The bitter cold of the Siachen mountains was a physical representation of the isolation and despair gripping Abhinav. He stared at Mareena, the woman he had resurrected from grief, now standing before him as the key to a conspiracy that had ruined his entire life.

"We have to disappear, Abhinav. Now." Mareena’s voice was a desperate whisper. She moved quickly, her hands going to the ropes binding his wrists and ankles, taught from years of captivity and survival.

"I won't leave you again," Abhinav rasped, the pain in his bindings forgotten. "Not after fifteen years."

Mareena’s fingers fumbled with the complex knots. "There is no time for this, Abhinav! Manav will be back. He doesn't want me to talk to you; he wants to use me as bait. He doesn't just want revenge; he wants a spectacle. He wants to watch you break."

The sound of heavy, crunching snow outside the shelter froze them both. Mareena looked up, her face etched with panic.

"Too late," she whispered.

The flap of the shelter was violently ripped open. Manav, Mareena’s brother and Abhinav’s primary captor, stood framed against the icy landscape. He was taller than Abhinav, powerfully built from years spent in the unforgiving terrain, his eyes burning with the cold fire of sustained vengeance.

"Thought you could slip away, Mareena?" Manav’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion, yet carrying a chilling finality. He held a high-powered rifle easily in his hand, the black muzzle aimed squarely at Abhinav's chest. "You are weak. Fifteen years of planning, and you crumble for a memory."

Mareena threw herself between Manav and Abhinav. "Let him go, Manav! It's over! The Roys are ruined! Father is going to jail, Mother is a murderer! You won! Let him live!"

Manav shoved Mareena aside with a cruel indifference. "The Roys deserve death, sister. Not a comfortable prison sentence. And more importantly, the destruction must be absolute. The legacy must end." He stepped closer to Abhinav, his face a mask of bitter satisfaction. "Congratulations, Mr. Roy. Your father, the revered Devraj Roy, is officially a murderer."

Back in Delhi, the verdict had finally come down. After the driver's confession and the evidence of the twenty-year-old financial cover-up, the weight of the crime was undeniable. Devraj Roy’s defense, clinging to the "heat of the moment" angle, had failed to save him completely, but spared him the death penalty. Devraj Roy was sentenced to twenty years in prison for the involuntary manslaughter of Paritosh Sharma and obstruction of justice. The system, corrupt but unyielding, had taken its final toll.

Mrs. Roy, facing charges of attempted murder (of Zareena, whom she believed was Mareena) and complicity in the cover-up, remained a criminal, her status awaiting a separate trial, her social power utterly dissolved.

Manav smiled—a thin, terrible distortion of his features. "The old generation is gone. But a dynasty does not die until its name is extinguished. You, Abhinav, are the heir. And your child is the future."

He lowered the rifle slightly, resting the cold metal against Abhinav's temple. "I know about the IVF, Abhinav. I know about Priya's little alimony scheme. I know about the baby. And I know you just started to care about that child. That is the final move in my game."

Abhinav said," How do you know all this?"

Manav replies," Because I had fixed people who monitored every step of the Roy family, spyware chips were installed in everybody's phone. Even in Priya’s phone. We monitored all her locations, her texts with her girlfriend ahaa .... sorry boyfriend".

Abhinav stammered saying," Girlfriend..... bo...yfrie...nd wh...at are you trying to say?"

Manav replies," Your beautiful wife has an affair with a transman, she had him in her life before your marriage and still continues to have the affair".

Abhinav feels shattered. He cannot believe that even Priya cheated on him. Maybe he could never love her as his wife but she still had a place in his heart during 10 years of marriage. He liked her as his friend. Or rather sometimes bestfriend. He felt disheartened because its not that he feels jealous of her trans boyfriend it is because Priya had hidden the truth all these years. And the fact that they both are plotting for divorce against him made him feel worse. If Priya told him about her boyfriend, he would have freed her from this marriage supporting her.

Abhinav felt a terrible, visceral coldness. Manav was right. The revelation of the forgery, instead of bringing relief, had only intensified his protective instinct for the innocent life Priya carried.

"Priya... she has nothing to do with this," Abhinav pleaded, desperation staining his voice.

"Oh, but she does. She carries the Roy name, and she carries the Roy blood," Manav mocked. "And she is a loose end. A noisy, gold-digging loose end. I will ensure Priya miscarries, or perhaps, I'll wait until the child is born and then end the Roy line completely. You will lose the child, Abhinav. You will lose the life you built. That is my revenge."

Abhinav was devastated. He had lost his parents to crime, his fortune to betrayal, and now the fragile hope of a future—even a flawed one—was being held at gunpoint.

Mareena, seeing the absolute despair in Abhinav's eyes, her own past grief mirroring his present agony, lunged at her brother, clawing at the rifle.

"No, Manav! You won't touch the baby! You can't!"

Manav backhanded her sharply across the face, sending her sprawling onto the frozen ground. "Stay out of this, traitor! You chose him over family; now you watch him burn!"

Manav regained control, his boot pressing down on Mareena's chest to pin her. He looked at Abhinav, the hatred blazing. "Think about that child, Abhinav. Think about the years you will spend in agony. That is the price of your father's sin."

Manav released his hold on Mareena and took a step back, the rifle still pointed at Abhinav. "I will let you stew in that fear for a week. We have places to move. You have a few days to live with the knowledge of what I will do to your family." He then dragged a struggling, sobbing Mareena out of the shelter.

When Abhinav was finally alone, he lay shivering on the ground, the chill of the glacier unable to match the icy dread in his heart. The family he loved was gone, and the future he despised was now the only thing he wanted to protect.

He struggled against the bindings, finally managing to loosen the rope on his wrists. The first thing he did was stumble out of the shelter and locate Mareena’s footprints in the fresh snow, determined to follow them.

He found her huddled behind a large boulder, her face bruised, her body shaking, but her eyes resolute.

"We have to go," Abhinav whispered, cutting the remaining ropes on his ankles with a jagged rock. "Now, before they move you again."

"Where, Abhinav?" she replied, the wind carrying her broken voice. "There is no 'where.' We are in Siachen. They have supplies, weapons, and vehicles. We have a few hours, maybe."

Abhinav grabbed her hands, pulling her up against the biting wind. "Then we run. We make it to a village, a military outpost. We tell them everything. We expose Manav and his threats. Then, we find a way to start over. Together."

He looked at her, his love for the woman who had caused all this pain strangely undiminished, solidified by the shared knowledge of their family's deep, common trauma.

"Mareena," he pleaded, his voice thick with emotion, ignoring the danger, ignoring the years, "we have been given a second chance—a twisted, violent, impossible chance—but a chance nonetheless. Escape with me. Come back to the world. We will get married. We will fix this, start fresh, and prove that our love was stronger than their revenge."

The romantic tension between them was palpable, woven from fifteen years of loss, shared grief, and the adrenaline of mortal danger.

Mareena closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against his chest. She loved him. Every cell in her body screamed for the simplicity of that life, that marriage they were promised. But she had seen too much. She was too hardened.

She gently pushed him away, her hands resting on his chest, her eyes filled with sorrow and a terrible, self-sacrificing conviction.

"Abhinav, I can't," she whispered. "I can't marry you. Not now. Not ever."

Abhinav looked shattered. "Why? Because of the revenge? Because of what my father did?"

"No. Because of what I did," she corrected, tears freezing on her cheeks. "I was bait. I came to destroy you. The blood of your father's victim, the sister of a murderer... I am poison, Abhinav. We tried to kill your family. I can't enter your life again and pretend to be innocent. I need to finish this. I need to stop Manav myself."

"You can't do this alone!"

"I have to. But you... you need to go back. Not to fight me, but to protect your child. You need to go back and save Priya and that baby, Abhinav. That is your life now. That is your duty."

He searched her eyes, finding no wavering, only a deep, heartbreaking resolve. The intensity of her self-sacrifice mirrored the depth of her true, undeniable love for him, a love that transcended her initial motives.

Abhinav knew he couldn't force her. He grabbed her face, kissing her fiercely, urgently, a kiss that was a promise, a farewell, and a vow to return.

"I won't stop until Manav is stopped," Abhinav promised, pulling away. "And when he is, Mareena, I am coming back for you. Whether you agree or not."

He turned, the desperate need to save his unborn child overriding his desire to hold her. He ran, staggering through the snow, leaving the only woman he ever loved standing alone on the cold, beautiful mountain, while Manav, watching them from a hidden vantage point, smiled.

Manav was happy. The parents were destroyed. The legacy was tainted. And Abhinav was walking straight back into the trap, determined to protect the baby Manav intended to kill. The game was reaching its bloody, inevitable conclusion.