[POV: Rajesh]
She was breaking in my arms.
Not metaphorically. Literally, physically coming apart. Great, heaving sobs that shook her entire frame, violent and wet and raw. She didn't fight me anymore. She just… collapsed into the sound. The sound of a universe ending.
Aunt Meera stood in the shattered doorway, her hands pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide with a terror I recognized. The terror of witnessing a fracture you can't fix. I caught her eye and gave a tiny, sharp shake of my head. Not now. Back up.
She hesitated, a war between her instinct to comfort and the shocking reality of me holding her niece. She finally nodded, tears streaking her own face, and retreated, pulling the splintered door as closed as it would go.
Leaving me alone with the hurricane.
I held on. My arms were locked around her, an awkward, rigid cage. I was a life raft made of stone. I didn't know how to do this. My parents' version of comfort was a credit limit increase. Amit's was stupid jokes and unwavering presence. I had no script.
So I just stood there. In the middle of her disaster-zone room, amidst the empty bottles and the fallen sketchbook, holding my enemy while she cried for the boy we both loved.
Her tears soaked through my shirt. Her fists, now limp, were trapped between our bodies. She smelled like stale grief, salt, and the faint, ghostly hint of Amit's sandalwood on the band t-shirt she was drowning in.
Minutes bled together. The storm began to subside. The violent sobs dissolved into shuddering hitches, then into a quiet, desperate weeping. Her weight against me became heavier, more complete.
I couldn't do this anymore. The silence was filling up with everything we weren't saying. With the image of the scissors on the floor. With the look on her face when I'd kicked in the door—pure, undiluted fury that I'd interrupted her final act.
I had to say something. The CEO in me demanded a resolution, a next step. But the friend—the brother—knew there was no corporate ladder out of this hell.
Slowly, carefully, I loosened my grip. I didn't let go, but I shifted, creating a space between us. Just enough so I could look down at her.
Her face was a wreck. Swollen, red, streaked with tears and days of grime. Her eyes, usually sparking with challenge, were two empty, dark wells of pure agony. She looked at me, and there was no hate there now. Just a bottomless exhaustion.
"Why?" she whispered, the word torn up from her ruined throat. "Why did you stop me?"
The question wasn't an accusation. It was a genuine, lost plea for the logic she'd clung to.
"Because it's what he'd want," I said, my own voice rough.
"You don't know that."
"I do. He loved you more than he loved breathing. Him being gone doesn't change that. You dying would… it would make his love pointless." I was fumbling, the words all wrong. "It would be a waste of his favorite creation."
A fresh tear tracked through the mess on her cheek. She looked away, over my shoulder, at the sketchbook on the floor. "He was scared," she said, her voice hollow. "He was going to confront Vikram. About money. He wrote it down. He was scared, and I didn't know. I was worried about a dance."
So she'd seen it. The same thread I'd found.
"I know," I said.
Her head snapped back to me. "What?"
"I went to the roof. The school. There's… a mark. A scrape. Grey paint, maybe. And this." I fished the twisted metal buckle from my pocket, holding it up.
"And someone left paintings up there. Not his. Cold, technical paintings of the building. It's not a suicide spot, Divya. It's a… a set. A staged scene."
Her eyes widened, taking in the buckle, my words. The emptiness in them was slowly replaced by a dawning, horrific comprehension.
"And I got this," I continued, pulling out my phone. I showed her the texts. Let the dead rest. Consider this friendly advice.
She read them, her breath catching. "Who…?"
"I don't know. But it means someone is nervous. Someone who thinks I'm asking questions." I put the phone away. My hands found her shoulders again, not to restrain, but to anchor. To make her see me. "The police see a sad boy who jumped. But we knew him. We know him. Do you believe it? For one second, do you believe Amit Sharma—the guy who cried when we rescued that kitten from the drain—would do that?"
Her lower lip trembled. "No," she breathed. "Never."
"Then it wasn't suicide." I leaned closer, my voice dropping to the barest whisper, a secret for just the two of us in the ruins of her world. "Amit didn't kill himself, Divya. Someone murdered him."
The word hung in the air between us. Murdered. Ugly. Final. Real.
It was the truth we'd both been circling but were too afraid to name. Speaking it made it a fact. It transformed our grief from a passive state to a call to action.
She stared at me, the last of the fog clearing from her eyes, replaced by a sharp, brittle clarity. "The police…"
"Are done. They have their easy answer. We don't."
"What are you saying?" Her voice was a thread.
"I'm saying we don't get to fall apart. Not yet." I tightened my grip on her shoulders. "He was our person. Our responsibility. The police won't avenge him. His grandparents can't. Your aunt can't. It's on us. You and me."
A flicker of the old defiance sparked. "You and me? We can't even share a taxi without arguing about the radio station."
"Good," I shot back, not letting her retreat into the familiar script. "Because I'm not asking you to be my friend. I'm asking you to be my partner. In this. Only this. We're the only two people on earth who give enough of a damn to look. You're chaotic and you see things I don't. I'm systematic and I can follow money trails and get into places you can't. Together… we might be able to do what neither of us can do alone."
I let the proposition hang there. A business proposal for vengeance.
She looked shattered, but she was thinking. I could see it—the gears turning behind her eyes, lubricated by grief and now, a new, dangerous fuel: purpose.
"Avenge him?" she repeated, testing the word.
"Find the truth. Find who did it. And make sure they pay." I didn't say 'kill.' I was a CEO, not a mob boss. But the intent was there, in the cold steel of my voice.
She was quiet for a long time. Her gaze drifted past me, around her room—the tomb she'd built. Then it landed on the silver bracelet on her wrist. She touched the charms with her thumb.
"We stay together," she murmured, echoing his promise. But now it meant something different.
She looked back at me, and for the first time, it wasn't the look of an enemy or a broken girl. It was the look of a co-conspirator. "How do we start?"
Relief, sharp and cold, flooded my veins. She was in.
"First, you take a shower. You eat the soup your aunt is definitely heating up right now. You drink an entire liter of water. You are no good to me—to this—dehydrated and covered in…" I gestured vaguely at her state.
She almost smiled. A ghost of a thing. "Bossy."
"Practical. I'll be downstairs. We'll talk logistics when you're human-shaped again."
I started to turn, to give her space.
"Rajesh."
I stopped.
Her voice was small, but clear. "Thank you. For breaking the door. And… for not letting go."
I didn't know what to say to that. My vocabulary didn't have a response for gratitude in a moment like this. So I just gave a single, stiff nod.
As I walked out of the room, stepping over the broken door, I heard her move behind me. The sound of the bathroom door clicking shut. Then, a moment later, the hesitant rush of the shower.
Downstairs, Aunt Meera was indeed hovering over a pot of soup, her face pale. She looked at me as if I'd descended from another planet.
"Is she…?"
"She's in the shower. She'll eat. She's… back." For now. Because we have a job to do.
Aunt Meera sagged against the counter, a hand over her heart. "What did you say to her?"
I walked to the kitchen island, my mind already racing ahead, building lists, assigning tasks. "The truth," I said, pulling out my phone. "And a promise."
I opened a new, encrypted note. Title: OPERATION AVENGER.
Item 1: Secure all of Amit's digital footprints. Phone records, cloud accounts. (R)
Item 2: Deep dive on Vikram Sharma. Business, associates, financials. (R)
Item 3: Analyze sketchbook/list. Identify P.I. "Arjun." (D)
Item 4: Forensic analysis of rooftop "evidence." Grey paint sample. Buckle. Paintings. (Need a lab. R&D Division?)
I paused, then added:
Item 5: Partner Status: D. Ensure operational stability. (Nutrition, sleep, security.)
This wasn't grief management anymore. This was a mission.
The shower stopped upstairs. The house, for the first time in five days, didn't feel like a tomb. It felt like a war room.
The pact was sealed.
The story of our friendship was over. The story of our revenge had just begun...