CHAPTER 50! CLOSE THE FILE #2
The knife. The slick, heavy handle. The wet sound of his eyes rolling back. The thump of his body hitting the gravel.
"I..." Her voice dissolved into a choked sob. She shook her head, tears cutting clean streaks through the dust on her face. "I can't..."
Her grip on Shaurya's hand became painful. "Please..."
The inspector exchanged a quick glance with the constable before opening his mouth again. "Mrs. Singhania-"
The three words cut through the room. Flat, quiet, and heavy enough to stop every sound in the precinct.
Aryav didn't step forward. He looked directly at the inspector's throat.
The inspector swallowed hard, forcing himself to hold his ground. "We still need her statement, sir. Procedure-"
"Tomorrow."
"Sir?"
"If she remembers anything after tonight."
An agonizing silence stretched across the room. The inspector looked at Aadhira-her ragged breathing, her trembling frame-and then back at Aryav's unblinking eyes.
The officer slowly closed the file.
Without another word, Aadhira stood on unsteady legs.
Refusing to look at Aryav, she moved toward the station entrance, clinging tightly to Shaurya.
The cold night air hit her face the moment they stepped outside. The black Mercedes sat idling in the dim light of the parking lot.
Aryav reached the pavement ahead of them.
He opened the rear door, his fingers resting on the polished frame, and simply waited.
Aadhira froze. She backed half a step into her brother's side, her fingers locking so tightly around his sleeve that the fabric strained.
"Bhai..."
The rest of the word collapsed in her throat. She didn't finish it. She just shook her head-a tiny, frantic recoil.
Shaurya saw that and stepped forward immediately, placing himself firmly between Aadhira and the vehicle. "She's not getting into your car, Aryav. I'm taking my sister home."
Aryav didn't move. He kept his grip on the door frame, his voice cold and devoid of anger. "The street is blocked, Shaurya. My security has secured the perimeter. You won't get a cab out of this sector tonight."
Shaurya pulled out his phone, tapping the screen aggressively. Every rideshare app returned an immediate error. The street outside was entirely dead.
"Network's down," Vivaan reported, stepping out from the shadows beside the second SUV, clipboard and log sheets in hand. "Perimeter's locked. Everything is ready, sir."
Shaurya's jaw tightened, his eyes blazing as he looked at Aryav.
"I'll take the secondary car then. Give me the keys."
"I'll return it tomorrow," Shaurya added, his voice hard, refusing to yield an inch.
"You won't," Aryav replied flatly.
Shaurya stared at him for a long, quiet second, reading the absolute finality in Aryav's face. He snatched the keys from Aryav's extended palm.
Shaurya walked Aadhira to the secondary vehicle. "Kashvi," he called out. "Come. I'll drop you too."
Before Kashvi could step forward, Vivaan stepped in front of her.
"I'll take her."
Kashvi looked at Shaurya and gave a small nod. "Theek hai."
(Alright.)
Shaurya opened the rear door for Aadhira. She climbed inside, her eyes fixed strictly on the floorboards, completely withdrawn into herself.
"Don't leave her alone tonight," Aryav said to Shaurya. It wasn't a suggestion.
Shaurya didn't answer, moving to shut her door.
"Seat belt."
Shaurya paused, frowning over his shoulder, but seeing the unyielding stare in Aryav's eyes, he leaned inside and clicked the belt into place.
The sharp metallic snap echoed through the quiet air. Shaurya slammed the door shut and got into the driver's seat.
The engine roared to life, and the SUV pulled out of the station lot, its taillights cutting through the darkness.
Aryav remained standing on the pavement, completely still as the rain began to fall.
"Vivaan," Aryav said, his tone flat, authority radiating from him without looking away from the receding car.
"Yes, sir."
"Clear the station. No cameras, no press. I want every draft of that report on my desk before sunrise."
"Understood, sir," Vivaan replied instantly. "And Kashvi?"
"Take her home."
"Yes, sir."
Vivaan turned back toward the precinct doors as the rain picked up, leaving Aryav standing alone in the downpour, his unreadable gaze locked on the empty street where the car had disappeared.
The rain had begun.
It streaked across the windshield in long, silver lines as the black sedan glided through the empty streets. Inside the cabin, the silence was thick enough to suffocate.
Vivaan kept his eyes locked on the asphalt, his hands steady on the wheel. "Does your head still hurt?"
Kashvi touched the small dressing near her temple without thinking.
"I'll live."
"That's not an answer."
"Not as much as hers," she murmured, staring out at the blurred city lights bleeding into the darkness.
"Ok."
Vivaan didn't press. He drove through two intersections, the quiet stretching out, heavy and deliberate, before he spoke again.
"The forged passport."
Kashvi didn't move.
"The apartment in Milan." He went to downshift, but his hand misjudged the gate-the gears grinded briefly, a sudden, jarring sound that cut through the dark before he forced the shifter into place. "The route out of the city five years ago."
She kept her face turned toward the glass.
"So it was you," Vivaan said softly. "You never worked for him. Not really."
Kashvi finally looked over at him, her quiet disbelief cutting through the shadows of the cabin.
"I was eighteen when she asked me to stay with her. She was eighteen, Vivaan. She labored for fourteen hours alone. She kept asking if someone had called her brother." A tiny, bitter breath escaped her. "No one came. And before the bleeding even stopped... they took her baby."
The sedan drifted slightly toward the center line. Vivaan corrected it late, his knuckles turning white on the leather.
"Tell me," Kashvi whispered. "At which point was she supposed to stop surviving?"
The windshield wipers swept rhythmically across the glass, cutting through the downpour.
The cabin air was slowly fogging at the edges, but neither of them reached for the controls.
"She believed the first man who touched her would become her husband," Kashvi said, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag. "For years, she couldn't stand anyone getting close."
Vivaan's eyes flickered toward her, a sharp ripple of discomfort crossing his face. "I thought she just hated being touched."
"Because no one ever bothered to look," Kashvi replied flatly. "She apologized, Vivaan. She spent years apologizing for existing."
She turned back to the rain-soaked window, letting the truth hang between them.
"When we reached Milan, she barely spoke for months. Then... little by little..." Her eyes softened.
"She became impossible. Loud. Chaotic. She'd dance in the kitchen while cooking. Sing completely off-key. Buy plants she forgot to water."
A faint, fragile smile touched Kashvi's lips.
"A few weeks ago, she was standing in that kitchen teaching Ayaan how to make pancakes," she whispered. "She laughed in a grocery aisle because a tomato was shaped crooked, and I had to walk to the next aisle just so she wouldn't see me cry."
The smile died completely.
"Tonight she's trying to wash blood off hands that were never dirty."
Vivaan tightened his grip on the steering wheel until the leather creaked.
"Do you know what hurts?" his voice came out rough, scraped raw.
"I defended him. I defended you."
He stopped at a green light. He didn't notice. The light cycled to yellow, then red, before he blinked and brought the car to a full halt.
"You would've believed him," Kashvi said softly.
Silence settled over them, heavy and suffocating.
Kashvi added, staring straight ahead. "Everyone called it kidnapping. She called it taking her son home."
Vivaan's throat worked heavily. He kept his eyes strictly on the road, his voice dropping into the quiet dark of the cabin.
"Seven years," he said quietly. "Not a single thing moved."
Kashvi turned her head slowly, looking at him.
Vivaan offered nothing more. No defense. No argument.
He pulled into the quiet driveway of the safehouse, cut the ignition, and unlocked the doors.
"Was any of it real?" Vivaan asked.
Kashvi's breath caught. For a split second, her lips parted as if to plead, to offer an explanation.
"You loved me," he whispered, staring at his hands on the wheel.
"Didn't you?"
Kashvi closed her eyes.
"That's what makes this unbearable," she whispered.
She didn't deny it. She didn't offer a defense. She simply turned her face toward the window.
The engine was dead. The rain wasn't. Neither of them found the strength to leave.