The road moved downward as I rode back, the hills closing in like they always did at dusk. The engine of my bike was vibrating against my legs. I guess—- I might have crossed the speed of 140 this time. If Yuvi was here, he would have been up for a race but he's 4 states away. Maybe luck was not on our side today, but then again… it was never with us, if we get to that matter.
The air grew colder with each turn, the higher I climbed, slicing through my jacket and settling deep into my bones. I welcomed it more than anything and the loud hissing of the wind in my ear helped the voices in my head blur as always. Cold had a way of keeping things honest. It… didn't pretend to care and it surely didn't promise warmth and then take it away.
My bike responded to every shift of my weight, every subtle lean of my body, like it understood me better than most people ever had. On the road, in that moment, I wasn't somebody's daughter. I didn't have any expectations on my shoulders. And I didn't have the weight of the debts people thought I owed them simply for existing under their roof.
By the time the familiar Iron Gate came into view, my shoulders were already burning and my palms sore. I slowed down my bike letting the engine die reluctantly. Honestly? I wasn't ready to pretend again but I had no other option.
Silence rushed in immediately, thick and heavy, replacing the freedom I always felt when I rode a bike. I removed my helmet slowly, delaying the moment for as long as I could and stepped inside, my breath fogging faintly in the cooling air.
The sight of that house made me want to take another ride, but I couldn't. The lights glowed behind curtained windows, white and cold, like the lies told inside it for years. I locked the gate behind me and walked up the steps. My boots clicked against the marble floor.
The door creaked when I opened it. I stepped inside, and the familiar smell hit me—cooked food, room freshener, and something sour beneath it all... something that never left this place. Judgment, maybe? Or maybe… resentment. I shut the door behind me with more force than necessary.
"You're late," my mother said from the living room without looking at me. Her voice was calm but not the good kind, the kind that sharpened right before it cut. "Girls don't roam around like this."
I didn't answer right away. I slipped off my gloves, placed my helmet under my arm, and walked past her line of sight. My father sat on the couch, eyes fixed on the television as always because it was better to watch strangers debate over baseless stuff than to acknowledge me.
"She's on that bike again," he muttered, finally glancing up. "Log baate krte hain. Pr isko thori hmari padi h."
People talked. Yes, they always did. They talked when I studied too much, when I started earning young, when I paid for my own expenses and studies, when I stayed quiet, when I refused to smile like a showpiece. I had stopped shaping my life around their noise a long time ago.
"I went for a ride," I said flatly, knowing what comes next.
She clicked her tongue. "A business teacher should behave with some dignity."
There it was. The dialogue they loved to recite every time I did something they did not approve of. The role they wanted me to play. I didn't argue and walked straight down the narrow corridor toward my room. I could feel their eyes following me, weighing my every move, and probably wondering where they'd gone wrong.
My room waited at the end of the hall—- the only place that actually feels like home in this prison. The door shut behind me with a soft finality that felt almost kind. I leaned my forehead against it for a moment, breathing in the familiar scent of paper and oil, grounding myself in something real.
I had just set my helmet down when the door flew open.
"We need to talk," my mother said, already inside, already invading the only space I could call mine.
My father followed, his arms crossed and his presence filling the room like pressure.
"We've received another proposal," she continued, "A very good one."
The word lodged itself somewhere beneath my ribs. Not this again. Not yet.
"No," I said instantly, turning to face them.
She frowned. "You haven't even listened."
"I don't need to."
"This isn't a request," my father said. "You're old enough to understand how the world works."
I held his gaze. "If this is how the world works, I don't accept it and you know it."
She scoffed. "You're educated. Independent. Teaching business, of all things. And yet you behave like a stubborn child."
Independent. That word tasted bitter. Independence, to them, meant earning well and still obeying them without questioning.
"You didn't ask me," I said, my voice slow but steady. "You decided for me."
"That's family," she replied sharply. "Sacrifice."
Sacrifice. Another word people love to use when they aren't the ones bleeding.
"I'm not marrying a stranger," I said.
"You'll meet him," my father insisted but his voice was more like a command. "Once."
"He's from the Oberoi Family. Ekaksh Oberoi, the CEO of Oberoi Techs. Rich, smart, and they are even offering a good amount of gifts." My mother sneered in.
My eyes lit up as I heard the name Oberoi. Over the past month, this was the time when I felt the most excited. When I felt that what I worked for all these years is finally one step closer to me. But of course, I couldn't let them see and so I pretended, as they had taught me to.
"Gifts. So you are basically selling me? Would you do that if I was your real daughter?"
Their faces turned red with anger but they did not say a word indicating that I hit the right nerve.
That question was meant to only catch them off guard but the silence that followed? I hate to admit it, but it scratched a wound I didn't remember I had. I felt something settle inside me then—not panic, not anger, but clarity.
"Fine," I said.
They both stilled.
"I'll meet him."
Relief crossed her face too fast and eager. "Good. I knew you'd come around."
I didn't bother correcting her. They left soon after, already planning, already celebrating a victory they hadn't earned. The door closed and their voices faded down the hall.
I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the helmet beside me, its surface scratched and dulled from years of use. It had carried me through roads no one else had known about. It had protected me from the voices nobody else could.
They thought agreement meant surrender and silence meant obedience, but they were wrong. If I was going to be pushed into this, I'd at least choose how.
I lay back and stared at the ceiling, tracing the cracks I'd memorized like the names of each member of the Oberoi group, especially him. Ekaksh Oberoi.
Meeting him wasn't a compromise. It was access., information and an opening.
If they believed they were handing me over, they hadn't been paying attention.
I hadn't agreed to surrender. I had agreed Because sometimes the smartest way out was to step exactly where they expected you to fall— and then, walk out on your own terms.
And this time,
every move I made would be deliberate.
I closed my eyes, the ceiling fading into darkness, and let the thought settle sink in.
They thought this was about marriage. About obedience. About 'handing me over' to a man like a property to carry on a legacy. But I had learned long ago that legacies cracked just like bones—quietly, if you knew where to press.
This proposal hadn't found me by accident. They are a fool to think that. I had traced the threads back far enough to recognize the pattern, the same one my grandmother once warned me about. Power families. Quiet money and Louder secrets.
Oberoi.
The name crossed my mind again and again.
Somewhere beyond these hills, beyond this house, an Oberoi was moving through his life unaware… unaware that his name had already crossed my path, that his legacy had already brushed against my plan. Unaware that this meeting was never meant to bind me. It was meant to lead me somewhere else entirely.
I crossed the room and opened the drawer beneath my desk. Inside lay my burner phone that I never used here. I turned it on and the screen lit up almost immediately. I opened the messenger and checked for unread messages.
Unknown:
Did they say it?
My fingers typed before my eyes could catch. Maybe I was too excited.
Me:
Exactly how you said they would.
I put the phone back in, hiding it again and closed the drawer and lay back on the bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
My anklet caught the light, flashing it back softly, reminding me of my grandmother. I looked up out of the window where my dadi was already looking down at me... I like to think about it that way..
"My plan is in execution, Dadi. And
somewhere out there, an Oberoi is walking into a story he didn't yet know he was part of."
"Aur dadi? I promise. I'll succeed."
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