Sunlight leaked into the cold bedroom, diffused through tall French windows and sheer silk curtains. Aditya blinked awake, warmth still lingering in his limbs from the thick, cloud-like duvet wrapped around him. His hand stretched out instinctively across the bed, reaching for a familiar softness. But there was nothing—just a hollow in the sheets where her body should have been.

He frowned, still half-asleep, dragging his palm over the cold, empty space. The scent of her—delicate, floral, like a wild rose just kissed by rain—lingered faintly on the pillow, but she was nowhere in sight.

He didn't worry much. She was probably on the balcony, admiring the garden like she always did when she was lost in thought, or maybe in the kitchen brewing that floral tea she loved. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and exhaled deeply. The floor was too cold. The silence too sharp.

The house, though big, always felt like a gilded cage—cold marble, expensive curtains, walls that echoed. But her presence had softened it, like a silk ribbon around steel. Even in her quietest moments, Shradha brought life to this place. Today, it felt empty. Suspiciously so.

Still, he brushed it off.

Aditya made his way to the bathroom and turned on the tap. The water, like everything else in his life, responded without resistance. Routine had become his crutch—his defense against the chaos that loomed just beneath the surface. Toothbrush. Paste. Water. Scrub. Rinse. Repeat.

Then his eyes caught something.

In the trash bin, barely hidden beneath tissue paper, something caught his eye. A plastic stick. Two red lines.

Aditya froze.

He reached into the bin with a hesitant hand, like he was about to disturb something sacred. The world narrowed. The moment the stick was in his fingers, his chest caved with the weight of realization.

Two lines.

Two lines meant life. A baby. His child.

His mouth parted in disbelief. Emotion rushed in—a torrent of joy and something far deeper, something ancient. He staggered back, gripping the marble sink, staring at himself in the mirror. His heart thundered.

A father.

A father.

Aditya could barely breathe as the thought consumed him. Not a daydream, not a fantasy, but real. Shradha was—no, had been—pregnant. His child.

A sudden wave of love enveloped him, a raw, desperate kind of love. He imagined holding his child close, protecting them from the world, being the kind of father he had always longed for. The kind he never had. He wanted to teach them how to ride a bike, how to hold a brush, not a gun, how to never be afraid of their own feelings. He would be present. Loving. Nothing like the cold, absentee monster that raised him.

He laughed softly to himself, eyes burning with unshed tears. For a moment, he forgot everything else. He was going to be a father.

But the silence began to press in again.

The house was still.

Too still.

He called out her name, "SHRADHAA!"

No answer.

He finished brushing his teeth and moved quickly through the house. The kitchen was empty. Balcony deserted. Garden untouched. Every room—silent. Lifeless. Her slippers were gone. So was her favorite silk robe. Her perfume bottle no longer stood on the dresser.

Panic coiled in his gut.

The silence became unbearable.

His heart, just moments ago filled with hope, now pounded against his ribcage with panic. Each beat felt like a ticking bomb. Her absence was no longer an innocent thing. It was deliberate. A warning. A scream in silence.

Aditya stormed back into the bedroom, breath erratic, head spinning.

Her drawer—emptied in a hurry.

Jewelry—vanished.

Passport—he checked the safe with shaking fingers. Not there.

The room spun around him.

He opened his own drawer. His wallet was there, but it was far too light. He flung it open and thumbed through it—notes missing. A thick wad of bills she'd taken, possibly everything in it.

"No, no, no..." he muttered, a growl rising in his throat.

He staggered back and then slammed the drawer shut with enough force to splinter the wood. His face twisted, veins standing out in his neck.

The rage came like a storm.

He picked up the bedside lamp and hurled it across the room. It exploded against the wall, a hundred shards flying. His fists punched the mattress, the walls, his own legs. He overturned the chair, knocked over the vase on the vanity—ceramic and glass crashed to the floor in violent clinks.

"You left me?!" he roared, voice cracking like thunder.
"After everything—after THIS?"

His chest heaved, mouth dry with fury. He grabbed the mirror and flung it to the floor, watching his own shattered reflection multiply in tiny pieces. His knuckles bled, but he didn't care. He wanted to feel the pain. Needed to.

She waited until I softened. Waited until I trusted her.

He had opened his world to her, in his own way. He had tried to give her comfort, stability—even if he didn't know how to express love properly. But now... she was gone. Took his child, and vanished like a ghost in the dawn.

He kicked the foot of the bed so hard it nearly lifted. Then he collapsed onto the rumpled sheets, panting like a wild animal, hair falling over his forehead soaked in sweat.

She had escaped him.

And it wasn't just anger that clawed at his chest. It was fear. It was ache. It was guilt.

Because somewhere between the silence and the shouting, he realized he loved her.

He loved the way she would stare quietly into the garden as if it spoke to her. He loved the way she would hum under her breath while washing her face. He even loved her silences—those long pauses when she seemed a million miles away. He wanted her to stay. Not just for the child. For himself.

And now, she was gone.

He wiped the sweat and blood from his face and stood up. His breathing slowed, but the fire inside burned brighter. The fury hadn't left—it had just become colder, more focused.

He walked to the wardrobe, tore off his nightclothes, and changed into black jeans and a crisp shirt. His hands still trembled slightly, but his eyes—once glassy with panic—were now sharp, calculating. Determined.

He reached for his phone, dialed quickly.

"Hello?" came the groggy voice of his younger brother Ashish on the other end.

"She's gone," he said, low and cold.

"Who?"

"Shradha . . . She just left."

"What?"

"She took the cash, her things. Disappeared before sunrise." He paused, teeth clenched. "I want every camera in the city checked. Every highway. Every bus station. Airport. I don't care if it takes every man we've got—find her."

There was silence on the other end, then a sharp, "Got it. I'll start immediately."

He ended the call and stood at the edge of the room, now a battlefield of broken glass and destroyed memories.

The ache gnawed at his ribs, deeper than anger, deeper than betrayal.

He loved her.
And the thought of being separated from her—of her carrying his child and choosing a life without him—hurt more than he ever imagined anything could.

He wasn't just trying to track her down now.
He was trying to reclaim the only person who had ever made his cold, empty world feel like home.

Even if she hated him.

Even if she ran to the ends of the earth—
He would find her.

________

Two hours later, he stood by the wide glass windows of his study, staring out at the garden she used to admire so often. The once-beautiful place now looked like a painting turned upside down—meaningless, dull, silent.

The room was dim despite the daylight. Curtains half-drawn. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. The bandage on his knuckle was already red with seeping blood. A tumbler of whiskey sat untouched on the desk.

Then came a knock.

Aditya turned sharply. Ashish entered, phone in hand, laptop tucked under his arm, face tense but focused.

"We have something," he said without preamble.

Aditya's heart leapt to his throat. "Tell me."

"The car," his brother began, dropping the laptop on the table and opening it. "It was tracked through its GPS. Last active ping at 3:07 AM. The location—" he tapped the screen "—was the international airport."

"The airport?" he echoed, fury and disbelief surging together.

Ashish nodded grimly. "The car was abandoned in the parking lot. We're going through every CCTV frame from 2:30 to 4:00. Also cross-referencing all departures within that time window. We'll find her."

Ashish didn't understand the relationship his brother and sister in law shared but he had never seen his brother lose his cool like this. He was becoming a mad man and the wounds he infiltrated on himself was proof of how much he cared about his wife.

Aditya stared at the map. The red dot near the terminal.

She'd really done it.
Slipped away like smoke, hours before he even woke up.

His teeth ground together, a low growl threatening to escape his throat.

"She played me," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "She waited till I was soft... and then ran. With my child."

Ashish's eyes widened at the sudden news. His brother was going to be a father? He, an uncle?
He didn't speak though. What could he say? There was fury in the air, thick as fog. Then, just as another call was coming in on Aditya's phone, it buzzed again. Unknown number.

He answered.

And everything paused.

Radhika Advani—low, raspy, too calm.

"I thought it might be you who picked up. The great husband," she said, her voice dripping with bitter amusement. "Looking for your wife already? You didn't last long without her."

He froze. His grip on the phone tightened.
He said nothing, jaw clenched so tight it ached.

The woman laughed, dry and taunting.

"You really believed she'd stay? That she'd carry your child and live happily ever after in that ice-cold palace of yours?"

A pause. He could hear her sip something on the other end.

"You men... so desperate to own women you don't even understand. She ran from you, darling. In the dead of night. You didn't see it, did you? You never saw the cracks."

His breath trembled. Rage clawed up his spine.

"She was mine," he growled. "She—is—my wife."

"And still," the old woman said softly, cruelly, "she chose to run. Carrying your child."

That sentence was a dagger.

"She's always been like this," Radhika continued. "Restless. Reckless. Untrustworthy. Just like her father. I told her never to trust a man who sees her as a trophy. But I also warned you, didn't I?"

His eyes flared. "You poisoned her."

"No. I just knew her better than you ever would. You thought money, silence, and your possessive love would keep her chained? You're not the first man to think that. She's not the type to be kept, sweetheart. She escapes."

The words twisted around his ribs like barbed wire. He felt it all—the betrayal, the humiliation, the ache of being left.

"She's carrying my child," he said through gritted teeth. "And if you think I'll just sit back and let her disappear—"

"Do what you want," she cut in sharply. "But don't call this love. You wanted control. You wanted her to heal without healing you. She ran, and you'll never see her the same again—if you find her at all."

Click.

The line went dead.

He stood there, phone still pressed to his ear, the static ringing louder than anything else in the room. For a moment, all he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears, the trembling of something broken deep inside his chest.

He threw the phone across the room.

It shattered against the wall.

Ashish flinched but said nothing.

"Get me everything," Aditya growled. "Every passport. Every flight manifest. Every exit stamp. Every image on every damn camera."

He stormed to the desk, grabbed his coat, and began buttoning it with shaking fingers.

"She thinks she won," he muttered darkly. "But she doesn't know me." His voice dropped to a whisper.

"She wants to vanish?" Aditya hissed, eyes fixed out the window."She thinks this is over? That I'll just sit back while she disappears into some other life?"

He turned to his brother, face pale with fury, eyes burning.

"Find her."

There was no passion in his voice now—just a command. Cold. Unforgiving.

"Before I stop wanting answers and start wanting revenge."

______

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