The cold of the basement seeped into Diya's bones, but it was nothing compared to the ice in Rajveer's grip. His fingers were iron bars around her wrist, crushing, unyielding, as he dragged her across the damp concrete floor. Her bare feet stumbled over cracks, her heart slamming against her ribs like a caged bird.

"Choriye mujhe, kahaan le ja rahe hain," she gasped, her voice a thin reed in the cavernous silence. Her kurti had torn at the shoulder, and she could feel the bruises blooming beneath his hold. "Please, you're hurting m...."

(leave me. where are you taking me)

Her words collapsed.

There, under the single swinging bulb that cast jaundiced light over the basement, lay her brother. Not standing. Not fighting. Lying. Unconscious. His white shirt, the one she had ironed for him just that morning was no longer white. It was a deep, glistening red, soaked through from chest to navel. Two of Rajveer's guards held him upright by the arms, his head lolling back, his mouth slightly open, blood trickling from his lip.

"B-Bhaiya..." The word came out as a child's whimper. Her lungs forgot how to work. Her eyes flooded so fast the world turned into a wet, blurred painting of horror. She tried to lunge toward him, her body twisting with desperate instinct, but Rajveer's hold jerked her back like a leash.

She hit his chest, hard, unfeeling, marble beneath a thin layer of tailored black. He didn't even flinch.

"Please." She choked on the word. "Let him go."

Rajveer's eyes didn't soften. They never did anymore. Once, those eyes had held stars for her. Now they held only ownership. He tilted his head, a slow, predatory movement, and gestured with two fingers. One guard stepped forward, pressing the muzzle of a gun to her brother's temple.

Diya stopped breathing entirely.

"Didn't I tell you?" Rajveer's voice was silk wrapped around a blade. He released her wrist only to grip her chin, forcing her tear-streaked face up to his. His thumb brushed her lower lip, almost tender, almost cruel. "If I saw you with my son again. Standing so close to him. Giving him those smiles that were only reserved for me..." His jaw tightened. "I told you I would not think twice to make you remember where you belong."

She shook her head frantically, tears splattering onto his hand. "I...I didn't..."

"But still..." he cut her off, his voice dropping to a growl that vibrated through her skull, "...you said yes to his proposal. Why?"

The word why was a blade twisting. She had no answer. Only fear. Only the sight of her brother's blood pooling on the floor.

"Please, let Bhaiya go," she sobbed, her body shaking so violently her teeth chattered. "I will not meet Vardhan again. I swear. I'll go somewhere, anywhere...I'll vanish from your life. Just don't hurt us more. Please."

For a moment, something flickered in Rajveer's eyes. Not pity. Not mercy. Hunger. He wanted her broken. He wanted her begging. And he wanted her to know that no one, not her brother, not his own son would ever stand between him and what he considered his.

A guard appeared at his side, holding a stack of papers. Diya didn't see them. Her eyes were locked on her brother's barely parted lids, the faint twitch of his fingers. Alive. Still alive. But for how long?

Rajveer snatched the papers and shoved them into her chest. "Sign it."

Her trembling hands caught them. The words swam through her tears, contract, mistress, in perpetuity, no contact with family but one phrase burned through: voluntary agreement.

"Be my mistress," he said, each syllable a hammer blow, "and I will let your brother free."

Her body stilled. The sobs stopped. Even her heart seemed to pause.

She looked up at him, this man she had once called her best friend. The man who had shared his secrets with her. Who had laughed with her under monsoon skies. That man was gone. In his place stood a monster in a thousand-dollar suit, watching her drown with dark cruel eyes.

"And if you refuse," Rajveer added, almost conversationally, "then see your brother's face for the last time."

His hold loosened.

That was the cruelest part. He let go. He stepped back. He gave her the illusion of choice while the gun remained pressed to her brother's skull.

Her knees buckled. She hit the concrete hard, the papers scattering around her like dead leaves. Her hands clasped together, pressing to her forehead, to her lips, reaching toward him in a gesture so ancient and desperate it needed no translation.

"Please... please, don't make me do this," she whispered, her voice shattered into a thousand pieces. "I'll do anything else. Anything. Just not this."

Rajveer looked down at her. His expression did not change. He simply raised one finger.

The guard kicked her brother in the stomach.

A wet gasp escaped the unconscious man, a sound no human should make. Then the guard cocked the gun, the click echoing like a death sentence.

"No!" Diya screamed, the sound tearing out of her throat raw and animal. "NO! PLEASE! I'll sign it. I'll sign it. Please, don't hurt him. Please."

She scrambled on her knees, gathering the papers, her tears dripping onto the ink. A guard shoved a pen into her shaking hand. She couldn't hold it, her fingers spasmed, dropped it twice. The third time, she gripped it so hard the plastic creaked.

And then she signed.

Her name. Her fate. Her freedom.

Line by line. Page by page. Each stroke of the pen carving away another piece of her soul until nothing remained but the monster's property.

When the last signature bled onto the paper, she looked up at Rajveer. Her eyes were dry now. Empty. The tears had stopped because there was nothing left inside her to cry.

He took the papers, scanned them once, and smiled.

It was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen.

"Take her brother to the hospital,"he said to his guards, his eyes never leaving hers. "And take her to my room."

As two men lifted her brother's limp body, as the basement door groaned open, as the light shifted and shadows danced, Diya sat crumpled on the cold floor, the pen still in her hand.

She had written her name. But she no longer knew who she was.

......

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