The morning after Abhinav formally requested the police reopen the Mareena Sharma case, Roy Mansion felt eerily still. The grandeur now felt heavy, suffocating. He knew he had just unleashed chaos, not just on his mother, but on his carefully constructed life.

Abhinav sat in his private study, a space far removed from the lavish master suite where the memory void of the previous night still clung to him. His security chief, Rao, stood before him, looking grave.

"Sir, the external surveillance footage from last night shows nothing unusual, but we found this."

Rao held out a small, folded piece of thick, cream-colored paper—the same expensive stationery Mrs. Roy often used. It was not a note from the household. It was a threat.

Abhinav took it. His fingers trembled as he unfolded the heavy paper. The message was handwritten, precise, and chillingly familiar:

> **STOP LOOKING. THE LIE IS YOUR SHIELD. BREAK IT, AND YOU WILL JOIN HER.**

The paper wasn't just found outside; it was tucked neatly beneath the wiper blade of his vintage Rolls-Royce, which was parked inside the secure, monitored garage of **Roy Mansion**.

"How?" Abhinav demanded, the blood draining from his face. "The garage access is secured by biometric scan. Only three people have access: myself, Priya, and my father."

Rao looked increasingly uneasy. "Sir, the biometric logs show no unauthorized entry. Only your scan was registered last night, when you brought the car in late."

The implication hit Abhinav with the force of a physical blow. Either the threat had been placed by someone with authorized access—Priya or his father—or, impossibly, by the ghost he saw outside his gate.

*The lie is your shield.* Mareena, or whoever was pulling the strings, knew he was investigating, and they wanted him to stop. But the threat also confirmed his mother's revelation: the conspiracy that took Mareena was active and protective of the truth.

The shock of the death threat was swallowed by a noise that shattered the silence of the Roy dynasty forever: the insistent, ringing alarm of the mansion's main security gate.

Abhinav rushed to the surveillance screen. A black police SUV and two unmarked cars were pulling up the sweeping driveway.

"Rao, lock down the west wing. Do not let them near the server room," Abhinav ordered, his mind instantly snapping into CEO crisis mode, even as his heart pounded a terrified rhythm.

He found Mrs. Roy in the grand hall, composed but rigid, speaking quietly into her phone. She met his gaze, and for the first time, he saw a flicker of genuine fear beneath her iron facade.

"It's over, Mother. They're here."

"I know," she whispered, hanging up the phone. She adjusted her sari, straightening her spine, reclaiming her posture of authority. "They can question me, but they will find nothing but fifteen years of silence."

Two high-ranking police officers, accompanied by the Commissioner Abhinav had called the day before, entered the hall. The air crackled with hostility.

"Mrs. Roy," the Commissioner stated formally, his eyes grim. "Based on new evidence regarding the disappearance of Mareena Sharma, I must ask you to accompany us to the station."

"Evidence?" Mrs. Roy scoffed. "My son is suffering from stress and resurrected old rumors. You will be wasting your time."

"The evidence is not rumor, Mrs. Roy. It's a key piece of information we overlooked: the initial cover-up regarding the 'scholarship' and the family's interference in the original police report." The Commissioner paused, his gaze fixed on her. "You are under arrest in connection with the obstruction of justice and having possible foreknowledge of Mareena Sharma's death."

The words echoed through the hall. Abhinav stood rooted to the spot, watching his mother—the immovable force of his life—finally crumble. Her composure broke; her jaw trembled.

As the officers formally escorted Mrs. Roy out of her own mansion, a profound, chilling silence descended. The matriarch was gone.

The interrogation of the Roy family began immediately. Mr. Roy, Abhinav’s father, was brought into the study. He looked shrunken, defeated, utterly unlike the respected man of influence.

"Father, what did you know?" Abhinav demanded, his voice strained. "The letter? The Khandelwals? Did you know she was still alive?"

Mr. Roy shook his head, his eyes vacant. "I knew nothing of the Khandelwals. I only knew that your mother… your mother found out Mareena had **stumbled onto something** regarding the company's financials—a discrepancy Mareena’s law training had uncovered. Your mother feared the scandal would destroy us."

He looked at Abhinav, tears welling in his eyes. "When she was gone, your mother convinced me that keeping the lie—the 'scholarship,' the 'ran away' story—was the only way to save you from the real danger. I agreed, Abhinav. I was weak. I let her handle it all."

Abhinav felt a wave of nausea. His father hadn't been the villain, just the complicit bystander. He saw now that the entire empire was built on a foundation of rot.

Just as the Commissioner began to interrogate Mr. Roy about the skeleton found years later, Abhinav's phone buzzed. It was a restricted, encrypted line, one he kept separate from all business dealings.

> **Meet me at the old observatory, 2 AM. Come alone. She needs your help.**

The text was signed with a single, cryptic symbol—a symbol Abhinav had once seen scrawled on Mareena's textbook during their university days, a personal mark she used when she felt overwhelmed. The fear was replaced by a desperate, reckless surge of hope.

Upstairs, the pressure had finally fractured the cool composure of the woman Abhinav had married. Priya was in the master suite, feigning distress for the benefit of the guards stationed outside.

She held her phone tightly, whispering furiously into the receiver in a language Abhinav didn't speak—a dialect used only in the closed, upper-echelon circles of certain rival industrial families.

"It's finished," Priya hissed into the phone, her voice completely devoid of the gentle warmth she used for Abhinav. "Mrs. Roy is arrested. The house is compromised. I told you the old lie would work perfectly."

A cold, authoritative voice responded from the other end: *"The lie worked too well. The fool is reopening the case. This must be stopped before he gets close to the original source. Is the asset secure?"*

"Yes," Priya confirmed, a venomous smile touching her lips. "I dealt with him last night. He is distracted, confused, and worried about his mother. He suspects nothing."

Priya hung up, her face transformed. The composed, grieving wife was gone, replaced by a calculating operative. She was no mere society woman; she was a master player in a deadly game.

She quickly pulled on a dark, fitted coat, her movements efficient and practiced. She left a brief, plausible note for Abhinav—*Meeting a distressed friend; will return at dawn*—and slipped out a secondary service door, vanishing into the night.

Abhinav, reeling from the threat, the skeleton revelation, and the confession of his father, was looking for a ghost at the observatory. Meanwhile, his wife, the true, living threat, was meeting her handler.