Chapter 1: Pride and Price

I sold my pride the night I slipped into Arjun Malhotra’s bed—a name that made Bandra’s rich whisper and servants in his mansion walk like they were in a temple. My mother’s hands always smelled of Lifebuoy and worry, counting coins for next month’s rice. For a girl like me, whose father died young and whose mother’s life was spent fretting over ration cards and hospital bills, a man like Arjun was both a curse and a lifeline. In Mumbai, fate and desperation often swallow pride whole.

For more than a thousand nights, every dusk brought a new ordeal. Every night, his moods shifted—sometimes a cold silence, sometimes sharp words that left bruises deeper than any slap. As the city’s din faded into the background—ceiling fans whirring, distant trains clattering—I’d hear his keys jangling in the lock, and my stomach would knot tighter than Amma’s old saree. The warning signs: the measured click of his shoes on marble, the way his jaw clenched, the glint in his eyes as he entered. Some nights, I counted the seconds until he was done, telling myself I just had to survive till dawn, till the city’s traffic woke up again.

Then, the woman he had loved since youth—the one who never truly left his heart—returned from abroad. I ran away quietly, carrying his child, my heart thrumming with a fear only the desperate know.

I still remember that evening, hands trembling as I folded my old sarees, wrapping Amma’s photo frame in a faded dupatta. Outside, the city lights flickered through the grilled window, and from next door Amitabh Bachchan’s voice boomed with the KBC theme tune, clashing with my heartbeat. To leave Arjun Malhotra, pregnant with his child, was to choose a life no one in my chawl would ever dare imagine.

I believed our worlds would never meet again. I shrank my existence to my daughter’s tiny hands and the little rented home we built, never daring to step near the places he haunted. My world became the scent of milk powder and the warmth of Ananya’s breath as she slept beside me.

Five years later, everything changed when my daughter’s kindergarten teacher called to say she was missing. My heart stopped, the words blurring in a panic that rose like high tide. I ran from my flower shop, nearly toppling stacks of marigolds as I dashed into the street, faces turning to stare as I searched for Ananya—her blue schoolbag, her chocolate-stained smile.

I found two figures at my doorstep—one tall, one small. My breath was ragged as I climbed the staircase, nerves jangling. The corridor smelled of someone’s masala chai, the tube light flickered with the threat of a power cut, but time seemed to stop as I saw them: my daughter, hair in little plaits, holding hands with the man I once loved and feared.

My daughter licked a lollipop, her voice sweet and clear: “Mummy, this uncle says he’s my papa. But you told me papa is in heaven, na?”

Her innocent words, sticky with candy, struck like a slap. Arjun’s eyes held no mercy. My hands trembled as I tucked her hair behind her ear, searching for words I’d never prepared.

That night, the man who owned my past pinned me down and demanded, again and again, “Tell me, who exactly is dead?”

His voice crashed through our small bedroom, louder than the ceiling fan or the distant traffic. His grip on my wrists was iron. I could smell his cologne—sharp, mixed with the dust and sweat of Mumbai’s night. Each word lashed at the fragile lies I’d woven.

“I was wrong. It’s me. I’m about to die…”

My voice cracked, eyes fixed on the water stain above. Somewhere, a neighbour’s pressure cooker whistled, but inside, only his anger and my guilt filled the air, tangled until I could barely breathe.