Ding.
The doorbell rang once.
Ding.
Then again-sharper the second time, like whoever stood outside didn't believe in patience or politeness..
Mira hurried forward, the faint rustle of her dupatta trailing behind her, and pulled the door open.
The moment she saw him, her breath caught.
For a second, everything went still-sound, movement, even thought.
Then she stepped forward and hugged him tightly, a sudden brightness breaking across her face like a crack in old glass finally letting light through.
A rough chuckle escaped the man in the black suit as he held her closer, the fabric of his coat stiff under her fingers. He briefly rested a hand over her hair-measured, familiar, controlled.
"Missed me?" he asked.
His voice was low, slightly rough at the edges.
Mira pulled back slowly. Her hands lingered for a second longer than necessary before falling away.
She studied his face.
Time had worked him over carefully.
The softer features she remembered had sharpened into adulthood-jaw more defined, a faint beard tracing his expression like shadowed geometry. The collar of his suit sat too perfectly, too intentionally neat. Even his posture felt practiced.
But his eyes... they were unchanged.
Still calm. Still warm in a way that didn't ask permission to be familiar.
It unsettled her more than it comforted her.
"Who is it?" Radha called from inside.
Her voice came from deeper in the house, slightly muffled by walls and distance, yet firm enough to slice through the moment.
Mira blinked, reality snapping back into place like a stretched thread breaking.
"I-I don't know, Maaji," she answered too quickly.
The man gave her a faint, knowing look. Not surprised. Not offended. Just... aware.
Like he had expected her hesitation.
"Why are you here?" Mira asked quietly.
Her voice had dropped now, cautious, as she looked inside where radha was..
His lips curved slightly. He leaned in just enough for only her to hear.
"To meet your husband."
The words didn't land immediately. They hovered first, like they were waiting for permission to become real.
Her brows drew together.Confusion flickered-then sharpened.
Before she could speak again, he stepped past her.
Not rushing. Not hesitating.
Just entering, as if the threshold had always been his.
The floor creaked softly under his shoes. The sound felt too loud in the quiet house.
Radha entered from the inner corridor, her gaze immediately locking onto him. Her expression shifted-controlled at first, then tightening as she took him in fully.
"Namaste, aunty," he said politely, folding his hands with practiced ease.
The gesture was smooth, almost too smooth, like something rehearsed in rooms far away from this one.
"I'm here to meet Dharam Raghuvanshi. This is the right place, isn't it?"
Radha studied him for a long moment.
The silence between them stretched, filled with the faint ticking of a wall clock and the distant sound of a ceiling fan turning slowly, unevenly, as if it had grown tired.
Then she nodded once.
Slowly.
Carefully.
"Sit," she said.
A single word. Heavy with restraint.
Mira remained standing, still near the doorway, eyes fixed on him as if memory was trying-and failing-to place his face.
Radha's eyes flicked to her.
"Call Dharam."
"Yes, Maaji," Mira replied automatically, though her attention didn't leave the man.
He had already sat down.
Too easily.
Like someone who didn't need permission from furniture, space, or people.
The sofa creaked faintly under his weight. The sound felt oddly final.
His gaze moved slowly across the room.
Measuring. Noticing. This house wasn't big or fancy but carefully choosen to fool her.
He knew everything, nothing escaped him.
He glanced once toward the gate, then back at Radha.
"So," Radha asked, forcing calm into her voice, though her fingers had tightened subtly at her side, "what's your name?"
A pause followed.
Not long. But deliberate enough to feel like calculation.
"Vikram Singh," he said finally.
A faint smile touched his lips, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Vikram Singh Prajapati."
The air shifted.
Not visibly-but everyone in the room felt it.
Radha's expression tightened immediately, like something in her memory had been pulled too sharply.
Even Mira's distraction faded, replaced by alert confusion.
"You're Vijay's son?" Radha asked, voice lowered now, recognition cutting through suspicion.
Vikram nodded.
"My father used to work with Shivraj uncle," he said evenly. "He passed away years ago. Now I handle the business."
His tone carried no emotion. Just fact. Clean and polished.
"I thought I should come myself. Maybe we can talk. Expand things. Do business together."
Radha straightened at once.
"No," she said sharply.
The word hit the room like a door slamming shut.
Then, softer-too controlled to be fully calm.
"We don't do business anymore."
A pause.
Her gaze flickered briefly toward the inner rooms, as if the walls themselves might overhear.
"Not with people from that... past."
Her fingers tightened slightly at her side, nails pressing into her palm.
"You should leave. Go back and live peacefully. This place-this work-is not good for someone like you."
Vikram studied her in silence.
No reaction. No shift in expression.
Just observation.
The kind that made silence feel exposed.
Then he gave a low, quiet chuckle and stood up.
The sound of his movement felt heavier than his voice.
Now his presence filled more of the room, like the air itself had adjusted around him.
"I see," he said.
He took a slow step forward.
His shoes made a soft, deliberate sound against the floor.
"But you're hiding it well."
Radha didn't move.
The ceiling fan clicked once overhead, uneven rotation briefly breaking rhythm.
His gaze shifted past her-toward the courtyard.
Toward Mira.
"She's Dharam's wife, right?" he asked casually.
Radha's body stiffened instantly.
Mira's name in his voice felt wrong, like it didn't belong there.
"I wonder," Vikram continued softly, "what would happen if she found out what her husband really does."
The silence that followed was immediate.
Thick.
Almost physical.
Radha's face hardened.
"Get out," she said.
Her voice no longer carried warmth, politeness, or hesitation.
Only command.
"And never come here again."
A sharp pause.
"Before my sons come and kill you."
"What happened, Maaji? Where did he go?" Mira asked, her voice cutting gently through the heavy silence as she stepped back inside.
The room felt different now. The air itself seemed to have thickened, like it had been holding its breath while someone important vanished.
The faint smell of old wood and boiled tea leaves lingered near the kitchen, but something sharper had entered with that missing presence-unease, quiet and deliberate.
Radha looked at her for a long moment. Too long. As if Mira's face had shifted into something unfamiliar.
A flicker of fear tightened in her chest, subtle but persistent.
What if... what if Mira finds out about Dharam?
What if the walls of this carefully maintained life finally crack open?
She forced a breath in, slow and controlled.
"He... said he had urgent work," Radha said finally, her voice steady only on the surface. "Did you call Dharam?"
Mira nodded, walking further inside. Her bangles gave a soft, rhythmic clink-normal, grounding, almost cruelly ordinary in a house that didn't feel ordinary anymore.
"He said he will talk to him."
A pause stretched between them. Not empty, but filled with things neither of them dared to name.
Mira's gaze lingered on Radha's face. "Do you want some tea?" she asked, softer now. "You look... uneasy."
And she was right. Radha's hands had gone cold despite the warmth in the room.
And no one knew what the other was hiding-or maybe they all did, and survival simply required pretending otherwise.
On the other side of the city, the sea air hit Dharam first-salty, sharp, almost metallic. It clung to his skin as he stood near the port, watching cranes move like skeletal giants against a bruised horizon.
His phone pressed against his ear, Vihaan's voice coming through slightly distorted, swallowed and stretched by distance.
"What do you mean he wants you to marry just like that?" Dharam asked, rubbing his temple. The sound of waves hitting the docks echoed behind him, steady and indifferent, like the ocean didn't care about human arrangements, obligations, or inherited chaos.
Vihaan let out a breath that sounded more like frustration than humor.
"Your know papa doesn't ask," he said. "He decides. I just get informed afterward."
Dharam exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing as a crane groaned in the distance, lifting containers like hollow promises.
"Do you want to marry her?" he asked, quieter now. Not because he cared less, but because the question felt heavier than the wind.
A pause.
Vihaan spoke again, slower this time. "She's not the kind of daughter you'd expect from a minister."
Dharam scoffed faintly. "They never are."
"No," Vihaan cut in immediately. "This one is different. She's... chaos in a human body.
Loud where she shouldn't be. Honest where it's inconvenient."
The wind shifted, tugging at Dharam's shirt as he stared at the endless gray-blue water.
"So this is punishment," Dharam thought. "Dressed up as politics."
"But there's something weird," Vihaan continued, voice dropping slightly. "She's not in any family photos. Not even old ones. And she refuses it-
she won't let anyone call her by her name properly. Not even the minister."
Dharam's grip tightened slightly. "Bhumika?"
"Yes."
Silence cracked open again.
"Bhumika isn't she the minister's adopted daughter?" Dharam asked.
A low hum came through the line. Uncertain. Unsettled.
"There's something wrong," Vihaan said.
Even the sea sounded louder for a moment, like it was listening now too.
"And what does 'Baku' even mean?" Vihaan asked suddenly, irritation breaking through his confusion. "She said it once. Like it meant something obvious."
Dharam paused. The name didn't sit right. It didn't belong to this world of ministries and arranged futures.
A place? A code? A myth? Something older than all of them?
"Leave it," Dharam said finally, jaw tightening. "The name doesn't matter. The person does."
Then, quieter-almost unwillingly:
"She knows about us, doesn't she?"
A pause stretched across the line.
Vihaan sighed. "She knows everything. That's why this is happening."
The wind howled briefly between them, slipping through cranes and cables like an unseen warning.
"And we can't keep her near Mira," Vihaan added. "Or maybe we can't keep pretending. We should tell her what's going on. I don't understand why Papa is doing this."
Dharam looked out at the sea again, where the horizon blurred like a half-formed thought.
And for the first time, the silence didn't feel empty.
It felt plancause
Thankyou to those Who like and comment my every chapter.
And too others have you heard about the word M-O-T-I-V-A-T-I-O-N yup,
this is the word I get.
when you guys like and commnets cause otherwise how will I know if you like my story or not and main thing, I want to feel connected to you guys too..
I can't write like a ghost writer I thrive on chaos, like and comments.
So, a very humble request 🔪🔪🔪 commnets and like this chapters ans other one tooo....
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