The rain came like silk that evening — soft, persistent, and full of stories waiting to be told.
Rudra stepped out of his sleek black SUV, the low hum of the engine fading as the gates of the Devgarh Estate closed behind him. His Italian leather boots landed on the cobbled path, now glistening with rain. The monsoon had arrived, and so had he.
Towering above the misty valley was the Virk Mansion — his new home for the season. A restored colonial estate, framed by banana trees and glass-walled verandas, it overlooked the fog-wrapped hills like a secret waiting to be unraveled.
He adjusted the strap of his designer camera bag — not because he needed to, but because it gave him a reason to pause. Dressed in a charcoal trench coat, hair damp, jaw unshaven, Rudra looked less like a visiting professor and more like a melancholic heir returning to a past he had buried under silk suits and unfinished letters.
The door to the mansion opened with a click, not a creak.
Mahi stood there.
Clad in a soft cashmere cardigan over a white chiffon dress, she looked like a monsoon poem. Her long, wavy hair framed a face that didn't belong to this world — or perhaps belonged only in the pages of tragic literature. Gold bangles slid softly down her wrist as she held the door open, surprised.
"You're early," she said, her voice as smooth as the piano notes echoing faintly in the hall behind her.
"I was told there'd be rain," Rudra replied, his voice low, cultured. "I don't like missing the beginning of a storm."
Their eyes held — just for a second — before the thunder cracked above them.
She stepped aside.
He entered.
And somewhere between the raindrops and silence, something unspoken began.
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