So why did that same man look frightened when he saw me?
Neera falls silent. Then she asks softly, “What man?”
Yuvans tries to read her face. Yogesh whispers from within, “She’s hiding something. But what?”
“Why are you staying away from me, Neera?” Yuvans suddenly asks. “Have I done something so terrible?”
Pain flickers through Neera’s eyes for a moment. “You didn’t do anything. You just never stood up. For yourself. For us. Every time Mom and Dad said something to you, you stayed quiet. Your silence left me alone.”
Yuvans is shaken to his core. This accusation isn’t new—but today, for the first time, he hears it so clearly.
“I thought peace was better,” he says quietly.
“Sometimes peace is cowardice.” Neera’s voice breaks, then steadies. “I’ve watched you grow weaker, Yuvans. And I don’t want a weak partner.”
The sentence sinks deep inside him.
Yogesh thinks inwardly: This isn’t just a story of humiliation. It’s the story of two broken people who chose distance instead of trying to understand each other.
The night grows deeper. Neera turns over and falls asleep. Yuvans’s eyes remain open.
Their inner dialogue begins.
“Are we going to take revenge?” Yuvans asks in a tired voice.
“First, we’ll learn the truth,” Yogesh replies.
“What if the truth came from inside the house?”
“Then the house itself will become a battlefield.”
“And what if I really was dead?”
Yogesh pauses. “Then we’ll have to find out who brought us back.”
This question is new. If Yogesh’s consciousness wandered here—was it an accident? Or had someone deliberately pulled him into this body?
Over the next few days, Yuvans doesn’t stay quiet. He listens. He watches. The servants’ whispers. His father-in-law’s phone calls. Riya’s unease. Neera staying awake late into the night.
One day, he goes to the old storage room behind the mansion. It’s the same place where his memories grow dark. There’s a faint scratch mark on the floor, as if something heavy had been dragged across it. A broken flowerpot lies near the wall.
“Here,” Yuvans says inwardly.
“And evidence was erased here,” Yogesh adds.
A voice comes from behind them. “What are you looking for?”
He turns. His father-in-law is standing there.
“Nothing. Just looking around,” Yuvans says.
“Don’t get tangled up in old things.” His father-in-law’s voice is stern. “Sometimes old things start to stink.”
The sentence sounds simple, but its meaning runs deep.
“And what if the smell belongs to the truth?” Yuvans asks.
His father-in-law’s eyes narrow. “Is your mind all right?”
For the first time, Yuvans looks him straight in the eye. “Maybe it’s finally starting to be.”
After that day, the atmosphere in the house grows even more tense. The looks change. The whispers increase.
One evening, Neera comes to him herself. “What are you planning to do?”
“Find out the truth.”
“And what if the truth breaks you?”
“I’m already broken.”
Neera continues staring at him for a long time. Then she says quietly, “Last night, I heard voices.”
Yuvans’s heartbeat quickens. “Whose?”
“An argument. Yours and someone else’s. I came outside. You were on the ground. Dad was there too.”
“And?”
“Dad said you were drunk and had fallen. He told me to go back inside.”
“Did you believe him?”
Neera’s eyes fill with tears. “I wanted to.”
That confession changes everything.
Now this isn’t just a story of suspicion—it’s also a story of power within the family. Had his father-in-law hidden something? Was that man working for him? Had Yuvans stumbled onto some financial secret?
Yogesh thinks inwardly: This may not have been just an attempted murder. It may have been the result of a much greater fear.
The next day, Yuvans goes looking for that man again. This time, he stops him.
“Tell me the truth,” he says calmly.
“I don’t know anything.”
“Who paid you?”
The man’s eyes widen. “What money?”
“The money you were paid to leave me dying.”
The man begins to tremble. “I—I was told to just scare you.”
“Who told you?”
He falls silent. Sweat glistens at his temples.
“If you don’t tell me,” Yuvans says softly, “I won’t stay quiet next time.”
The man whispers, “Don’t ask me his name. I’ll be killed.”
“And what happened to me?” Yuvans’s eyes turn hard.
The man breaks. “Sir called me. He said you were ruining the family’s honor. You’d seen some documents.”
“What documents?”
“I don’t know. But he was furious.”
“Sir. Who? My father-in-law?”
“Or someone else?”
Yuvans’s world shakes. If this is true, then this isn’t just a story of humiliation—it’s a story of conspiracy.
That night, he tells Neera everything. Neera is stunned.
“Dad couldn’t do something like that,” she says.
“Are you sure?”
Neera falls silent. Inside her, two voices are struggling—the daughter and the wife.
“If this is true,” she says softly, “then I’ll stand with you too.”
This is the first time she has said the words “stand with you.”
Yuvans feels it from within: Perhaps this marriage isn’t completely dead yet.
But the war is still ahead.
Who is guilty? Who is the victim? Who is the puppet? And who is pulling the strings?
The answers are still blurred.
What will happen next?