PROLOGUE

Thirteen Years Ago

The night the Singh family burned, Birajo Singh learned that grief had a smell.

Smoke.

Burning wood.

And something far worse.

He was twenty-three when he stood barefoot on the marble driveway, staring at the mansion that had been his home for his entire life.

Flames swallowed the second floor.

His mother's screams had stopped minutes ago.

His younger brother was still inside.

"Birajo!"

His father's voice cracked behind him.

But Birajo couldn't move.

He watched the roof collapse.

Then he saw him.

A man standing beyond the gates.

Watching.

Not helping.

Not calling the police.

Just watching the Singh mansion burn.

The man turned.

For one brief moment, the fire illuminated his face.

Dev Sharma.

Birajo's father's greatest rival.

Then the stranger disappeared into the darkness.

By sunrise, Birajo had lost his mother, his brother, and almost everything his family owned.

And beside the ashes, the police found evidence.

A payment trail.

A burner phone.

Documents bearing Dev Sharma's signature.

Everything pointed to one conclusion.

The Sharma family had ordered the fire.

Birajo believed it.

For thirteen years.

He built an empire from the ashes.

He waited.

He planned.

And he promised himself that one day, the Sharma family would feel the same pain he had felt that night.

But there was one thing Birajo didn't know.

The little girl who had been standing behind Dev Sharma at the gates that night...

had seen everything.

She was ten years old.

Her name was Rahita.

And thirteen years later, Birajo would come for her.

Not knowing that the woman he intended to use for revenge...

was carrying the one memory that could destroy the real culprit.

---

Present Day

Rahita Sharma never saw the black car following her.

She never noticed the second car behind it.

She never realized that the man sitting in the back seat had been watching her for weeks.

Until the car door opened.

A hand grabbed her wrist.

She screamed.

And the last thing she saw before darkness swallowed her was a pair of cold, familiar eyes.

Birajo Singh.

The man whose family hated hers.

The man who had just taken her.

And the man who was about to become her husband.