The backlash didn't wait for morning.
It arrived before dawn—sharp, loud, unavoidable.
Riyan's phone buzzed nonstop on the bedside table, lighting the room in short, violent flashes. I lay awake beside him, staring at the ceiling, my mind still echoing with the sound of my own voice from the recorded testimony.
I was present the night Arjun Malhotra disappeared.
Once spoken, the truth couldn't be unspoken.
Riyan answered the call without looking at the screen.
"Yes," he said calmly. "I expected that."
A pause.
"No," he continued, voice flat. "You don't get to negotiate anymore."
Another pause—longer this time.
Then he ended the call and sat up.
"The board has split," he said quietly. "Half want distance. Half want blood."
My stomach tightened. "And you?"
He turned to me.
"I want accountability."
Outside, sirens wailed faintly—too far to be immediate, too close to ignore.
Within hours, the world shifted.
Arrest warrants were issued.
Bank accounts frozen.
Shell companies exposed.
The empire that once felt untouchable began to crack—not all at once, but in visible fractures.
Arjun called just after sunrise.
"They questioned her," he said. "Formally. For the first time."
My breath caught. "What did she say?"
Arjun exhaled slowly. "Nothing. Not denial. Not anger. She asked for a lawyer and smiled like she always does."
That smile haunted me more than rage ever could.
"She still thinks she can win," I whispered.
"Yes," Riyan said. "Because power doesn't understand endings."
---
By noon, the news channels had moved from speculation to confirmation.
FORMER MALHOTRA MATRIARCH UNDER INVESTIGATION
KEY WITNESS COMES FORWARD
BROTHERS REUNITE AMID CORPORATE SCANDAL
They said my name out loud.
Not as a rumor.
Not as a villain.
As a witness.
As someone who mattered.
I should have felt relief.
Instead, I felt watched.
At exactly 2:14 p.m., my phone rang.
Private number.
I stared at it for a long moment before answering.
"Hello?"
Silence.
Then a voice—older, male, controlled.
"You should have stayed quiet."
My blood ran cold.
"Who is this?" I asked.
"You don't remember me," he said calmly. "That's the problem. You were never meant to."
The line went dead.
I stood frozen.
Riyan was beside me instantly. "What happened?"
I told him everything.
His expression hardened—not shocked, not panicked.
Focused.
"That was the second watcher," he said. "The one you sensed. Not family."
"The man at the pier," I whispered. "The one who didn't step forward."
"Yes," Riyan replied. "And now he's scared."
My chest tightened. "Because I remembered."
"Because you spoke," he corrected. "And because silence was his shield."
---
That night, we stood on the balcony together, city lights stretching endlessly below.
"I used to think power was loud," I said quietly. "Money. Control. Fear."
Riyan looked at me.
"And now?"
"Now I think power is memory," I said. "Because once it returns… it changes everything."
He nodded slowly.
"They built a system that relied on people forgetting," he said. "You broke it."
I wrapped my arms around myself, the weight of it all pressing in.
"What if they try again?" I asked. "To erase. To threaten. To twist things."
Riyan met my gaze, steady and unflinching.
"Then they'll have to do it in the light," he said. "And that's where they lose."
Behind us, the city buzzed with chaos.
Ahead of us, the truth kept moving—unstoppable now.
Because power was crumbling.
And the people who once controlled the story—
Were finally afraid of the witness who remembered.