Her name was Nisha Ahuja.
I'd seen her face a hundred times—on magazine covers, on social media, on Rohan's phone during the last month of our relationship, when he'd started staying late at work and coming home smelling like expensive perfume that wasn't mine.
"She's just a colleague," he'd said.
"We're working on a project together," he'd said.
"You're being paranoid," he'd said.
I hadn't been paranoid.
I'd been right.
And now she was standing in Aarav's apartment, wearing a silk dress that probably cost more than my monthly rent, looking at me like I was something interesting she'd found under a microscope.
"You know each other," Aarav said. It wasn't a question.
"We have a mutual acquaintance," Nisha said smoothly. "Rohan. He's an old friend."
Old friend. Right.
I crossed my arms. "You're dating my ex-boyfriend."
"I'm seeing your ex-boyfriend," she corrected. "There's a difference."
"Not to me."
Nisha's smile didn't waver. She had that kind of smile—the kind that stayed perfectly in place no matter what, the kind that revealed nothing and concealed everything. I hated it immediately.
"Aarav," she said, turning to her brother. "Father is furious. You know that, right?"
"I don't care."
"You should care. He's talking about cutting you off. Completely. No money, no access, no nothing."
"Good."
Nisha's smile faltered. Just slightly. Just for a second. "You don't mean that."
"I've never meant anything more."
She looked at me. Really looked. Like she was trying to figure out what made me worth throwing away a fortune for.
"I don't understand," she said. "What is it about her? What makes her so special?"
Aarav moved to stand beside me. Not touching—not quite—but close enough that I could feel the warmth of his arm, the steadiness of his presence.
"She's not special," he said. "She's honest. That's more than I can say for any of us."
Nisha's expression hardened. "You're making a mistake."
"Maybe." He looked down at me. "But it's my mistake to make."
The room felt smaller somehow. Tighter. Like the walls were closing in and the air was running out and something terrible was about to happen.
I should have left. I should have walked out the door and never looked back.
But I didn't.
Because for the first time in five years, I felt something other than grief. Something other than numbness. Something other than the hollow ache of missing someone who was never coming back.
I felt alive.
And that scared me more than anything else.
Nisha left fifteen minutes later.
But before she did, she pulled me aside. Her grip on my arm was surprisingly strong—strong enough to leave bruises, though I doubted she cared.
"You think you know what you're getting into," she said quietly. "You don't."
"Then tell me."
She laughed. It was an ugly sound, sharp and bitter and nothing like her practiced social smile. "I can't. But I can tell you this—my brother isn't the hero you want him to be. He's not even close."
"I never asked for a hero."
"Then you're stupider than you look."
She released my arm and walked out, leaving me standing in the hallway with her words echoing in my ears.
My brother isn't the hero you want him to be.
I already knew that.
I'd known it from the moment he told me the truth about my mother.
But knowing something and accepting it—those were two different things.
Aarav was in the study when I came back. Sitting on the floor surrounded by files, his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking.
I'd never seen a man cry before.
Not really. Not like this. Not with the kind of raw, unfiltered grief that came from somewhere deeper than sadness—from guilt, from shame, from the unbearable weight of things that could never be undone.
I sat down next to him. Not touching. Just... present.
"My father knows about us," he said. His voice was muffled by his hands. "He knows I've been seeing you. He knows about the files. He knows everything."
"Then why hasn't he stopped you?"
"Because he thinks he can control me." He looked up. His eyes were red, his face blotchy, his expression stripped of all the careful walls he'd built. "He's always thought that. Ever since I was a kid. Do this, Aarav. Be this, Aarav. Don't disappoint me, Aarav."
"And you never did?"
"I tried not to. But I was never good enough. Never smart enough. Never ruthless enough." He laughed—a hollow, bitter sound. "He wanted a son who would continue his legacy. Instead, he got me."
"What's wrong with you?"
He looked at me. Something flickered across his face—surprise, maybe, or hope.
"I'm asking," I said. "What's wrong with you? Not what your father thinks is wrong. What you think is wrong."
He was quiet for a long time. The rain had started again—I could hear it against the windows, soft and steady, like the world was crying and didn't know how to stop.
"I care too much," he said finally. "About people. About the truth. About doing the right thing, even when it costs me everything."
"That doesn't sound wrong to me."
"It is when you're an Ahuja." He reached for a file—one of the boxes labeled with my mother's name. "We're not supposed to care. We're supposed to win."
"And did you?"
He opened the file. Inside were medical reports, consent forms, handwritten notes in a doctor's messy scrawl. And photographs. Photographs of my mother—in the hospital, in her room, in the bed where she'd died.
"Look at this," he said, pointing to one of the forms.
I looked.
It was a consent form. For the clinical trial. With my mother's signature at the bottom.
Except it wasn't her signature.
I knew my mother's handwriting. I'd grown up seeing it on grocery lists, on birthday cards, on the margins of my school assignments where she'd written "I'm proud of you" in looping cursive.
This wasn't it.
"This isn't her signature," I said.
"I know."
"Then who—"
"The hospital." Aarav's voice was flat. Emotionless. Like he'd said these words so many times they'd lost all meaning. "They forged it. They forged all of them. Every consent form for every patient in that trial."
I stared at the paper. At the signature that wasn't my mother's. At the date—three days before she died, when she'd been too weak to hold a pen, let alone sign her name.
"They killed her," I whispered. "They killed her and they made it look like she agreed to it."
"Yes."
"And your father—"
"My father paid them to."
The room spun. Or maybe I was spinning. I couldn't tell anymore. Everything was blurry and far away and too close all at once.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked. "Why now?"
Aarav took my hand. His fingers were cold, trembling, desperate.
"Because I need you to understand," he said. "What I'm asking you to do—it's not just about exposing a company. It's about bringing down my family. My father. My sister. Everyone I've ever loved."
"And you're okay with that?"
"No." His grip tightened. "But I'm not okay with any of this either. I'm not okay with the lies. I'm not okay with the deaths. I'm not okay with watching you grieve someone who didn't have to die."
He looked at me. Really looked. The way he'd looked at me that first night in the rain—like I was the only person in the world who mattered.
"I'm not a good person, Maya. I've done terrible things. Things I can never take back. But I'm trying. For the first time in my life, I'm actually trying to be better."
"Why?"
"Because of you."
CLIFFHANGER:
I didn't know what to say.
So I didn't say anything.
I just sat there, holding his hand, surrounded by the ghosts of everyone his family had destroyed.
And somewhere in the silence, I made a decision.
"Okay," I said. "I'll help you."
His face lit up—relief, hope, something that looked almost like joy—
—and then my phone buzzed.
A text message.
Unknown number.
The message was short. Just four words:
"Your father is alive."