[12th February 2025 - Late night | Vidya's Hotel]
Vidya slid off the bed.
Her knees touched the carpet with a dull thud, legs folding beneath her like a prayer collapsing mid–plea. She shifted slightly, drawing her feet in, curling her body close,—smaller, tighter—sinking into the floor as if it might open up and cradle her.
The phone lay in her lap like a weapon—one she hadn't yet decided to wield or destroy.
Its glow painted her face with sterile light, cold and detached, the kind that filled morgues more than bedrooms.
With trembling fingers, she tapped it open:
> "He admitted it. He is their father."
Her breath stopped.
Her fingers went limp.
The phone slipped from her grip and landed face-down on the carpet with a muted thud.
But the words had already branded themselves behind her eyes.
"He admitted it."
Her heart twisted—folding in on itself like scorched paper left too long in flame.
That night, when she had seen that photograph, she had forced herself to believe it meant nothing.
That it was just a coincidence.
A cruel joke the universe was playing with her bruised heart.
Just a stranger wearing Rudra sir's skin like a mask .
She had clung to that hope like a lifeline wrapped around her throat—tight enough to strangle. Because the alternative... the alternative would've gutted her from the inside out.
But this?
This message...
It wasn't a dream.
It wasn't a file misread in the dark
Not a hallucinating born of grief.
This was confirmation. The truth.
Brutal and bare. Undeniable.
A small, broken sound slipped from her throat. Not a sob. Not yet. Something choked and raw. Something cracked and dry, like a tree splitting in winter.
Her whole body shook. She folded forward, arms hugging tight around herself, like she could press the truth out through her own skin.
"No…" she whispered, resting her forehead to her knees. Her voice cracked, soft and shattering. "No, not him… not Rudra sir…"
Tears came fast—hot, silent, unstoppable.
They soaked through her sleeves, blurred the room, blurred the world.
He left Ruhani di
He left his babies.
He left me.
And she wept.
Not just from heartbreak. But from betrayal.
The kind that doesn't just break you — it unroots you.
The kind that leaves you staring at your own reflection wondering if you were ever real to the person who mattered most.
She had trusted him.
Trained under him.
Built herself from the ground up with his guidance.
Rudra sir had been her compass in the dark. Her one constant in a world built on blood and silence.
And now?
Now it felt like she'd built her soul on shifting sand—and the tide had finally come to sweep her away.
She wasn't the weapon they forged.
Not in that moment.
Not in this storm.
She wasn't the shadow behind the kill.
Wasn't the blade in the dark.
She was just a girl.
A girl who loved.
A girl who trusted.
A girl left behind.
Her arms tightened. As if she could hold together the crumbling pieces of her world with sheer will alone.
Because if Rudra sir truly was Ahaan Rajvanshi—
If he had knowingly left Ruhani di, the woman he once whispered vows to when they had nothing but each other—
If he had abandoned the children she nearly died bringing into this world —
Then he wasn't just a liar.
He was a traitor.
Her breath hitched. Her chest rose and fell in short, broken gasps.
And then—
Something inside her coiled.
From somewhere deep, deep within—
The beast stirred.
The one she had buried like a splinter under her ribs.
The one with teeth and a taste for justice.
The one that knew how to engrave pain into the soul.
So, If he had truly betrayed them—
Then, she would become the thing he could never outrun.
The ghost in every mirror.
The shadow behind every step.
The beast born in the darkness.
She wouldn't scream.
She wouldn't rage.
She would make him feel it.
Every scar.
Every lie.
Every tear Ruhani di ever shed.
Her vengeance would be quiet.
Precise.
And merciless.
But—
Her gaze flickered. Just for a second.
A stubborn spark of hope survived in the storm of her fury.
'What if...
'What if he had a reason?'
'What if he left to protect them?'
'What if this pain was part of something bigger —
something she wasn't meant to understand yet?
She gritted her teeth.
Her nails dug into her palms, half a breath away from drawing blood.
And she didn't know what terrified her more—
The thought that Rudra sir was alive, and had chosen to abandon them.
Or the thought that he was truly gone—
And a stranger was wearing his face, feeding lies to cover something darker.
Either way—
She couldn't afford to fall apart.
Not now.
Her gaze drifted to the nightstand.
A small, silver frame sat there—
Two tiny faces inside.
Captured mid–nap. Mouths parted in peace.
Like hope wrapped in cotton and starlight.
Dev and Navya.
Ruhani di's children.
Her family.
Her only purpose.
Vidya inhaled— slowly, deeply.
A breath forged for war.
She didn't care who the man was—Ahaan Rajvanshi or Rudra sir or some twisted hybrid of both.
Didn't matter.
Whether he was telling the truth or spinning a lie to protect Aria di because of some buried guilt or manipulating her for some hidden Rajvanshi game.
Because none of that changed the truth—
Ruhani di was still missing.
And the last message she had left behind wasn't a goodbye.
It was a mission.
A whisper of trust.
A thread of hope.
>"If I don't come back... find Aria Maheshwari."
The twins were now caught in the eye of the same storm that had swallowed Rudra whole.
The same storm Ruhani di had bled to escape.
And Vidya would not let that storm take them too.
She would wait.
Still. Hidden. Watching.
She would not move—
Not until Aria di called for her.
But the moment she did—
The beast would rise.
To protect the twins.
To protect what was left of love.
To guard the hope that had been placed in her hands like a fragile seed.
And if she had to become the darkness to keep that light alive—
Then so be it.