Raina's POV
The house was too quiet at 4 AM.
Quiet in a way that didn't feel peaceful, a kind of silence that waits, breathes, and listens.
I sat at a long marble table, cold under my palms. My bag lay limp on the chair beside me. My hair clung to my neck with the dampness of fear and sleepless hours. The lamps glowed low, throwing soft gold arrows across the room.
The papers sat in front of me.
Neat. Precise. Ready.
I didn't touch them.
My fingers trembled against the edge of the table, not violently, just an exhausted, involuntary shake of a body that had been holding itself together for too long.
I wasn't alone.
Mike stood at a respectful distance, straight-backed, hands behind him, posture carved in the same marble as the house. His eyes did not pry. His presence anchored the air, quiet but unyielding.
I looked at the signature line again.
Raina Mehta Hale.
My throat tightened around something ugly.
I swallowed.
"Where is he?" I asked.
Mike didn't blink. "In the study, ma'am."
I nodded, though my chest felt fractured.
I didn't want Ethan anywhere near me right now, and yet the house felt like it was made of his breath.
Before I could gather the courage to speak again, Mike's phone buzzed.
He glanced at it, then at me.
"It's your father," he said gently. "He insists on speaking with you before you decide."
My breath faltered.
He stepped forward and handed me the phone like it was made of glass.
For a moment, I only stared at it, as if it held something radioactive.
My father's number.
Memories threaded silently through me small, warm things:
His arm around my shoulder when I first left India.
His voice saying beta, you're stronger than you know.
Him calling me Riyu when he thought I was asleep.
But now those memories blended with the darker present, the farmhouse, the abduction, the black rose in a vase beside the papers, wilting like a warning.
My fingers curled around the phone.
I pressed accept.
"Papa…"
My voice cracked halfway through.
"Raina," he said, firm, but the tremor was there, just barely, under the layers of steel. "Are you safe right now?"
I looked around the vast, silent room.
Safe wasn't a feeling here.
It was a command.
"Yes," I whispered.
"Good."
A faint exhale. He had been holding his breath too.
"Listen to me carefully. You don't have time."
My throat tightened. "Papa—"
"Someone leaked the December footage," he said. "Not the whole video. Only fragments. Enough to cause questions. Enough to drag your name into tomorrow's headlines."
A hollow ache spread inside my chest.
"Ethan informed me before he took you," Vikram continued, voice steadying itself. "He did what I could not do fast enough. He acted because he knew how severe this would be."
I closed my eyes.
Hearing my father justify the man who kidnapped me carved something sharp into my heart.
"He told me everything," Vikram said softly. "And I agree with him."
My blood ran cold.
"You must sign, Raina."
My breath staggered out. "You can't decide that for me."
"I'm not deciding," he said. "I'm telling you the truth. After the leak, they will come for you. For our family. You cannot stand alone in this storm. I cannot shield you from it from India. Only he can, legally, publicly, strategically."
I shook my head, even though he couldn't see me. Tears burning at the corner of my eye. I wanted to cry, the tornado inside me my heart is moving up and down,
Tears gathered hot behind my eyes.
"He said you'd refuse," Vikram added quietly. "He said you'd be afraid. But he also said…"
A pause.
"…you're still my daughter. And I cannot lose you."
The words broke something inside me that I had been trying too hard to hold.
My voice came out as a whisper.
"Papa… I don't know what to trust anymore."
He exhaled again, long, tired, fatherly.
"I know, beta. That's why I'm asking you to trust me."
I looked at the papers.
The lines.
The signatures.
The black rose on the edge of my vision — its petals darkening, bending inward like an omen bending toward its fate.
"Once the story breaks," Vikram said, "your name will not stay untouched. But if you sign tonight, before the papers hit the world… your narrative changes. Raina Mehta is no longer a victim caught in a leak."
His voice softened.
"She becomes Ethan Hale's wife."
A tear slid down my cheek.
The room became a tunnel, dark edges, bright center.
Mike stood still, gaze lowered, as if trying to give me privacy inside a decision that had too much weight.
I swallowed, though my throat felt raw.
"If I sign," I whispered, "what happens tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow," my father said, "he protects you on every front."
"And if I don't?"
His silence held the answer.
I wiped my cheek and reached for the pen.
My fingers shook once — then steadied.
Not because I was calm.
But because the body knows when a choice becomes inevitable.
As I signed the first letter of my name, the house lights flickered once, faintly, like a breath catching.
The black rose trembled at the edge of my vision.
My hand kept moving, even as tears burned down my face.
R
A
I
N
A
The last stroke of the pen felt like a blade sinking quietly into something sacred.
I placed the pen down with a small click.
Mike stepped forward, his posture reverent.
He looked at the signed page, then at me.
"Thank you, ma'am," he said softly. "I'll inform Mr. Hale."
I flinched at the name.
"Will the leak still go out?" I whispered.
He hesitated, and that hesitation alone sent a chill through my spine.
"We don't know yet," Mike said. "But he'll do everything he can."
Before he could take the papers, my phone buzzed again in my hand.
My father's message.
One line.
I'm proud of you. Stay brave. Tomorrow will be loud.
Something inside me splintered.
Mike lifted the papers.
The black rose tilted again, one petal dropping soundlessly onto the table.
The storm had not arrived yet.
But the wind was rising.