Now she says it like a curse.
And I…
I'm starting to believe her.
Maybe I am a curse.
Maybe we both are.
Maybe the version of us that once laughed under monsoon rains and made promises in the dark was never real.
Just a lie we told each other to escape the world we were born into.
A lie that blew up the moment that car did.
𓆩⚔🖤⚔𓆪