यथा कर्म तथा फलम्।

As the action, so the result.

-Bhagavad Gita

*****

12 Years Ago, Mumbai.

"Dadu, please don't send me away!"

Sixteen year old Kaira cried, begging her grandfather to let her stay with the family. Warm tears streamed down her flushed, chubby cheeks, instantly washing away in the merciless Mumbai rain.

The downpour felt like a reflection of the inner turmoil tearing through her grandfather..a man who despised the very decision he was making.

To exile his dearest granddaughter. Continents away.

Only a week prior, the man of steel who built empires had been forced to carry his second son's body on his shoulders for the final rites.

It was a sudden, heartbreaking tragedy that no father should ever have to endure.

The entire Raisinghania household was shrouded in a suffocating grief. His daughter in law, Shivani, had gone completely numb. A single afternoon had shattered her entire world.

From the window, Shivani watched blankly as her younger daughter was being packed off, miles away.

In the span of seven days, she had lost her life partner, Naman Raisinghania, the man she had promised forever.

Her elder daughter, Kavya, was currently fighting for her life in a hospital bed, having lost her mobility, with doctors offering little to no hope. And now, her youngest was being sent away.

The tragedy was absolute. The accident had been horrific..the car had flipped multiple times before bursting into flames. Naman had died on the spot. Kavya was left crippled and critical.

And then there was Kaira. Unharmed. Except for a minor fracture in her leg. A mere fracture.

The family stood like statues as Kaira begged them to relent.

"Please, Dadu. Mumma. Dadi. I'll be a good girl, I promise! Please don't send me away. I just want to see Kavya di," she sobbed.

Limping on her fractured leg, she tried to catch up to her grandfather and her uncle, desperate for a single hand to hold her back.

But the proud Raisinghania family just watched in silence. No one dared to cross the decree of the family patriarch.

Little Kaira had witnessed her father smiling one moment, and dying the next.

She remembered playfully pulling her sister's long hair just hours before seeing her half-dead.

It was too much horror for her innocent eyes.

And the cruelest part? It had happened on her sixteenth birthday. A day she had spent months excitedly planning. She had gushed over the theme, the cake, the dress.

Being her daddy's princess, Naman had been driving her to the cake shop, with Kavya tagging along just to tease her.

A day meant for celebration had become the day she lost everything. Now, when she needed her family the most, she was being banished...as if surviving where the others hadn't was her ultimate crime.

.

.

.

.

Across town, the Mumbai monsoon was proving to be just as merciless.

On an anonymous, rainslicked rooftop, Harsh Shekhawat was begging for his life.

"I know you orchestrated Naman Raisinghania's accident," Harsh gasped, his voice tight with warning.

The figure standing before him smirked beneath a heavy hood. "You need to learn an important lesson, Harsh."

The murderer slowly dragged the barrel of a gun across Harsh's chest. "Mind your own business. Too much curiosity gets you killed."

Cornered on the roof of his own apartment building by the gloved, shadowed killer, Harsh's fate was sealed. He had discovered too much.

He was a liability that needed to be permanently removed, and the execution was cold and calculated.

Harsh Shekhawat had nobody left in the world except his twenty one year old son, Avadh. His wife had passed away years ago, leaving just the two of them against the world.

"You backstabbed the entire family!" Harsh spat. Even at gunpoint, his fear wasn't for himself, but for the family that had just lost a son, a husband, and a father.

The man chuckled darkly. "So sorry. Why don't you go express your condolences to Naman yourself?"

"You won't get away with this! I have a fam..."

Before Harsh could finish, the masked figure shoved him hard over the ledge.

The fall was designed to look completely accidental. A man taking a walk on a rainy night, slipping on the wet rooftop tiles while nobody was home. The perfect narrative, already framed.

As Harsh lay broken and bleeding on the concrete below, taking his final, shallow breaths, someone sprinted toward him through the downpour. It was Avadh.

"Papa, please!" the boy screamed, desperately shaking his father's shoulders. "Please open your eyes. Papa, look at me!"

With a agonizing effort, Harsh raised a trembling, blood-stained hand to cup his son's face. His eyes filled with the profound grief of a father leaving too soon...all his dreams of seeing Avadh graduate, secure his future, and build a life, shattered in an instant.

"Nothing will happen to you, Papa, I'm right here," Avadh promised, his hands shaking violently as he dialed for an ambulance, fighting back choked sobs. "Please! Somebody help us!"

But Harsh's gaze was fixed, frantic.

"Prom-is-e me... something..." Harsh choked out, coughing up blood.

"Papa...!"

"Promise me... you will stay away... from the Raisinghania family..."

"Who did this to you, Papa?! Tell me!" Avadh begged.

"Avadh... promise me... never set foot near the Raisinghanias..."

"Tell me who it was!" Avadh cried out.

"Raisinghania..."

Before he could finish the thought, Harsh's eyes went still. His breathing stopped.

The identity of the killer slipped away into the night, leaving Avadh pulling his father's lifeless body tightly against his chest. The pooling blood soaked through his clothes as his silent, agonizing sobs tore through the rainy night.

By the time the neighborhood gathered, the ambulance arrived, and the police began taping off the scene, Avadh had gone completely numb. He stood alone in the chaos, staring blankly at the spot where his father's body now lay beneath a cold white sheet.

All he could hear on a loop was his father's dying plea..'Stay away from the Raisinghania's.'

Two days later.

The funeral was over. The hollow condolences from distant relatives had ceased. The police had officially closed the case, ruling it a tragic, accidental slip during the monsoon.

Avadh finally returned to the empty apartment. There were no tears left inside him..only a freezing, hollow void. The house was as dead as his soul.

The police believed the accident theory, but Avadh knew better. He had seen the terror and urgency in his father's final moments.

His father had served the Raisinghania family for the better part of his life; for that very man to warn him away with his dying breath didn't add up. It wasn't an accident. It was a execution.

A dark, lethal anger began to seep through Avadh's veins.

"I will get my revenge," he vowed into the empty room. "I will avenge your death, Papa."

Before tonight, twenty one year old Avadh Shekhawat had his entire life perfectly mapped out.

He was a brilliant computer science student at IIT Bombay ...the elite of the elite.

His plan was simple: graduate, head to the US for his Master's, land a high paying job at a tech giant, earn in dollars, and eventually return to India to launch his own empire.

But that dream died on the concrete alongside his father. A conventional corporate career no longer held any meaning.

This wasn't the end of Avadh's life.

It was the Aarambh...the beginning of the end for the Raisinghanias.

अन्तः एव आरम्भः।

Ant hee Aarambh hai

The end itself is the beginning.

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What actually happened that night?

Why was Kaira sent away?

Why did Harsh warn Avadh?

Why does the loyal men want to destroy the empire?

Vote and Comment because this is only the beginning of something big.