Ashes of love

Rain hit the marble steps like shattered glass. The Malhotra mansion glittered in gold, untouched by the storm. But Aarav Mehta, drenched to the bone, stood outside the gates— the same gates that once opened to him like home, now locked like a verdict. > “Main wapas aaya hoon,” he whispered. I’ve come back. Behind those walls lived the ghosts of every smile he ever lost. The laughter of Tara, the girl who taught him what happiness felt like… and what destruction truly meant. He could still see her, eleven years old, giggling as she handed him a broken toy. “You can fix anything, right, Aarav?” she had said. He had believed her— until she broke the one thing he couldn’t fix: himself. Tonight the mansion looked exactly as it had the day he left— pristine, proud, pretending nothing had happened. But he was no longer the boy they’d framed, humiliated, abandoned. The world now called him Aarav Singh Mehta, founder of Mehta Corporation, the empire no one could touch. He walked through the rain, every drop echoing the words that had haunted him for years. > “Tum ne mujhe barbaad kiya tha, Tara…” You destroyed me, Tara… “Ab main tumhari har muskaan le loonga.” Now I’ll take every smile you ever gave me. Inside, a party was in full swing. Crystal chandeliers, music, laughter— and Tara Malhotra, radiant in white, standing beneath the same chandelier where he had once confessed his love. When their eyes met, her smile faltered. For the first time, she saw not the servant boy she’d once ridiculed, but the storm she had created. And Aarav smiled— cold, perfect, merciless. The game that had begun in childhood had finally come full circle. And this time, no one would leave unscathed.