The sandals didn't fit.They were cheap, pink, plastic things—flimsy and child-sized, not meant for someone walking out of a billion-rupee mansion. I stepped into them anyway.
It was better than walking barefoot on pride.
The guard didn't look at me.Not even once.He locked the gate behind me with the same finality as a judge sealing a courtroom.
Click.And just like that, my chapter in the Mehra Empire was over.
I stared at the two suitcases beside me—shiny, expensive, still carrying the price tags from luxury stores in Milan. Irony had a strange sense of humor. I'd never owned something this fancy in the slums. Now I had to drag them down a cracked sidewalk, back into the world they thought I'd escaped.
My hands trembled. Not from fear. From control.Because if I let go for even a second, I'd cry.
And crying now?That would be exactly what they wanted.
I looked up at the Mehra mansion one last time.White marble. Golden balcony. Flawless glass.Three stories tall, yet not enough height to cover the rottenness inside.
In one of the windows, I thought I saw movement—one of the brothers?Watching me?Or maybe it was just the curtains swaying, as indifferent as their hearts.
Whatever.Let them watch.
I adjusted my grip on the suitcase handles and turned away.
_______________________________________________________________________
The city didn't notice I had fallen.The city didn't care.
It was busy with its horns, its foot traffic, its street vendors yelling about mangoes and discounts on fake Levi's jeans. I passed them all, like a shadow bleeding into a blur of heat and color.
People stared. Of course they did.Designer clothes. Branded luggage. Bare face. No car.
They must've thought I was running away from some arranged marriage, or got dumped at the altar. Maybe both.
If only the truth were that romantic.
I walked until the noise faded, until I was back in the parts of town that didn't show up on Google Maps. Cracked bricks, uneven roads, stray dogs that chased garbage trucks, and posters of politicians promising things they'd already failed to deliver.
And finally—home.
Or what was once home.
_________________________________________________________________________
The door to Amma's old room was still nailed shut.The neighbors had long assumed I'd died or gotten trafficked when I disappeared last year.I knocked once, politely.
Then twice.Then again—louder.
An old man finally opened the door. Gray beard, milky eyes, one leg missing.
"Who...?" he squinted.
"Kalyani," I said. "Rani. From room 104. Remember?"
He blinked. And then his eyes widened.
"Gods be damned," he whispered. "You're alive?"
I smiled. "Barely. Can I crash for the night? Just until I find something."
He didn't ask questions. He just opened the door wider.
Because in this part of the city, survival isn't questioned.It's shared.
_______________________________________________________________
The room was just as I remembered it.Peeling paint. Rusted fan. A tiny framed photo of Amma still nailed to the wall like she'd died yesterday.
I dropped the suitcases at the corner and sat on the floor.
That's when the tears came.
Not because I was weak.But because I'd made it back.
Because even after everything—the mansion, the betrayal, the second DNA test—I still had a place to sit. A floor that remembered me. A wall that carried my mother's memory. A fan that still turned, even if it groaned every five seconds.
This was where the next version of me would begin.
Not in silk.But in steel.