Chapter 1
SAURAV
After months, I finally came home. It was a place I hated every fibre of my being. Not because of the marble floors or the silent hallways, not because of the servants who moved like ghosts through the villa, but because of the man who lived there.
A man who hated my presence, my existence, my job, everything I stood for.
Mr. Shaurya Chauhan. To the world, he was a visionary.
A genius who owned one of the largest aerospace industries in the country.
A man, people admired, feared, respected.
To me, he was just my father. And he couldn’t forgive me.
He wanted me to inherit his legacy, to sit in air-conditioned boardrooms, to manage contracts, satellites, aircraft designs, and billion-dollar deals.
He wanted me to carry the Chauhan name forward in the way he had built it.
But I chose to serve my country.
I chose to wear a uniform instead of a suit.
I chose cockpits over conference rooms. I chose the sky over spreadsheets.
I wanted to fly aircraft. I wanted to feel the roar of engines beneath my hands, the pull of gravity against my bones, the terrifying freedom of being thousands of feet above the ground. I wanted to follow my mother’s path.
And that was the moment everything between us began to rot.
He hated me for becoming a soldier. For working under the government. For risking my life for something that didn’t earn profit or applause from shareholders. He said I was wasting myself. Throwing away privilege. Throwing away the empire he had built for me. I said nothing and he said everything.
Since then, our relationship had only worsened. It was not with loud fights or broken furniture, but with silence. The kind that grows slowly, poisonously, until it fills every room. He never tried to talk to me and I never tried to confront him.
Years had passed since we last had dinner together.
Real dinner, where plates were shared and conversations existed.
Years since we watched a movie sprawled on the couch, his phone was forgotten, my head thrown back in laughter.
Years since we swam together in the enormous pool behind the villa, racing like children, arguing over who cheated.
Now the pool was empty. The dining table was longer and the living room was colder.
I loved him. I truly did. But he loved his company more than me. And maybe he always had. I used to love him more than my mother. But everything changed with time.
There was nothing left for me in the villa but echoes, so I left.
I came to the club, drowned myself in noise, lights, and strangers.
I ordered a drink. Then another. I laughed with people who didn’t know my name, danced with people who didn’t care about my past, and listened to stories that had nothing to do with legacy or disappointment.
Because strangers were easier and kinder.
They gave their time without demanding anything in exchange.
My parents had always demanded something, success, obedience, perfection, a version of me that fit neatly into their expectations. For their approval, their pride, even their attention, there was always a price. But slowly, I learned to refuse.
And gradually, we fell apart.
My mother left when I was nine.
She didn’t just walk out of the house. She walked out of our lives. And when she left, she took my father’s soul with her. He had never been the same since.
Before that, he used to laugh loudly and shamelessly. He used to pick me up and throw me into the air until I screamed. He used to sit beside my bed and tell me stories about the first plane he ever built, about how the sky once terrified him too.
After she left, the laughter vanished. So did the warmth. He buried himself in work, and I grew up in the shadow of machines and achievements that could never hug me back.
At the club, my phone felt heavier than it should have. I pulled it out without thinking, my thumb moving on its own. I scrolled through old photos, old messages, old proof that we had once been a family.
Then I found it.
Our last family photograph.
It was my birthday. I was standing between them, grinning too widely, holding a cake with badly shaped candles.
My father had one hand on my shoulder. My mother was smiling, not the polite kind, but the one that reached her eyes.
She looked happy and alive. My chest tightened as I stared at the screen.
After that day, everything changed. She took her suitcase and left. She didn’t look back, not at me, not at him and not at the life she was abandoning. It was as if she had simply erased us.
She forgot she had a son and a husband. But before walking out the door, she knelt in front of me. She cupped my face in her hands, her fingers trembling, her eyes wet. “I’m helpless,” she whispered. “I don’t have a choice, Saurav.”
I never understood what that meant. I still don’t. But I remember standing there, too young to stop her, too small to follow her, watching the woman I loved disappear down the driveway. And in some ways so did my father.
I locked my phone and closed my eyes, the music from the club thudding through my chest. People were laughing around me, living, touching, moving forward. And I was stuck between who I was and who my family had wanted me to be.
I sighed, shaking my head, forcing myself to stop thinking about the past. It was useless digging up ghosts that refused to stay buried.
I signaled the bartender, grabbed the drink he slid toward me, and gulped it down in one go, the burn in my throat the only thing loud enough to drown my thoughts.
“Another,” I muttered. Actually, more than another. “Keep them coming,” I told him, because tonight I felt low in a way alcohol was made for. Before he could respond, a sharp, piercing voice cut through the music.
“How much?” the woman snapped. “Fifteen hundred rupees for this small glass?”
I glanced sideways as she held the glass up between two fingers, frowning at it like it had personally offended her.
“This is too little!” she gritted her teeth, slamming it down on the counter. “I’m not paying for this.”
People around her turned to stare. The bartender stiffened, clearly used to drama but not particularly fond of it. I took two steps closer, studying her face and then realization hit.
“Kavya?” I blurted.
She shot her eyes toward me. First there was irritation, then confusion, and finally recognition settled in.
“Saurav?”
“What on earth are you doing here?” I asked, my gaze running over her petite frame. Kavya was… cute. Soft. A little chubby, a little small, nothing like my usual type. Yet there was something about her that always pulled attention without trying.
She wore loose jeans and a crop top, her hair tied in a messy ponytail. If I hadn’t known her age, I would’ve thought she was still in high school.
She stepped closer, her head barely reaching my chest. “Who on earth are you to ask me that?” she chirped, forcing cheer into her voice. “Of course I’m here for fun.”
Her breath reached me before her words finished. “You’re drinking something very toxic,” I said quietly. I could smell it on her.
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t remember asking you to be concerned about the toxicity of my alcohol.” She turned back to the bartender. “Another one.” Before he could move, he looked at me. I met his eyes and mouthed, Water.
He nodded.
Kavya took the glass he gave her and gulped it down, then paused. She stared at it, confused. “Why does it taste normal?” she frowned.
“Everything tastes normal once you’ve reached the peak of alcohol toxicity,” I said as I pulled out a two-thousand-rupee note and placed it on the counter. “Keep the change.”
Then I turned to her. “Now you’re coming with me.” I caught her by the elbow and gently dragged her away from the crowd. “Give me your address. I’m taking you home.”
“I don’t remember,” she slurred, stumbling. “Leave me!” She jerked her arm free, trying to disappear back into the crowd, but I grabbed her again before she could.
“Kavya.” My voice hardened. “Tell me the address.” My grip tightened slightly around her soft skin. She froze.
A second later, a tiny tear slipped from the corner of her eye.
Then another.
Only then did I really look at her.
Her eyes were red. Not from alcohol alone but from crying. From something heavier. Her forced defiance crumbled, revealing something raw and exhausted underneath.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, the edge leaving my voice.
She quickly wiped her eyes, nodding, pasting a weak smile. But it didn’t reach her eyes. My chest twisted.
“Is everything okay, Kavya?” I repeated more quietly.
Her lips trembled. “I just… I want to be at peace for a few hours,” she whispered.
“There are so many things running through my head and I don’t know where to start, who to tell, or how to run.
” Her hands shook as she spoke. “I feel trapped in this body. I want to get away. I want to get out of this world.”
The words were soft but the meaning was not.
I watched her chin quiver as she fought to hold back a sob. At that moment, she didn’t look drunk or dramatic but she looked broken.
I stayed silent for a few seconds, staring at her as tears finally rolled down her cheeks. Her nose reddened. So did her face.
Damn it.
I had no idea how to comfort women. I didn’t know what to say, what to do when they cried.
I knew people hugged in moments like this but I didn’t like being touched, and I didn’t trust myself to touch her right.
So instead, I pulled out my handkerchief and held it out.
She took it without a word and wiped her face.
“You want peace for a few hours?” I asked.
She nodded weakly.
“Then come with me.”
“Where?” she murmured.
“Come.”
I led her out of the club and opened the passenger door of my car. She settled in, still quiet, staring at nothing. I walked around to the driver’s side, slid behind the wheel, and started driving.
I didn’t take her home.
I took her to the lake.
We sat there for a long time, the water dark and still, reflecting scattered city lights.
She talked about random things like her childhood memories, stupid stories, things that didn’t really matter and yet somehow mattered a lot.
She blabbered constantly, her words tangled and messy, and I simply listened.
I found her unpleasantly attractive.
Not in a physical way alone, but in the way broken things sometimes draw your eyes more than perfect ones.
Later, I took her to a small desi restaurant. She barely ate, poking at the food, still tipsy, her head heavy. I bought her a painkiller and made her take it for the headache.
She didn’t protest.
By the end of the night, she looked calmer, quieter and emptier. So I invited her to my villa. And at that time, I had no idea…that inviting her would become the biggest mistake of my life.
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