DELHI, DISTRICT COURT:
The courtroom was neither grand nor quiet. The ceiling fans moved slowly overhead, doing little against the heat that had built up since morning. The wooden benches along the walls were worn from years of waiting. Lawyers, witnesses, relatives; all of them learning, sooner or later, that patience wasn’t optional here.
The room smelled faintly of old paper.
Aarushi Menon had arrived twenty minutes early. She always did. Not out of anxiety but out of habit. Her file was open on the table, papers arranged in an order she had memorised the night before. She sat with her back straight, one hand resting on the file, the other in her lap; still. Giving nothing away to the room around her.
She hadn’t looked at the defence table once since entering.
She didn’t need to.
At the front of the room. Justice R. Pillai took his seat with the quiet efficiency of a man who had done this too many times to make a ceremony of it. He was in his early fifties, hair fully white, face carrying the permanently neutral expression of someone who had trained himself to react to nothing until he had finished thinking about it. He placed his reading glasses low on his nose and opened the file before him.
“We are here on the bail application filed on behalf of the accused, Deepak Shetty.”
He didn’t look up. “Prosecution may proceed.”
Aarushi rose from her chair and stepped forward. She didn’t rush, didn’t over-explain. She stood with her shoulders level and spoke clearly, her voice filling the room without any particular effort.
“Your Honour, three consignments. Falsified manifests. A depot that hasn’t existed in two years. This isn’t a paperwork error. It’s a pattern.”
She walked to the bench and placed the documents before the judge, not sliding them across, setting them down with quiet certainty.
“We submit checkpoint reports, verification records, and transport logs showing the same route under three different company names in eight months.” She stepped back and let it stand.
From the defence table, Krishnamurthy rose. He was a heavyset man in his mid-forties who had learned long ago that appearing unbothered was its own kind of argument. He straightened his coat without looking down at it and moved to the floor with the easy manner of someone who had won cases in worse rooms than this.
“Your Honour, my client is a licensed transporter of fifteen years with no prior record. This is a documentation dispute, nothing more.” He reached back to his table, picked up a single sheet of paper, and placed it before the judge.
“A signed affidavit confirming the consignment was fully authorised. The weight discrepancy…” he opened his hands slightly, “Standard industry practice.”
Across the floor, Aarushi’s eyes moved to that document. She looked at it for two seconds, no more.
She had never seen that affidavit before today. Her hand tightened slightly on the file at her side. Not from panic. From something quieter and more focused than panic.
“Your Honour,” she said, keeping her voice steady, “this was not disclosed to the prosecution before this hearing. We request time to verify---”
“Filed this morning.” Krishnamurthy didn’t hurry the words. “Within permissible procedural window, Your Honour.”
The room waited. Justice Pillai read without rushing, turned the page, read further, then set the document down and looked at both advocates over the rim of his glasses. He spent no more time on one than the other.
Then he spoke.
“The prosecution has presented circumstantial irregularities. However, given the defence’s submitted documentation and the accused’s clean prior record, this court does not find sufficient grounds to deny bail at this stage. Bail is granted. Surety of two lakh rupees. Passport surrendered. Accused to report every Friday until trial.”
The gavel came down.
The room shifted and loosened. People began moving toward the door. Krishnamurthy turned back to his table with the quiet satisfaction of a man collecting something that was always going to be his.
Aarushi stood where she was for a moment. She didn’t move right away. Her eyes stayed on the affidavit still sitting on that judge’s bench, that document that hadn’t existed yesterday and today had been enough to open a door that should have stayed shut.
Then she closed her file and turned.
She crossed the courtroom floor at an easy pace, moving through the small groups of people dispersing clerks, junior advocates, and a court officer gathering papers. Her path shifted slightly, naturally, without drawing any attention.
She stopped beside Deepak Shetty and Krishnamurthy. Close enough that the conversation would stay between the three of them. Shetty was still loosening up with relief, tension leaving his body the way it does when a man realises he’s walking out of a room he thought might hold him. Krishnamurthy stood beside him, composed, unhurried, his afternoon exactly as planned.
Neither of them had fully clocked her before she spoke.
“Enjoy the weekend.”
Her voice was quiet. Unhurried. She let her eyes move from Shetty to Krishnamurthy, giving each of them just enough time to understand she was talking to both.
“I’ve seen the affidavit before; I just need time to remember where.”
She held Krishnamurthy’s gaze one second longer than necessary. Not as a threat. Just as a fact.
Then she turned and walked out, the door swinging shut behind her.
She pushed through the side door at the end of the corridor and stepped out into the open air of the building’s exterior stairwell, quieter away from the foot traffic.
She pulled out her phone and dialled without checking the contact. It rang twice.
“The affidavit,” she said the moment the line connected. “Find out when it was actually drafted. Not filed, drafted. There’s a difference, and that difference is what I need.”
She listened for a moment, jaw set.
“I know it was within procedure. I’m not talking about procedure.” A pause. “Just get me the notary details.”
She ended the call and stood there for a moment, phone still in her hand, looking out at the stretch of road below.
She was AARUSHI MENON.
Twenty-six years old. Young enough that people still did a second take when she walked into a courtroom. Not because of how she looked, but because of how she carried herself.
She finished her law degree two years ahead of the curve, not by working harder than everyone else but by understanding things faster. She had a particular way of reading a room, a case, a judge, an opposing counsel. And knowing within minutes where the weak point was.
She didn’t take every case. She took the ones that bothered her. Today’s had bothered her from the first page.
Shah Villa:
Zayne stepped into the foyer, a glass of whiskey resting comfortably in his hand. He wore a fitted black turtleneck paired with tailored black trousers. He gave the glass a gentle swirl, the ice cubes clinking softly against the crystal. His free hand remained tucked into his trouser pocket. His dark hair brushed the nape of his neck, while a few loose curls had fallen across his forehead.
He wasn't angry. He was calm, standing before the floor-to-ceiling glass and gazing out at the fountain, as though the sight of the water soothed something deep inside him.
Sipping his whiskey, he let out a low growl. "It's still not enough."
The man was chained behind him, tied hard to the railing of the stairs. The rope of chain wrapped twice around his wrists and cut into his skin every time he moved, even a little. He had already been beaten badly, long before now. His forehead had a deep, fresh wound, and blood kept trickling down from it, sliding over an older bruise that had already turned dark and swollen. The blood didn’t stop. It ran slow, steady, dripping down past his eyebrow and along the side of his nose.
He was barely conscious. His head hung low, chin almost touching his chest, and his breathing came out uneven, shallow, like it hurt to keep pulling air in. There were sharp cuts along his neck too, careful cuts, not deep enough to remind him he was still alive and still afraid. He wasn’t dead. He was only unconscious. Hanging there against the chains like his body had given up before his mind had.
Zayne turned around slowly. He placed his empty glass down on the table, careful and unhurried. Then he pulled out his other hand and picked up the keys that had been sitting on the table the whole time, weighed them for a second and then threw them across the room toward his man.
The man didn’t move an inch. He stood like a statue the entire time, waiting, watching, and when the keys came flying at him, he caught them cleanly out of the air without a single word. No reaction, no hesitation.
Then he turned and walked toward the half-dead man slumped against the stairs. He knelt beside him and began working the lock loose, freeing the chains that had been biting hard into torn, raw skin for hours.
Zayne silently looked at them; the sound of the chains rattling and falling loose filled the entire foyer. It echoed off the walls, metal against marble, long and heavy. The moment the last link came free, the man’s body dropped forward, falling flat onto the floor, face down.
No one in the room moved either. Nobody checked if he was breathing. The silence afterward was almost worse than the sound of the chains.
Zayne finally reached over and picked up the cigarette box sitting nearby. He opened it, plucked one out, and lit it slowly, unbothered, the flame catching easily in the quiet room. Then he took a long drag and exhaled, smoking like nothing at all had just happened in front of him, like the body on the floor was simply a part of furniture now.
He watched the smoke fade away, then picked up his phone and dialled a number. The call connected right away, but for a while, neither of them said anything. The silence just sat there.
Zayne took one last drag of his cigarette, breathed it out slowly, then dropped it on the floor and stepped on it to put it out.
Then he finally spoke. This time his voice was loud, and it echoed through the empty foyer.
“Congratulations, Reid.”
His voice was low and cold as he said it, staring at the unconscious man lying in front of him.
The easygoing conversation came to an abrupt halt when one of his men hurried into the room.
"Sir, Ma'am has arrived."
Those four words were enough to jolt his lifeless heart back to life. Slipping his phone into his pocket, he rose without hesitation and strode out.
When he stepped into the main hall, he found her lounging on the couch, one leg crossed over the other. A glass of juice rested in her hand as she took an unhurried sip before lifting her gaze to him.
"You're late."
One brow arched, but he said nothing. He closed the distance between them.
"What do you want now?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she studied him in silence, her gaze steady and deliberate.
"Love isn't the only emotion that draws someone close to you," she said at last. "Hatred does the same."
"I see," he replied, holding her gaze without flinching.
She set the empty glass on the side table and rose to her feet. She tried to stand eye to eye with him, but it was impossible. Without making any effort, his towering height overshadowed her.
Her eyes wandered back to the path from where he had come, lingering for a moment as if retracing his steps. Then, with deliberate slowness, she turned her gaze to him again. A faint smirk tugged at her lips, sharp and mocking.
“Khoon bahaye bina guzara nahi hota kya tumhara?” she asked, her voice dripping with disdain. This time, her expression twisted into something uglier. Disgust, contempt, a revulsion that seemed to rise from the very core of her being.
He did not flinch. He did not move. He stood there, a figure carved out of stone, unfazed by her words, untouched by her scorn. His silence was heavier than her accusation, and when he finally spoke, his voice was calm, steady, almost chilling.
“You don’t know who I am.”
The words hung in the air, not as a defence, but as a warning, an echo of something larger, something darker, something she had yet to understand.
"Tell me, darling." Her voice was calm, almost teasing. "What does a man truly crave from a woman... especially a man like you?"
Zayne held her gaze for a long moment before a slow smirk curved his lips. His eyes travelled over her body, lingering with unmistakable intensity.
“Undress and get on your knees, doll.”
A low chuckle escaped her lips as she looked at him with quiet defiance.
"If I do that, you'll leave me afterwards."
A knowing smile tugged at his lips. "I'm only a man."
She took another step forward until barely an inch separated them. The warmth radiating from his body wrapped around her, yet she refused to look away.
"Jaane his nahi dungi. (I'm not letting you leave, this time.)"
His smile deepened, amusement flickering in his eyes.
"Mana rahi ho ya, zabardasti apna bana rahi ho? (Are you trying to win me over... or are you planning to make me yours?"
She lifted her hand and brushed the loose strand of hair away from his eyes.
"To make you mine? I'd do anything."
Before her fingers could linger, he caught her wrist. The teasing glint in his eyes disappeared, replaced by something cold and dangerous.
"Don't you fucking dare come here again."
But she didn't back away. She held his gaze, the same unwavering devotion shining in her eyes.
" Khauf itna gehra hai ke meri qurbat se bhi darr gaye, Janaab?" (Is your fear so deep that even my closeness frightens you, Sir?)
"Darr? Jab mohabbat hi nahin, to phir kis baat ka khauf?" (Fear?) A faint, mocking smile touched his lips. ("When there's no love, what is there to fear?")
For the briefest moment, the glimmer in her eyes dimmed. But it vanished just as quickly, replaced by a flash of anger as her jaw tightened.
"Bilkul. Duniya mohabbat mein tootne se darti hai... lekin tum? Tum to mohabbat se hi darte ho, Zayne Shah." (Exactly.) Her voice was calm, yet every word struck with precision.
(People fear losing the ones they love... but you?) She took another step toward him, her gaze unwavering. ("You fear love itself, Zayne Shah.")
To Be Continued…!
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