Sona pov.
Paris smelled different the morning they dragged us in. Not the postcard Paris with glossy cafés and croissant-dreams. This one tasted like metal and rainwater and the inside of a wolf's mouth.
Funny, isn't it? How a city can flip its face overnight. One minute I was breathing freedom, chasing Arjun's ghost across continents, and the next I was pressed against a cold wall with policemen barking instructions in clipped French like I was some delinquent tourist with a forged identity.
I didn't even flinch when they locked the cuffs.
Fear had burnt out long ago; only calculation remained.
The moment they stopped us at the boarding gate, I knew something had been pulled from underneath us. A wire snapped somewhere behind the curtains. Passports flagged. A "mistake." A "system error." A "random check."
All lies.
The officers barely looked at us. Their eyes flickered in a way that told me everything:
Someone higher than them had ordered this.
Someone who knew exactly where we'd be.
Someone who wanted to corner us.
They pushed us through a corridor that smelled like bleach and bureaucratic decay, then into the holding room. A concrete block pretending to be a cell. The air hummed with fluorescent lights, too bright, too sterile. As if trying to bleach us into submission.
Kabir kept pacing.
Riya kept arguing with an officer who only blinked and repeated the same three sentences.
I stayed still.
Stillness is power. Stillness is a blade.
Inside me, everything else was burning.
Because the moment those doors clanged shut behind us, something inside my ribs twisted. My instincts had been whispering for days, but now they were screaming. The cold metal of the bench kissed the back of my legs, and the heat in my blood nearly boiled.
Arjun.
Where was he breathing right now?
Was he breathing at all?
The cell was too clean. Too staged. Like it had been prepared. Awaiting me. I could feel eyes on us even though no camera hung on the wall. A watcher without a lens. A serpent without a rattling tail.
Kabir cursed under his breath. "This is sabotage, Sona. Nobody gets detained like this for a passport mismatch."
No. They didn't.
Unless someone engineered the mismatch.
I folded my hands, my voice threading through the tension like a quiet blade.
"They want to delay us."
Riya swallowed. "Who?"
I didn't answer. Because the name curled like venom behind my teeth, but speaking it would make the darkness inside me deepen.
Hours passed. No questions. No paperwork. No explanations. Just a clock ticking in a room that didn't deserve time.
I kept replaying the last few weeks in my head. His smile. His bruises. His strange silences. His instincts. The way he always sensed danger before it reached him. The way he softened it all for us so we wouldn't worry.
My throat tightened.
Was he softening now?
Or screaming into a void I couldn't reach?
A metal clank echoed.
A new officer entered.
And then I saw him.
Lean against the opposite wall. Arms crossed. Smirk carved onto his face like a scar.
Naveen.
He looked perfectly unharmed, perfectly pleased, perfectly entertained by the fact that we were caged.
My breath stilled.
My universe didn't.
His eyes skimmed over Kabir. Riya. Then landed on me like he was pinning a moth to a board.
"That flight," he said softly, almost sweetly, "was never meant for you."
The fluorescent lights buzzed above us. Kabir lunged but I blocked him with a single arm, my gaze still on Naveen.
I didn't speak.
Not because I had nothing to say.
Because everything I could say would ignite the room.
Naveen shrugged casually, as if he was talking about weather, not our freedom.
"You won't be leaving Paris. Not today. Not anytime soon."
He walked closer. The guards didn't even blink. That told me enough. He owned this room. He owned these hours. He owned the trap.
"Arjun," I said quietly.
A twitch at his jaw.
Ah. So the name still irritated him. Good.
"You mean the boy who ran so far, only to vanish into thin air?" he replied, smile widening. "What a tragedy."
Riya cursed at him. Kabir threatened him.
I continued watching him like a storm waiting to choose its bolt.
He leaned forward slightly.
"You won't reach India, Sona. You won't reach him."
His voice softened into mock sympathy.
"You should accept it by now."
His words were gasoline.
My silence was the match.
"I don't accept outcomes," I murmured. "I change them."
His smirk faltered.
For a heartbeat.
A delicious, telling heartbeat.
The guards stepped forward. They motioned for him to step out. Naveen straightened, winked once, and walked away like he hadn't just handed me a reason to set the world on fire.
Kabir punched the metal door after he left.
Riya collapsed onto the bench in frustration.
My pulse remained steady.
Because the moment I saw his smile, everything snapped into clarity.
Arjun wasn't lost.
He was taken.
And the ones who orchestrated all of this didn't want us flying back.
Which meant only one thing.
We were close.
Too close.
And whoever held him knew that if I reached India… their countdown would begin.
Hours later, the phone call came. French officers went pale. They unlocked the cell with shaking hands. Apologies poured from them like spilled soup.
Roy family influence can do that.
Within minutes, we were rushed out like precious cargo that had been mistakenly thrown in the wrong warehouse.
As we walked through the quiet hallways toward the private section of the airport, I felt something cold settle into my spine.
Not fear.
Purpose.
A beast waking from its long sleep.
Once the jet door shut behind us, both Kabir and Riya exhaled, exhausted and shaking.
I didn't.
My lungs didn't allow softness today.
I took the window seat. Paris shrank below us as the engines roared. My reflection stared back at me in the glass eyes too calm, too sharp. A predator sharpening her claws.
The city lights blurred.
The sky swallowed us whole.
And inside my chest, one truth pulsed like a war drum:
I was coming for him.
And this time, no one was going to keep me in a cage.
The private jet had that hush inside it, the kind that feels like a cathedral built for sinners. Riya sat small and folded like origami grief, Kabir paced like an animal whose claws had been filed down, and I… I just stared out the oval window at the clouds slicing beneath us. They looked soft. Weak. Tearable.
I wasn't soft. And I wasn't tearable.
Not anymore.
My thoughts walked the same circles they'd been dragging me through for days. Every frame of the airport cell. Every second of Naveen's smug face reflected in the bars. Every moment the Parisian police pretended they didn't know who had pulled the strings.
Whoever wanted to cage me should have chosen better metal.
Kabir dropped beside me with a thud. "Three hours left."
Riya added, "Then straight to the detective. Papa said he's already waiting with the full file."
Her eyes glittered. Half-proud. Half-terrified. Fully knowing I wasn't going to stop.
I rested my head back. "Good. The faster we land, the faster this all ends."
My voice was calm, but even the jet seemed to shiver.
The flight crawled. Time felt like an insult. I tapped my nails against the armrest, each tap a promise. A countdown. A warning.
Arjun, my stubborn, stupid man… hold on.
I'm coming.
Even if I have to peel the world open with my bare hands.
Kabir broke the silence again, voice softer this time. "Sona… when we meet the press, let me handle"
"No."
I didn't raise my voice. I didn't need to.
"I'll talk. They took my silence for weakness once. They won't get that gift twice."
Riya exchanged a look with him. They didn't argue. They were learning.
Hours later the landing gear hit Indian soil, and the moment the wheels kissed the ground, something inside me steadied.
Home.
Not for safety.
For war.
The second we got off the jet, my parents rushed forward. Mama touched my face like I'd died and come back. Papa wrapped me in one arm, Kabir in the other, as if the three of us were some battle-worn unit returning from a war we never asked for.
"You're safe now," Papa whispered.
I smiled at the lie. "No, Papa. I'm just getting started."
We drove straight to the private office the detective had been using for the case. Paperwork lay everywhere like the aftermath of a storm. Screens filled with maps, timelines, car plates, CCTV shots. He stood when I entered.
"Miss Sona… I'm glad you're finally here. You need to see this."
He gestured to a wall plastered with evidence threads.
Red strings. Dates. Routes. Every breadcrumb we'd missed.
My heartbeat didn't speed. It sharpened.
I scanned everything at once. The cars from that night. The truck. The unfamiliar routes Arjun's phone took after vanishing. The silence from Kapoor media lines. The PA's name repeated in too many places.
Kabir muttered, "This wasn't an accident."
Riya whispered, "They planned it…"
And I stood still enough to scare the detective.
"They took him," I said.
The words didn't shake.
"They took my Arjun. And they thought I'd break before finding them."
The detective swallowed. "There's more. We tracked the last known location of their PA a week before he went off-grid. A warehouse on the outskirts. But it was emptied out."
"They moved him."
My voice slid low, quiet, lethal.
"Because they're scared of me."
Nobody corrected me.
Mama sat beside me, squeezing my hand even though my palm was ice-cold. "Beta… promise us you won't do anything reckless."
I kissed her knuckles gently. "Mama, everything I do is reckless."
We left for the press conference next.
Lights. Microphones. Dozens of cameras blinking like insects waiting to gnaw at us.
Kabir stepped forward, but I moved past him.
The reporters erupted.
"Miss Sonar is it true"
"Are you involved"
"Did your family"
"Where is Arjun Kapoor"
I held up a hand. The room obeyed.
"My name," I said, "is Sona Roy. And Arjun Kapoor is my partner. My lover. My fiancé."
That word detonated in the room.
I watched it explode across the media like fireworks dipped in gasoline.
"Neither I nor my family have anything to do with his disappearance.
And anyone accusing us is welcome to stand in front of me and repeat it."
The reporters actually hesitated.
"I'm not here to entertain lies," I continued.
"I'm here to find him. Alive. And bring him home."
I leaned closer to the mics.
"And in case anyone forgot, I'm very good at ending stories."
Someone gasped. Riya grinned like a proud chaos gremlin. Kabir covered his smile with a hand.
My parents looked horrified.
Love them.
The moment the conference ended, I walked straight out of the hall, helmet in hand. No goodbyes. No explanations. My parents called after me. Kabir shouted. Riya cursed.
I didn't stop.
My sports bike waited outside like a loyal beast, matte black, engines humming like it recognized bloodlust.
I pulled my riding suit tight around my frame. Zipped it up slow. Slipped the helmet under my arm. A single gun slid into my hoodie pocket, its weight warm against my ribs.
The world smelled different.
Sharper.
Like it knew what I'd come to take.
The Kapoor mansion loomed far, but I walked the path leading to it like it was already bowing.
I stood before their door.
Helmet in one hand.
Gun in the other.
Heart steady.
Mind cold.
Soul a blade.
I raised my hand.
Knocked once.
Hard enough to echo through their bones.
And whispered,
"Let's end this."