"She had tricked him. She had made him leave his old self behind and come into her world, and then before he was really at home in it but too late to go back, she had left him stranded there like an astronaut wandering about on the moon. Alone."

- Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia

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Dedicated to @Dudwegudiya who just is amazing, and a really beautiful soul and a very brilliant mind, my conversations with her have made me realize new dimensions, explore new point of views, and our similar taste and similar personalities have made me feel comfortable to talk for hours and hours...

Thank you for everything, my sweet bright star, and all the very best for the exams and everything in life... I wish you the best of best, sending your way  your a gentle rain of luck, peace and warm hugs...Take care of yourself... <3 <3 <3

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With the whirl of dust whipping across my face, I let out a whimper in protest until a giant shadow towered over me, shielding me from the angry vortexes around me.

I swiftly look up at the familiar touch on the small of my back and feel revived, knowing that he is here, with me. Finally, he is here. Manik. His arms warmly embracing me, protectively. And as soon as he does that, everything stops still, no more there is a whirl of dust. I close my eyes, cry in relief for finally getting rid of the loneliness and pain that I had been feeling. As I rest my head on his chest and I feel at peace.

When I open my eyes to look up at him, I find him missing. Disoriented, I look around, my eyes set out on a frantic search. My eyes gaze at the distant horizon and finally find him, walking in a desert, directionless, with the hot sun above his head.

"Manik!" I call out to him, try to stop him but he doesn't listen.

He just keeps moving ahead.

Suddenly, he turns around, smiles at me, and he starts coming back to me. I sigh in relief; he is coming back!

But when I look at the sight that his back is to, it washes me with nothing but panic in the purest form.

I screamed out in fear, my feet staggering in emotional disarray. I run to him, throwing my hands to reach him, to pull him out before the vastness of the ocean could consume him, but my hand meets with only water that waves bring to me.

What was happening?

He is lost...

Manik...

He is lost...

I couldn't save him...

I, to whom he trusted the most, to whom he always thought as his protector, his shining star, couldn't save him.

I couldn't save him....

No Manik was there, not anymore...

A hysterical scream, Nandini could hear someone screaming, far away from her, someone was screaming in the most painful way. Waking up with a start, sweat dripping down her spine, she looked around her, just to find it was her who had been screaming...

Breathing heavily, sweat trickling down her forehead, she looked around her again, confused. As she calmed down, she absently stared around the dark room lit only by the moonlight coming from the window, with her mind fervently stuck to the lucid nightmare.

She found him in the desert, just to lose him to the sea, she thought as the nightmare flashed in front of her eyes again, but then she shook her head and she walked out of the hotel room she was staying at. Walking on the beach, she sighed, reminding herself that it was nothing, nothing new, she had been having nightmares about Manik since that night. Nothing but one more nightmare, she consoled herself as she watched the waves crashing on the shore with brutal force while the full moon shined proudly surrounded by the starlit sky.

The Goa beach had its own beauty, it was different and she was far away from Mumbai, yet the sea still made her feel as she was standing in Manik's city. She smiled at her thought. Before she had always thought of Mumbai as a city where her Chacha lived with his lovely wife, a city of dreams but now to her, it was only Manik's city...

"Nightmare?" A voice asked her kindly.

"Cabir," she called him out as he came to stand by her side.

"I could hear you from my room," he told her when she stood there in silence.

"Sorry, I woke you up," she apologized without taking her eyes away from the sea she had seen in her nightmare.

"Does it happen a lot?" he asked her with concern and took her silence as a confirmation.

As Cabir stood by her side, staring at her, he felt lost and confused. Should he console her or should he give her a reality check? Should he tell her to give up or should he tell her to continue trying to find his best friend despite knowing how it was costing her health, money, and her own sanity? Also her life and her family? What was that he should do? What should he say? Would it even make any difference?

"It's our last weekend here, do you think we can visit all the necessary places?" She asked, breaking the silence.

He looked at her for a few seconds in silence, contemplating before giving in with a half-smile, nodding at her with a sigh. Nandini smiled back, glad that he was with her. Ironically she was grateful to even Nyonika for organizing the trip to Goa.

Nandini had been hurt, cried for hours when two weeks ago, Nyonika had first announced the trip, a trip to the city which had been Manik's favorite vacation spot. Standing gracefully on the podium, Nyonika had let the students of S.P.A.C.E know that she was giving the last year their graduation gift; a trip to Goa in the memory of her deceased son who would have graduated with them if he would have been alive...

The nerves of that Satan in the form of a woman...

Standing with second-year students, she had cried until Cabir had come to warp her into a crushing hug as he cried along with her. Something had kept breaking within her every time someone affirmed or assumed him dead, but the never once it had made her doubt, never once it had made her give up, and even then, instead of breaking her will, Nyonika's action had made her determined to find him stronger.

And when after a week, Nyonika had suddenly sent the second year along with the last year to Goa for two week trip, she hadn't questioned her actions, insisted, she decided that the trip to Goa funded by Nyonika to the first one that she would go on to find Manik, no matter what other assumed, she had to find him, no matter how much time it may take...

Nothing else mattered...

Nothing else held any significance...

Not even her vivid nightmares...

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"I will find her today,"

Devansh had heard the younger man beside him whisper to himself every morning from the past week, and even after each failure had reduced him to just sigh tiredly, his head hanging low to hide away his disarray emotions and shoulders carrying an invisible weight.

And each time Manik had kept muttering to himself that, Devansh hadn't been able to help but sigh in pity at the sight of the lost child in the broken body of a young man who kept nodding at himself with forced determination yet his tired and lifeless eyes said something else...

It was very evident that Manik was clinging very hard on every bit of hope he was left with...

The search for his lost love had been taking a toll on Manik, and it was visible by the always slumped shoulders, teary eyes, and a suffocating aura around him. There were dark circles around his eyes, and his unhealed injuries would be swollen with the restless search but he would never give up before the sunset when they would come back to their hotel, empty-handed. And then Devansh would see the younger man just sit in a corner of his room facing the window, silently staring out into the darkness without blinking, his head resting on the glass panel; a sight that screamed misery...

An epitome of despair he was...

But each morning, Devansh would witness a newfound and forced determination in Manik's eyes, as if somehow the dark nights were supposed to take away with it all the evidence of his defeat, the younger of two would pretend as he was leading the search as soon as he would see Devansh walk in the living room.

The same thing had been happening for the past two weeks, the younger would stand in front of him tall, confident and determined, never showing any doubt, and then he would lead Devansh to someplace, and together they would wander around the city Manik had thought he knew the best, but it seems like his memory was betraying him. He would walk on the streets without being able to disguise one from the other. With a frown on his forehead, sighing in frustration, Manik would wander from one end to the other without knowing where it was that he wanted to go.

It was heartbreaking, to see the younger man running behind a mirage with such passion, determination, and madness...

'I wish she was actually real,' Devansh had found him wishing the same ever since he had heard about her from Manik after meeting his doctors.

He had patiently let the younger man do what he wanted but Devansh could see clearly what the doctors warned him about when Mr Malhotra had forced him to meet up with them before meeting his son. And Doctor Shah had been right, Manik was on the verge of losing his mind...

How could he tell the younger that he couldn't find her because there was no one to find to begin with?

Nandini Murthy was just a beautiful illusion his mind had created to protect Manik Malhotra, to console him, and make him feel secure in the dark and cold nights he had to spend alone, trapped into a bed, in and out of consciousness without anyone by his side...

'As terrifying and strange as it seems, it's human nature in action, protecting and preserving itself by any means,' Dr Shah had told him and he could actually see how terrifying it was when he saw the younger man believe that he would find his Nandini with a conviction and determination that shook Devansh to his core.

And when after all the search and frustration, one day Manik had stopped in front of a door, claiming it to be Nandini's home, a lady had stepped out from the said home and frowned at them, had told them the truth;

"I am sorry, but we have been living here for the past two decades, I don't think there is even a Murthy family living in this society,"

And even though Devansh knew Mr Malhotra and his wife were powerful and cunning people, Manik's insistence on them being behind all of that was too far fetched and Dr Shah's words once again kept ringing in his ears.

But they couldn't blame Manik's brain or Manik for that, could they? The poor child wasn't wrong in suspecting his parents after all that he had been through...

Time to time, he had asked Manik, slowly and quietly, the right questions to make him realize the truth and start to rationalize his actions. He knew Manik was slowly questioning himself all the whys he should, he could tell by the frowns and confused looks whenever he met a dead end. He could see the questions in Manik's eyes; why couldn't he, no matter how much he tried to remember anything about her?

Why wasn't he sure whether she lived with her younger brother, chacha and chachi, or with her grandmother?

And where? In Mumbai or somewhere else? Where?

He didn't even know that for sure, did she move out? He didn't know, why? When?

Devansh would see the younger tilting his head to the left and try to remember the answers but he would come up with nothing...

Manik was sure of nothing...

Not anymore...

In the start, Manik had sounded confident, swearing that he knew every street of the huge city he had lived in all his life but after arriving, as he had walked around without being able to place where they were standing, it was evident that he no longer could claim that. He kept blaming it all on his head injury, of course, it was his head injury, he would mutter himself, again and again, because there was no way he could forget anything about her...

Not about Nandini...

Devansh couldn't help but be amazed at the younger man when he wouldn't let anything beat him, he firmly wanted to continue believing in her existence and he was determined to prove it. Pity wasn't enough to describe what he felt when he looked at Manik, he admitted to himself, his heart broke each time he saw him - whom Devansh would always see as the kid he taught about stars - so lost and so devastated...

Devansh had signed in relief when after countless failed attempts to find her home and meaninglessly wandering streets every day, Manik had decided to go to Malhotra mansion. Yet when they had stepped in, Manik had told him he couldn't recognize anyone even when the house help claimed they had been working for Malhotras for decades.

"Where is Ramchand?" Manik had asked one of them.

"He died two years ago, don't you remember, Manik baba?" One of them had answered him, yet it was visible that Manik believed no one.

And even when he had stepped in his room, Manik had only attempted to find traces of Nandini in his own room, a star lamp he had found nowhere, pictures and gifts he had kept hidden in places only Nandini knew of, and then Manik had started to pull out his hair and had asked out loud; why? Why was there nothing there? Why?

After another fruitless search around his room, Manik had turned around towards him and told Devansh about their new destination; his college, S.P.E.A.C.E. And he had just nodded and had told the younger man to lead the way. And when Manik had continued to stare outside from the window of the car, unmoving, with his head hanging low to hide away his tears of frustration, Devansh had just used Google Maps to find the address.

Now standing in front of the gates of the said college, he observed the changing expression on the younger man's face as he stood unmoving, trying to act brave.

"Let's go in," he said before walking in, leaving him behind to collect himself.

"For Nandini," Manik muttered to himself, before nodding.

For Nandini...

As he stepped in, Manik continued to remind himself that no matter how much he wanted to avoid his mother and Fab 5, there was no way he would let that be the reason why he wouldn't meet Nandini at S.P.A.C.E. Nothing else should matter to him, not even their betrayal...

'Everything has changed,' he thought, walking in the structure of S.P.A.C.E Academy, the place which had been his second home after the long hours he had to spend there along with the rest of Fab5.

But as he walked in the empty corridors, he wondered what happened in ten months for it to be so abandoned. He walked slowly, taking in everything about the college he once used stormed in as he owned it, now minding his steps, trying to not put too much weight on the one left foot which has been acting out since the morning. He didn't know if he should be grateful or be upset when the new office boy told him that the ex-members of Fab5 along with the last year were on some trip.

'Doesn't matter,' he told himself when along with Devansh, he was led to his mother's office after being told that the principle he had been almost fond of was missing too. He realized he didn't know what to say to his mother he was meeting after almost ten months, but then again, that wasn't anything new to them...

"What are you doing?" Devansh asked when he saw Manik standing up as soon as the office-boy closed the door behind him.

Ignoring him, Manik slowly walked to the other side of the table and went through the files sitting on the table, opening the draws just to find nothing. Done with that, he restarted the computer on the table and after cracking the password, he searched for Nandini Murthy in the student files, only to find no one corresponded to the name. He didn't let it make him feel defeated, shaking his head, he moved the files on the shelves to find her in the list of the second-year students and then in last, freshman students list, but even there, the name he had been searching for wasn't found...

The door opened suddenly and walked in the office-boy just to freeze when he caught Manik as he was putting away the files.

"What are you doing? You can't do that, sir," the office-boy said in an attempt to intimidate him.

"Do you even know who I am?" Manik asked him, raising his eyebrow with a glare.

"You are Manik Malhotra?" the office-boy responded quietly, looking down, intimidated by the young boy's attitude.

"Correct. Now you will answer, truthfully, whatever I ask you," Manik told him as he came back to sit on the chair to rest his legs, but he leaned back and fixed an intimidating glare at the office-boy standing in front of him, never once giving away his pain.

As he interrogated the visibly intimidated office-boy, Devansh couldn't help but marvel at the body language and the aura of the younger man. He had known Manik's potential when he had met him as a young boy, but his commanding presence now was something that amazed him.

"Nyonika ma'am will be here in five minutes," the office-boy told them before running away and when the door closed behind him, the controlled mask on Manik's face fell.

"What happened?" Devansh asked as he observed the younger's reactions.

"He says there isn't any Nandini nor there was one. There is no mention of her name in the article that was published last year, only Navya is mentioned there. Her name isn't on any list of S.P.A.C.E students. There is nothing," he told him with a frustrated sigh, shoulders slumped and hands clenched into tight fists.

"So now?" The elder asked once again.

"I would have to ask Nyonika," he responded with a tiring sigh.

Nyonika Malhotra, the last time he had seen her, Manik had told her that he would expose her in front of his father, and if his father was to be believed, it was his mother who was responsible for the accident he almost lost his life in. An accident he would never fully recover from, would suffer all his life, that much damage it had done to him...

But here he was, ready to face her, only because there was no other way to find his Nandini then ask his greatest enemy.

'Swallow your pride,' he told himself, again and again.

Pressing his knuckles against his eyes, he blinked a few times before opening them wide. Despite resting for almost ten months, he got tired easily. He hated how weak and broken his body now was. By the midday, he wouldn't have any energy to do anything else than stay still, most of the time that hurt too. His fatigue was once again taking a troll over his senses and he blinked repeatedly, pushing it back. He was snapped out of it by the noise the door created as it banged on the wall with force, just to reveal Nyonika Malhotra standing in all her glory.

"Manik," she called him out with a vicious smirk on her face.

"Nyonika," he responded with a blank expression, deepening her smirk as she walked in with the grace of the snake she was.

"Almost eleven months, isn't it?" Nyonika asked as she took in the changes that said months had brought in him.

Extreme lost weight, which was given, he looked weak and tried, which could change, underneath his clothes that were almost hanging on him, there were countless scars from the pieces of glasses that Doctors had taken hours to pull out, his broken bones that hurt because of the cold winter of London, his face now marked with the scare on the left side of his forehead - half of it hidden by his black hair but she knew the scare ended at the mid skull, his ribs and arms were healed while his legs still had a limp; she had his doctor send her his progress report every month.

"And who are you?" She asked the good-looking man sitting beside her son in a flirtatious way.

"Don't try, Mother, even if he was into women, he wouldn't have wanted anything to do with you," Manik told her with an amused smirk, barely holding back a laugh as Devansh looked at his mother with wide eyes, taken aback by the sudden attack.

"Ah, I should have known. What is with you befriending their kind? Can't you find someone normal?" She asked him with slight disapproval.

"What can I say, I have learned it from you. Raghav, remember? Accepting our twisted and dark souls as their friends, only a few can do that, isn't it?" Manik said with a bemused smile as he observed her. 

Was she guilty of the accident? Was that the reason why she was pretending as if nothing happened?

As Devansh saw the camaraderie happening between them, he didn't know how should he feel about it? Should he feel flattered or offended? What kind of relationship was there between the mother-son duo?

"By the way, Manik, why are you here? Came to meet me? Should I take that as you missing me?" she asked with an amused smirk, mocking him.

"I would have loved to know how you had reacted when you had gotten to know that I was still alive, but I missed your reaction due to the fact that I was still unconscious that time, so I thought that maybe I should see how you would react if I came face to face with you. So, tell me Nyonika; how does it feel to be unsuccessful in killing your own and only child?" Manik asked her mockingly, but with a curious expression on his face.

Despite the sarcasm and the mocking tone, he actually wanted her to say something, anything because, for some reason, he still was reluctant to believe that his mother would want him dead even after all the facts and the proves his father had thrown his way. He wanted a confirmation, her confession, anything before accepting that he had been wrong about the depth of his mother's detachment to him.

"What do you mean?" Nyonika asked, confused then suddenly her expression changed into contempt and rage.

"Malhotra...Did he tell you this?" She spat out.

"Then? Tell me you didn't, Nyonika," Manik asked, holding his breath.

Deep inside his heart, he wanted her to deny the accusation and tell him that he had not been wrong in always believing in that no matter what, Nyonika would never play with his life, that she didn't hate him, that she just couldn't love him as a mother was supposed to love her child, that as much as power-hungry she was, no matter how much bad blood there between them, she didn't want him dead...

"You know what? I did..." She admitted, her face set on a resolve, realizing the ploy. She had to accept it if not, she would have to tell him whom she wanted to kill if not him.

Manik nodded quietly, sighing tiringly as he looked down to hide his glassy eyes, telling himself that he wasn't hurt, not even disappointed, that he should have known better. After all, she was Nyonika Malhotra, and no matter how much he thought he knew the depth of her evilness after being subjected to it ever since he was born, he didn't know her. He reminded himself that despite being her flesh and blood, he never once had resided in her dark heart to hold any value to her. He told himself that he didn't want to either...

"Why are you here anyway? You don't have Fab5 anymore, I am sure your father made you read those papers. There is no one here for you to come back, then why are you here, Manik?" Nyonika asked him, her heart clenching uncomfortably at the sight of the young man in front of her eyes. 

Was he crying? Was Manik Malhotra, her heartless son crying? Even after all these years, was the weak and fragile child who would cry whenever she pushed him away was still alive inside the strong monster she made sure he would become?

'Why so vulnerable, Manik?' she questioned him in her mind as she saw him struggling to put up the wall of indifference, her heart panged when she saw him so broken.

Suddenly she realized the weakness she suddenly was feeling at the petty sight of him crying in the same way he used when he was a child, hiding away his teary eyes by looking down as if he feared her mocking him, and she had done it then, countless times, mocked him, ridicule him, humiliate him to toughen him up from early age...

She wanted him gone...

Yes, she wanted him gone so the hurt like she was suddenly feeling in her heart would be gone too, so would be the suffocation that was caused by his presence...

"Where is Nandini?" He suddenly asked her as he looked at her with a new resolve, glassy eyes were now replaced with determination.

"Nandini, who?" She asked, faking curiosity to play her part to perfection.

"Not you too. Not you, Nyonika. Everyone and anyone else can pretend to not know her but not you," he said, his voice cracking as he shook his head at her.

"What are you talking about, Manik?" Nyonika genuinely asked him, the expression on her face made his heart tremble in fear and doubt.

"Nandini Murthy, the girl who came to S.P.A.C.E. last year and changed everything. You can't pretend to not know her, Nyonika," he told her, clenching his hands into fists as his heart beat fast in his chest.

"I honestly don't know anyone of the name, Manik, nor I have time to waste. I have an important meeting to attend. You have to leave now," Nyonika said with a sigh before standing to walk away.

"I will forgive you," he cried out, making her stop in mid-step as she turned around to look at him in shock.

He sighed, breathing out, and forced him to go to stand in front of her. He nodded at her, ignoring his shaking legs and heavy breathing, he stepped closer to her.

"If you will lead me back to her, I will forgive you. I will forget and forgive everything you have done, ever. Your inability to be a mother, from the fear of darkness to the accident, I will forgive you for everything, do anything you ask me to, just tell me where she is," he told her, keeping aside his pride, he bent his head and pleaded with her as he had never before.

As she took in the petty sight in front of her, Nyonika couldn't help but pity the young man. She sighed in disappointment, a disappointment only a creator could feel at the ruined piece that could have been a work of art. That was what he was meant to be, at least she had tried hard to transform a fragile child into a destructive monster that could not only survive, but conquer the world, and it had worked just fine before that mere girl ruined it all. And now he was asking her for the same pathetic girl?

And what was that? He was telling her that he would forgive her? What for? She needed no forgiveness for her attempt to shape him into something better, something he was good at, being a monster. That he had been, before that girl, Nandini. If it hadn't been for that stupid girl, she would have succeeded in making him what he was meant to be, a ruthless being no one could hurt, if it wasn't for that stupid girl who came in their lives just to ruin everything and now he wanted her to 'lead' him to her after all she had done to keep them apart?

Over her dead body...

"So pathetic, Manik, I can't believe it's you. What happened to you? Are you pleading to me and crying over a girl? A girl that I don't know of, by the way," she told him, wounding his pride, looking down at him.

'Pathetic and weak,' he repeated to himself, ashamed of being in such a vulnerable state, that too before Nyonika.

But it was for Nandini, he reminded himself. He shouldn't let his ego and pride come in their way, he had already committed the same mistakes too many times to not learn from it.

"Nyonika, I will do anything you want. I will be twenty-one next year and I will inherit the trust funds and in a few years, gain access to fifty percent of the Malhotra empire. I will give you whatever you want, just please, tell me about Nandini," he pleaded with her once again, luring her in for what he knew meant most to her; money and power.

But the trick didn't seem to work this time around.

"Look, Manik, it's a very tempting offer. If I would have known anyone by that name, I would have taken it, but as I don't know anyone, I will take my leave, okay," she told him before awkwardly patting his cheek as if he was still a persistent child, doing ridiculous things to seek for her attention and affection from her. And there had been only a few times when she had cared enough to pat his cheeks, the quasi-affectionate gesture to get rid of him, and her doing the same now only meant one thing.

She was telling the truth...

No. No, that wasn't possible...

What she was applying couldn't be the truth...

When he heard the door closing after she walked out, his legs gave in, making him fall on his knees, he bent his head, shoulders slumped, ashamed at his condition. A pitiful sight he was, he agreed with her.

His extremely wounded pride made him rethink his action, making him suddenly snap out of his misery. What he was doing? How low was he going to fall? For how long he was going to sacrifice his pride? For how long he was going to let others walk all over him? Was he making Nandini his weakness when she was meant to be his strength? He sure was presenting her to others as his weakness, his only weakness, someone he was greedy and petty for. What would Nandini think of him if she saw him like this? Would she too be ashamed? Would she pity him too? Or would she be disgusted?

What else was he supposed to do? What should he do now? What more should he do? What else is there to do? He thought in despair as the darkness of misery enveloped him, drowning him in complete submission.

"Manik?" Devansh called out and when he looked up, the sight made the elder's chest tightened.

With his bloodshot eyes filled with countless tears, his face filled with dejection and something the elder had never seen before on his face. Something broken, lost. His posture screamed defeat as if the powerful almighty Monster had lost a battle he never was supposed to. A battle to not break. But now that he was broken, there was nothing left of him than his defeat...

"Manik, you did all you could," Devansh assured him, breaking the silence the young boy was trying hard to maintain as he held back the convulsive gasps.

"But I still haven't found her," he said, his voice cracking, broken.

"Maybe she isn't there to find," he said without hesitation.

"What do you mean?" Manik asked him with a frown as he looked up at him with the streaks of tears on his cheeks.

"If everything around you is proof that she doesn't exist then maybe you should actually listen to people around you," he said as he looked down at him with pity.

"You don't know anything. They don't know anything, no one knows a thing. All lies. Everything is a lie. Everyone is lying," the young boy cried out, shaking his head in refusal.

Devansh sat on his knees near him and patted him on his shoulder.

"Why don't you listen to what the doctors have to say, huh? I know everything is becoming confusing to you, but they are the only ones that can give you clarity. Ask them what is wrong with you and hear them out, they will tell you what to do," Devansh quietly told as he looked down at the hopeless boy as his chin wobbled and more tears ran down like blood.

When he saw the young boy's shoulders shaking, Devansh slowly warped his arms around them, making him cry louder and hiding his face in the elder's shoulder like an inconsolable child, breaking his heart as he patted his head helplessly.

Standing outside as she heard her only child's cry, her heart panged painfully but she ignored it. Nyonika Malhotra had never let anything or anyone become her weakness nor would let anyone have any power over her, she reminded herself.

Walking away as quietly as she could in her high heels, she called the man she knew would be waiting for her call.

"It's done," she informed before ending the call and sighed deeply as she closed her eyes and when she opened them again, no longer she was disturbed by the sight she had witnessed moments ago.

Nyonika Malhotra smirked in superiority, with her head held up high, and the always present confidence in her steps, her high heels click-clacking as she walked along the corridor, nodding in approval as heads bend down to her in fear and respect, enjoying the power she now had, all for herself...

* * * * *

A/N:- Ahh, it ends here, Manik's coming back to India yet not finding Nandini...Mr Malhotra and Nyonika planned well, didn't they? Playing their cards well and God, the couple match made in hell, aren't they?  -___-

So, Devansh is no longer a mystery, finally, you guys have answers on what role he had and would play, if he is an allay or Mr Malhotra's pawn, or is it still unclear? ^__^

And Manik, his search still hasn't ended, still, they haven't managed to break him, but he always has been impulsive yet sharp, strong yet vulnerable, and a contradiction when it comes to Nandini...Unpredictable describes him best, so what would be his next move? You will find that out in the next chapter... ;)

Hopefully, it was something worthy of the wait and the expectations you guys have from this story, I don't know if I succeed in giving you guys a powerful chapter or not, let me know... :)

I hope you all liked it...Please continue with your support, encouragement, and patience...I truly appreciate your kind words, thank you for always being there! :)

New readers, welcome...I hope you enjoyed the story so far... let me know your thoughts... :)

Silent readers, please make your presence known, leave likes and comments, let me know your thoughts, your feedback is important... :)

Thank you, for staying by my side and always showing so much patience...Thank you for always being there! :)

Thank you! :)

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