Chapter - 6
The car was not just moving, it was peeling me away from my house, my parents and basically from everything I had ever known.
Udaipur was disappearing in front of my eyes and somewhere between one turn and the next, my stomach finally caught up with what my brain had known since he said those four words.
Your life is mine now.
I kept my eyes on my hands. They were in my lap, fingers twisted in the strap of my bag because If I looked up, I'd see him and I did not want to see him.
He sat diagonally in front of me, on the other side of the SUV. One elbow on the armrest, phone in his hand. That's all I sae from the periphery of my vision without trying to look.
The driver and the man in the front seat murmured something once, too low for me to catch. He replied with one word. The car took another turn.
Where are we even going?
Hell, obviously. But where do I pin it on Google Maps, exactly?
A sign flashed past on the left. I almost missed it.
Ratangarh.
My brain stuttered.
Of course. How could I forget? He was the King of Ratangarh.
It had taken at almost three hours to reach there because I was constantly looking at the watch on my wrist.
Up ahead, massive iron gates rose out of nowhere. Lamps on either side threw gold light over the metal, making it gleam like it was proud of itself.
Two guards stepped forward automatically but the driver didn't even roll down the window.
One of the guards leaned just enough to see inside. His eyes landed on the man across from me and his spine straightened instantly.
"Ranaji." he said, voice respectful, head dipping.
My pulse jumped.
Ranaji.
He didn't respond. He didn't need to.
The gates just began to move and the car rolled inside.
The world on this side of the gate looked like it belonged to some other planet.
Green lawns and stone pathways. Little yellow lights lining the driveway.
A fountain in the distance throwing water into the air for no reason except because it can.
I closed my eyes. I could not look at this place anymore because no matter how beautiful, this was my cage. This was my prison.
The SUV finally slowed, then stopped.
For a second, no one moved.
Then his door clicked open.
Cold December air slipped in and I shivered. I had forgotten my jacket on the back of the dining table chair back home.
My door opened next but I could not move, it felt like I was stuck to the damn seat.
But I forced my body to move because humiliation wasn't the scene I wanted to perform on night one. My foot hit the ground and immediately protested, the same foot that had stepped on glass earlier.
Great. Add stabbing pain to the itinerary.
I straightened slowly and finally looked up.
Not at the palace because my brain refused to process anything that big, anything that grand. It was too much, too unreal and too far from the life I knew.
But the people? Them I saw, all of them.
Lined up like they were here to witness an execution instead of an arrival.
An older woman stood in front with a posture so elegant and sharp enough to cut glass. Silver hair pulled back so neatly it didn't dare move. Her eyes landed on me and I could feel her fury inside my bones without needing her to raise a voice.
Beside her, a man sat in a wheelchair. His body did not move or react but his stare did and I had to immediately look away. He was Adhiraj Raisinghania, that I could tell.
Next, a younger man. He looked like him, the one who brought me here. Same jawline, similar height. But where Rudra looked like ice, this one was flame, his anger visible, hot and immediate. His expression wasn't confusion or curiosity.
It was pure hatred.
His wife stood next to him, dressed beautifully like she walked out of a royal magazine. She had zero expressions on her face.
And then... the smallest one.
A tiny boy holding a toy car in his hand, staring up at me with a confused little frown just wondering who the stranger was.
For one second, his innocence softened the edges of everything.
One second.
Then the older woman spoke.
"So this is her."
Her.
Not my name. Not a person.
Just her.
The reason for their anger. The reminder of what my father did. The walking debt.
I tried to lift my head again to at least appear stronger than I felt but their stares were too heavy. So I looked down at the stone floor and then at the tip of my shoe.
At anything that wasn't them.
My fingers tightened around my bag strap until it hurt. My throat felt thick, my breathing uneven and my chest too tight.
I didn't know where to go.
I didn't know if I was supposed to step forward or stay still or speak or disappear because no one told me. No one even acknowledged me beyond that single sentence.
My pulse hammered in my ears.
My foot throbbed.
My eyes burned.
And for the first time since leaving home, the reality finally settled fully. I did not just lose my old life, I had walked into a place where I wasn't wanted, welcomed or tolerated.
I was the intruder. The punishment. I was the reminder that someone their family loved never got to come home.
A light breeze passed through the courtyard but it was cold enough to make my teeth clench and my shoulders tense, but no one moved or even blinked. No one softened.
They just stared like I was dirt tracked into their marble floors.
Finally, after what felt like an hour but was probably less than a minute, he spoke.
His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through everything.
"Bring her inside."
It wasn't directed at me.
Of course it wasn't.
A woman stepped forward from near the entrance. Young, dressed in a uniform and already looking nervous just being near him.
"Yes, Ranaji."
Her eyes flicked to me for exactly half a second. Long enough to scan me, register confusion, then pity and finally then immediate avoidance like even looking at me too long might offend someone.
I took a tiny step back before I even realized I was moving.
I didn't want her to touch me. I didn't want anyone here to guide me like I was nothing more than an object being delivered.
But Rudra's attention shifted towards me.
Not fully, just enough that I felt it like a hand around my throat.
His gaze slid over me like assessing whether I was going to obey or make this night interesting.
"Follow her." he said, voice flat and emotionless. "And do not wander."
It wasn't a request or an order.
It was a warning.
My fingers tightened more around the strap of my bag.
The maid stepped forward again, slower this time, like approaching a wild animal she wasn't sure would bite.
"This way." she murmured, barely audible.
I looked once toward the line of his family hoping for anything human but all I saw was the same expression on every adult face, resentment.
Except the little boy.
He had tilted his head slightly, eyebrows knit together like he was trying to solve a puzzle.
Then I followed the maid. My foot screamed in pain, but I refused to limp. Not here. Not in front of them. The marble floor tapped loudly under my shoes and with every sound, I felt smaller, more out of place.
The walk to the third floor felt longer than the three-hour drive. The maid didn't speak again, just walked one step ahead of me.
Finally, she stopped in front of a door carved so intricately it probably had more effort put into it than I had in my entire life for anything.
She pushed it open.
"This is your room," she said softly, voice flat, trained, careful.
Before I could ask anything, not that I knew what to ask, she stepped back and left. The door closed and suddenly I was alone again.
The room was huge, too huge. A massive bed stood near one wall, pillows stacked perfectly like no one had ever touched them. Heavy curtains framed tall windows I didn't dare look through. A dressing table sat near the wall with a mirror reflecting a version of me I didn't recognise.
Small, out of place and wrong.
I stood there in the middle, holding my bag like a shield because I didn't know where to put it. I didn't know where to sit. I didn't know what I was supposed to do.
There were no instructions.
I was still processing the silence when the door opened again without a knock.
Of course. Privacy didn't exist here for me.
He stepped inside and his eyes moved to me.
"Give me your phone." he said and my fingers tightened around my bag and I couldn't move.
His jaw flexed once, slow, like I had just become mildly inconvenient rather than defiant.
He took one step closer.
"Try to remember, Miss Sharma." he said quietly, "that in this palace, your silence is allowed. Your disobedience is not."
My stomach dropped.
I swallowed hard but the lump in my throat didn't move.
Still... I didn't hand it over.
Or maybe I just couldn't. Maybe because handing it over felt like cutting the last thread tying me to freedom.
His eyes lowered to my hands gripping the bag. Then lifted back to my face.
Something shifted in his expression which was not rage or annoyance. It was something worse.
Amusement. Like a wolf watching prey foolishly pretend it has a choice.
"I will say this once," he spoke, voice low enough that the air seemed to tighten around it. "Everything here happens exactly how I want it to happen."
His next words felt like steel sliding into place.
"There is no version of this world where you disobey me and walk away without consequences."
My breath stilled.
He reached forward and his fingers brushed mine as he took the bag from my grip.
My pulse slammed in my ears.
He unzipped it and pulled out the phone.
Just the phone because I hadn't brought anything else. Then he turned it in his hand once, like evaluating an unimportant object and slid it into his pocket like it was simply the natural place for it to be.
After that, I expected him to turn and leave but he didn't. Instead, he took one step closer until the space between us felt too small and close.
His voice dropped to something cold enough to frost bone.
"You will not call your family. You will not message them. You will not cry into someone else's ear and pretend this is temporary."
His gaze locked onto mine, sharp enough to cut through any remaining denial I had.
"You are done being someone's daughter. Someone's sister. Someone's responsibility."
A pause.
"From tonight, you exist because I allow it."
Something inside me twisted so painfully. Pride, anger and grief, all tangled too tightly to separate.
I opened my mouth, maybe to protest, maybe to breathe.
His next line killed both impulses.
"And Parthvi," he added, voice quieter, colder and almost cruel in how calm it was. "Hope is the first thing people try to keep when they are trapped."
His eyes didn't blink as he finished.
"I suggest you let go of it early. It will hurt you less."
Then he turned and walked out, leaving the door open behind him as a dismissal.
Like I wasn't worth even the gesture of privacy.
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It pressed inside me heavy and suffocating.
My legs gave out before my brain processed it.
I sank onto the cold floor and the tears came raw and desperate and uncontrollable.
My shoulders shook, breaths breaking, and the sob that tore out of me felt like it had been waiting my entire life. I curled forward, palms flat against the marble, forehead nearly touching it as if I needed something solid beneath me to prove I hadn't disappeared.
Because everything else already had.
My home.
My freedom.
My name.
Gone.
And in its place was just one truth,
I belonged to the man who hated me.
And I had no idea if I would survive him.
I don't know how long I cried.
Minutes, hours or something in between because time did not feel real anymore. My breath came in uneven pulls, sharp and shaky, like my lungs were learning how to work again after being punched repeatedly. My vision blurred and cleared and blurred again, tears falling faster than I could wipe them.
Eventually, the sobs faded because my body ran out of strength to keep up with the storm inside me and the room was silent again.
I pushed myself up slowly, palms sliding against the cold marble until I was sitting upright. My throat burned and my head felt heavy.
My gaze wandered around the room because there was nothing else left to do. Everything here looked expensive and untouched. Linen sheets perfectly tucked. Furniture placed like it was meant to live in those antique stores, not in real life. A faint scent of sandalwood lingered in the air.
Everything here belonged.
Except me.
A half laugh, half broken breath escaped me.
I pushed myself up using the side table to stand. My legs felt shaky, weak, like they no longer trusted the ground.
I walked toward the mirror.
Big mistake.
The girl staring back at me didn't look like me.
Her eyes were red and swollen, hair messy and tangled. She looked lost. Small. And terrified in a way she couldn't hide no matter how tightly she clenched her jaw.
I lifted a hand to the mirror, fingertips barely touching the glass.
I backed away from the mirror because I couldn't look at myself anymore. I crossed the room and finally sat myself down on the floor, my back pressed against the cold wall.
My knees pulled up to my chest on their own, like my body was trying to fold into the smallest possible shape. My arms wrapped around them and I let the back of my head hit the wall with a dull, tired thud and I stared at the ceiling.
Even that was decorated.
My fingers dug into the fabric of my jeans, nails pressing into my skin just hard enough to sting. At least that pain I understood. That pain I controlled.
My thoughts tried to wander back home, because of course they did.
Mumma's face when she grabbed me near the stairs. Papa's eyes, broken and begging. Bhaiya's hands shaking on my arms.
I shut my eyes immediately.
No.
I couldn't go there. Not right now. Not when there was nothing I could do for them. Not when thinking of them felt like ripping open a wound that hadn't even started healing.
They were safe.
They had to be safe.
Because I was here.
Because I'd done the one thing that might keep them breathing.
If I let myself start replaying the what-ifs now, I wasn't going to stop.
A stupid, bitter laugh scraped its way out of my chest.
I used to be dramatic about assignments. Cry over exam schedules. Whine if my coffee had too much sugar. I'd once said I was dying because the Wi-Fi went off when I was halfway through some show.
Now I was sitting on the floor of a stranger's palace-room, officially someone's captive with my phone gone and my entire life behind a gate I couldn't cross.
Perspective was a bitch.
My gaze drifted to the open door again.
He'd left it like that deliberately. I knew it now.
Not generosity. Not forgetfulness.
A reminder.
You're not important enough to lock away properly. You're also not stupid enough to run and if you try, I will still find you.
My foot pulsed again and pain flaring up my leg. I looked down at it, sneakers still on, blood dried somewhere underneath fabric and skin.
I really should do something about that.
Move, idiot. I didn't. Why?
Because If I stayed on the floor, back against the wall, knees to my chest, I could still pretend this was temporary. That at any second, someone would push open the door and tell me this was over.
It won't last.
He'll change his mind. Some miracle will happen.
But his voice echoed again in my head.
From tonight, you exist because I allow it.
I swallowed hard.
Tears burned behind my eyes again, traitors that they were. My body had apparently not received the memo that we were done crying.
I pressed the heel of my hand over my mouth, trying to steady my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Just air. Just lungs.
Just me.
I didn't know the rules here.
Was I supposed to sleep? Wait? Stand at attention like some royal guard? Would someone come in if I didn't move for hours and drag me wherever I was supposed to be?
My brain tried to imagine all the ways tomorrow could go wrong and panic clawed up my throat again.
"What if I mess up?" I whispered into the empty room. "What if breathing wrong is disobedience here?"
No one answered.
Of course.
I stayed like that for a while, forehead on my knees, fingers going numb around my legs. The floor was stealing heat from my body and honestly, maybe that was good. Maybe if I turned into ice, none of this would touch me.
Eventually, my muscles started to ache from holding myself so tight.
Slowly, mechanically, I uncurled and let my legs stretch out in front of me. Pins and needles shot through my calves, my back screaming from the wall.
I didn't get up.
Instead, I slid sideways, cheek pressing against the cold marble. The floor was hard, unforgiving, but it was solid and that was more than I could say about anything else in my life right now.
I pulled my arms close, fingers tucked under my chin like that would keep me from falling apart again.
My eyes burned, then finally gave up.
Somewhere between one uneven breath and the next,
I passed out on the floor of my new prison.