Chapter 8 - CHOOSING THE MARRIAGE
The plan was simple.
Too simple, Arnav said.
Plans inside palaces need elegance.
Aarohi said elegance was how criminals stayed rich.
When Vikram lifted the partnership document, Aarohi pressed the remote.
The screen behind him changed.
Not to the heritage slideshow.
To the first invoice from the blue ledger.
Ordered.
Paid.
Not delivered.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Murmurs moved through the hall.
Vikram froze.
Aarohi stepped forward.
Her voice carried before anyone stopped her.
“My father, Dev Sharma, kept records of fabrics paid for by the Malhotra Heritage Trust and never delivered. His company was used. His name was threatened. His daughter was married into this family to bury the ledger.”
Kavita moved toward her.
Arnav’s voice cut across the room.
“Stop.”
Everyone turned.
He had not raised his voice.
He did not need to.
Kavita stopped.
Aarohi looked at him.
Vikram recovered.
“This is absurd. A new bride’s emotional theatrics—”
The screen changed again.
Bank transfer.
Kavita Sharma.
Vendor shell.
Vikram Malhotra’s aide.
Then the recording played.
Dev Sharma’s voice filled the hall.
“If I send the ledger, will your board protect my company?”
Guests turned toward Aarohi.
Then toward Arnav.
Then toward Vikram.
The room erupted.
Not chaos.
Controlled panic among guilty people.
Vikram pointed at the technicians.
“Turn it off!”
No one moved.
Because Arnav had finally raised one hand.
A signal.
From the side doors, two legal officers entered with Nandini Rao, Arnav’s father’s old adviser. Behind them came police, not palace security. Real police. Not Vikram’s dinner guests.
Kavita looked at the doors.
Then at Aarohi.
Her face transformed.
Not guilt.
Rage.
“You ungrateful girl.”
Aarohi stepped toward her.
“No. I am my father’s daughter.”
Kavita slapped her.
One sharp crack.
The hall gasped.
Arnav stood.
Not easily.
Not smoothly.
But undeniably.
One hand gripping the cane Meera had placed beneath his chair.
One leg trembling.
Then the other locking.
He rose from the wheelchair in front of the entire palace.
The silence was absolute.
Vikram’s face lost all color.
Kavita staggered backward as if the dead had stood.
Arnav’s voice came cold.
“You should have let her speak.”
That was the moment the Malhotra lie died publicly.
The legal aftermath took months.
Vikram was arrested that night on fraud, embezzlement, conspiracy, and obstruction charges. Additional charges followed after investigators connected his network to shell vendors, heritage grants, trust theft, and threats against witnesses.
Kavita was detained two days later after attempting to flee Jaipur with jewelry, cash, and two external drives hidden inside a cosmetics case.
She claimed Aarohi had been manipulated by Arnav.
Then the blue ledger, bank records, aide messages, and her own correspondence with Vikram destroyed that defense.
One message from Kavita to Vikram became central:
Once she is married, she will not speak against both houses. Arnav cannot stand. No one will listen to a bride crying in a palace.
No one will listen.
Aarohi read that line in the charge sheet and felt nothing at first.
Then later, alone, she cried so hard she could not stand.
Arnav found her sitting on the floor of the old library with the papers scattered around her.
He did not touch her immediately.
He lowered himself slowly beside her, left leg stiff, cane across his knees.
“I am sorry,” he said.
She wiped her face.
“For what, specifically? We have a long menu.”
A faint, pained smile.
“For letting them make you think you were alone in this marriage.”
She looked at him.
“You did that too.”
“Yes.”
Good.
No defense.
“I needed the truth,” he said. “But I should have asked you to choose the danger.”
“Yes.”
“I am asking now.”
“For what?”
He took a breath.
“When the criminal case ends, we can dissolve the marriage quietly. You can go to Delhi. The fellowship can still be arranged. Your father’s name will be cleared. The Sharma house returned to you. You owe me nothing.”
Aarohi stared at him.
There it was.
Freedom.
Real.
Offered without performance.
She should have felt relief.
She did.
But not only.
“What do you want?” she asked.
He looked surprised.
“No one asks you?”
“No one whose answer I trusted.”
He looked down.
“I want to rebuild the trust my father failed to protect. I want to walk into my own courtyard without pretending weakness or proving strength. I want Vikram’s name removed from every school, clinic, and restoration plaque he used to launder reputation. I want to sleep without a cane under the bed.”
Aarohi listened.
Then asked, “And me?”
His hand tightened on the cane.
“I want you to choose without debts, threats, or lies in the room.”
That answer was the first one she believed fully.
The marriage remained legally intact while trials proceeded.
For practical reasons, everyone said.
For public stability.
For property transfers.
For the trust.
But inside the palace, it changed.
Aarohi moved out of the bridal suite into the east wing for two weeks.
Her choice.
Arnav did not stop her.
That mattered.
May you like
He continued physiotherapy openly now.
The palace watched him relearn what he had hidden: steps through corridors, stairs with assistance, pain without shame. Some relatives called it miraculous. Aarohi hated that.
