The dawn didn't bring light to the grand suite; it brought a cold, grey clarity that felt more like a judgment than a new day. The heavy, floor-to-ceiling velvet curtains of Aarav’s bedroom blocked out the vibrant, chaotic pulse of Mumbai, leaving the room in a state of artificial twilight. The air was thick with the scent of expensive cedarwood, cooled sweat, and the heavy, lingering silence of a dynamic that had irrevocably shifted.

Rohini lay on the silk sheets, her body feeling like a map of new aches and phantom sensations. At twenty years old, she had spent her life fighting for every inch of space in the cramped chawl, believing that her brain was her only ticket out of the dust and the noise. Now, she lay in a bed that cost more than her family’s entire home, feeling the weight of the silk like a burial shroud. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt the phantom pressure of his hand around her throat—a reminder that her air was no longer her own to breathe.