Prologue

Twenty Years Ago

"Baba, please... meri baat maan lijiye. Maine kuch nahi kiya."
(Baba, please... believe me. I didn't do anything.)

"Krishvi, bas!"
(Krishvi, enough!)

"Please, Baba... mujh par vishwas kijiye. Main sach keh rahi hoon."
(Please, Baba... believe me. I'm telling the truth.)

Her tiny hands held tightly onto his shirt, her fingers trembling.

"Maine kisi ko kuch nahi bataya. Mujhe nahi pata woh log kaun the."
(I didn't tell anyone anything. I don't know who those people were.)

Her voice broke.

"Baba, please... mujhe aapse darr lag raha hai."
(Baba, please... I'm scared of you.)

He finally looked at his seven-year-old daughter.

For a moment, the anger in his eyes disappeared.

There was only pain.

Pain, humiliation, helplessness and a truth he wasn't ready to face.

But Krishvi was too young to understand any of it.

All she knew was that her father, the man she had always believed would protect her, was looking at her as though she had betrayed him.

"Tujhse achhi toh meri beti nahi hoti, Krishvi."
(It would've been better if I had never had a daughter like you, Krishvi.)

Silence.

Krishvi stopped breathing for a second.

Her little fingers slowly loosened from his shirt.

She stared at him, trying to understand what she had done wrong.

"Aap... mujhse pyaar nahi karte?"
(You... don't love me?)

He didn't answer.

He simply turned away.

And perhaps that silence hurt more than his words.

Krishvi lowered her eyes, trying desperately not to cry.

She was seven.

She didn't understand the investigation.

She didn't understand the accusations.

She didn't understand why everyone was angry, why her uncle wasn't coming home, or why the adults around her suddenly looked at her differently.

She only understood one thing.

Baba was angry with her.

And somewhere inside her little heart, a belief began to form

Maybe Baba doesn't love me anymore.

She didn't know that before the night ended, she would disappear.

She didn't know that her uncle would never come home.

She didn't know that her father's life would be torn apart.

And her father

He didn't know that those five seconds of anger would become the words he would regret for the rest of his life.

Because twenty years later, Krishvi would remember them.

Every single word.

And by then, neither father nor daughter would be the same.