CHAPTER 27
Present – Goel Mansion
As Karan finished laying bare the cruel, buried history that bound the Goels and the Wadhwas together, the room slipped into a suffocating silence.
Daksh sank back onto the couch as if his body had finally given up holding him upright.
His wife, Divya, stood frozen beside him, one hand pressed to her mouth, unable to process what she had just heard.
Daksh’s mind, however, was racing. He had always known his father was guilty of unforgivable things.
He had grown up with that knowledge like a shadow.
He had known the money came from places it should not have.
He had known his father had killed someone, that he had been arrested for murder.
But he had never known this.
Never knew that the woman his father had murdered was Karan’s mother.
Every record he had ever accessed to know about this, in the initial years of his father’s arrest, had ended abruptly at the verdict. Life imprisonment. Abuse of authority. Criminal act during a private confrontation. The details beyond that were sealed tightly.
He believed it was done to protect the victim’s family. To shield their legacy from becoming a public spectacle. He assumed that the truth had been buried to spare a grieving family from being dragged through years of media trials and public sympathy.
If he had known the woman his father murdered was Karan’s mother, everything would have been different.
He would have never brought his business back to Mumbai.
He would have never expanded here, never planted roots in a city soaked in a woman’s blood because of his father.
He would have stayed away. From this place. From this past. From Karan himself.
Mishti, who stood beside Karan, still couldn’t believe her father, the man whose name had been erased from her childhood, saying he was dead, was actually alive, and worse, he was a murderer. That he had murdered Karan’s mother. That he had ruined Karan’s family.
In that suffocating silence, it was only Karan’s ragged breathing that filled the room. Tears streamed freely down his face, now revisiting those memories. He did not wipe them away. He did not care who saw them.
For years, he had swallowed this pain. Buried it under his rage, refusing to let it leak into the world.
But tonight, standing here after ripping apart the lives of the very people tied to his past, his restraint collapsed.
The dam of control he had built inside himself gave way, and grief poured out with brutal force.
Rajat’s father, Vishwanath, and his aunt Mala had not wanted his childhood to turn into a headline.
They had not wanted him growing up as a photograph on television screens, a boy frozen in tragedy.
So, they had chosen justice in court and silence outside it.
No interviews. No stories. No victim narratives.
Only a verdict buried under legal language, like internal confrontation and misuse of authority.
Vishwanath had used all his influential powers to make this happen, to safeguard Karan and the rest of the Wadhwa family.
Luckily for Karan, because of this, Daksh could never get deeper because there had been nothing left to dig.
The files were sealed. The crime was recorded.
The victim erased. Daksh had known enough about what his father did, but not enough to understand the storm waiting for him. The storm named ‘Karan Wadhwa’.
He finally broke the silence, dragging the back of his hand across his eyes, wiping away the tears, and turned toward Mishti and Daksh.
“Whatever I did with you two is nothing compared to what your father snatched away from me,” he said. “Even if you Goels beg for mercy, or die at my feet, I will show none.”
He paused, letting his words. Mishti flinched, but Daksh couldn’t even meet Karan’s eyes, who continued.
“Only because you are the bloodline of the man who destroyed my family… who ruined my life.”
Without waiting for a response, without sparing a glance at the devastation he had left behind, Karan turned and stormed toward the door.
The silence inside the Goel mansion until the sound of Karan’s car tearing out of the gates echoed through the house.
Mishti jolted before turning slowly toward her brother, her eyes red. The anger that had been trembling inside her finally found its voice.
“You knew this?” she demanded.
Daksh did not answer. He looked away.
Mishti took a step forward, disbelief turning into rage. “You knew our father was a murderer? You knew he was alive all this time?” Her voice cracked as she pushed further. “Why didn’t you tell me, bhai? Why did you let me live like a fool?”
He turned on her, his own anger erupting after being held back for years. “Ask your mother when you meet her in heaven why she lied to you,” he shot back bitterly. “She decided to keep that filth away from you. She didn’t want our father’s dirt touching your innocent life.”
He let out a harsh laugh. “And whether you knew or not hardly ever mattered to me. Because you hardly mattered to me, Mishti.”
Mishti stared at him, stunned.
“And what would you do if you had known?” Daksh continued, his voice rising. “What could I do even after knowing? Our father murdered someone. Yes. But why are we the ones being punished for it? Why are we carrying consequences that were never ours?”
Mishti did not back down. “Because we grew up using that stolen money, Daksh bhai,” she yelled back. “The money he murdered someone for, that blood money is the reason we are standing here today.”
There was a pin-drop silence again as Daksh glared at her.
“I cannot believe this.” She wiped her tears angrily and went on. “How could you not throw that money away? How could you keep everything he built by destroying someone else’s family?” Her eyes burned as she looked at him. “If you had walked away from it, we would have had one less guilt to carry.”
Daksh’s face darkened. He grabbed her arms in frustration. “It’s very easy for you to say this now,” he snapped. “I was not the only one making decisions then. Your mother wanted it too.”
Mishti froze.
“She did not want us, or you, living on the streets,” Daksh continued harshly. “She didn’t want us starving, without shelter, without a future. That money was the only way we survived, Mishti. If we hadn’t used it, we would not have survived at all.”
Mishti shoved him back, shaking her head violently. “I would rather die hungry,” she cried, her voice breaking, “than build a life on Karan’s mother’s blood.”
She looked at him with raw defiance. “No, Daksh bhai. This is not what I want. This is not what I would ever choose for myself. Or for us.”
Daksh’s anger flared uncontrollably now. “Of course you would say that,” he snapped bitterly. “Because you haven’t lost anything yet.”
Mishti stiffened.
“It’s me who has lost everything,” he continued, angrily. “Both my companies are gone. This house could be taken away in a few months if I don’t fix the business situation.” His eyes burned with resentment. “What have you lost?”
He stepped closer. “You still have Karan. I don’t care how he treats you, but you are still Mrs Karan Wadhwa. And you always will be.”
Mishti recoiled as if struck.
“So don’t give me lectures,” Daksh finished coldly. “Your foolishness. Your blind loyalty to Karan is what brought me to this state. I am left with nothing. This is all because of you.”
He grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the door.
“Get out of my house,” Daksh barked.
Mishti did not struggle or plead. The fight had drained out of her the moment Karan had revealed their bitter past. She was too hurt by what she had heard today, too shaken by the truth about her family, her father, and the devastation they had inflicted on Karan’s life.
Divya rushed forward in panic. “Daksh, stop,” she pleaded. “Don’t do this. You can’t throw her out like this. She is your sister.”
But Daksh was beyond reason. He shoved Mishti out of the door with force and screamed at her.
“It’s over,” he shouted at Mishti, his eyes burning with fury.
As Divya tried to reach for Mishti, he caught her arm, gripping it hard, not letting her move.
“She means nothing to me. And nothing to you either from now on. Remember that.”
Before Divya could put some sense in him, he dragged her back inside and slammed the door shut.
Mishti stood there, stunned, staring blankly at the closed door.
Tears spilt down her face as she touched the door one last time.
She always believed this was her home. The place where she was always welcomed, even after her marriage to Karan.
But now, after the truth of Karan and their twisted past had come out, and with Daksh bhai also breaking all ties with her, she felt homeless.
Mishti turned around, wiping her tears, wondering how life had twisted so cruelly in a single night.
****************
Wadhwa Mansion
Karan returned to the Wadhwa mansion alone.
The gates had barely shut behind his car when he was already striding inside, impatiently. His body moved on instinct, straight toward the bar counter, toward the one place where he did not have to think.
He reached for the bottle of scotch. The glass filled halfway before he stopped, lifted it, and swallowed the liquid in one hard gulp. The burn slid down his throat, and he welcomed it. He deserved that pain tonight.
After fifteen years of waiting, of building patience, shaping his anger into strategy instead of impulse, he had finally taken his revenge.
The Goels had fallen. Their power, their money, their carefully protected luxury, all of it ripped away piece by piece.
Everything Dilip Goel had built on his mother’s blood was now crumbling.