At the dinner scene,

She turned to leave—quiet, obedient, invisible—just how they wanted her. But a sharp snap of fingers sliced through the air like a whip. She paused mid-step. From the side hallway, a girl appeared. No older than twenty.

Barely dressed in a see-through slip of black lace, skin pale and bruised in places that made Innaya's stomach twist. Her lips were painted a glossy red, too bright, too fake—like plastic over bleeding wounds. And then— She crawled, Not walked. Crawled.

On hands and knees across the gleaming marble floor, like a trained animal performing for cruel masters. Straight into Veer's lap. He grinned as she climbed onto him, her legs straddling his thighs. His hands went to her hips with practiced ease, dragging her closer, as if she was nothing but flesh to fill his hunger. Her moans started even before he touched her properly.

Sloppy. Loud. Hollow. And still, no one flinched. Kabir popped a grape into his mouth and leaned back with a smirk, watching the scene with mild amusement—like he was watching the weather.

"She's gotten better," Kabir remarked, licking his thumb slowly. "Last week, she bit too hard. Had to slap some obedience back into her."

Veer chuckled darkly, his mouth buried in the girl's throat. "This one's fast learner. Fear works like magic."

Their laughter mixed with the obscene sounds of skin against skin.

And Raahil? Raahil sat at the head of the table. Unmoved. Silent. Regal in his cruelty. He didn't look. He didn't flinch. He just sipped his drink like this was any other morning.

Because to them—it was. To them, depravity wasn't a sin. It was breakfast. Innaya stood at the threshold, frozen. The tray in her hands shook, the metal rattling ever so slightly. She didn't speak.

Didn't scream. Didn't cry. She turned her face away, her cheeks burning with shame she hadn't earned, and walked back to the kitchen. Not a single man in that room told her to stop. Not one offered mercy. Because mercy had no place in this house and the girl was enjoying all this.

But something in her shifted. Something quiet. Something iron. She didn't walk faster. She didn't walk smaller. She walked with her head still bowed... but her back, somehow, a little straighter.

The kitchen door swung shut behind her with a hollow thud. But the sounds from the dining hall still echoed inside her head — the cruel laughter, the slaps of flesh, the sickening moans, and the slow, unapologetic destruction of dignity. Right there. Next to silver cutlery and half-eaten fruit.

Innaya stumbled to the sink, clutching the cold steel counter like a lifeline. Her breath was shallow. Her stomach churned with nausea and rage. She hadn't looked. But she had seen.

The girl — thin, barely clothed, painted like a doll — crawling into Veer's lap as though it were a throne. Like she belonged there. Like submission was her only language. The way Kabir had cupped her breasts like meat, laughing, kissing her neck mid-bite of his roti.

And the others? Cheering. Joking. Mocking. All while their  meal lay in front of them, soaked in sin. Raahil hadn't spoken. Not once. But he hadn't stopped it either. That silence, to her, was louder than all the others.

She splashed cold water on her face, hoping it would wash away the filth she had just witnessed. It didn't. So she walked. Out the back door. Down the stone steps, past drying laundry and the quiet sneers of passing maids.

None of them called her. None asked her to sit, to eat. So she clutched the old steel lunchbox she'd filled for herself and headed toward the only place in the house that didn't feel cursed. The garden.

The moment her foot touched the grass, she stopped breathing. Everything... shifted. The mansion and its monsters faded behind her, and in front — rows of wild white roses. Overgrown lavender. Climbing vines tangled through ancient ivory trellises. A gentle fountain gurgled in the distance, its sound soft and musical. The breeze carried jasmine and peace.

It smelled like the life she used to have. A memory. A dream. She stepped forward slowly, barefoot now, the cold grass like silk under her tired feet. Her fingers reached out, brushing a marigold in bloom. The petals didn't crumble.

They welcomed her. She sat under the wide gulmohar tree, its red flowers glowing like embers. The air here was still. Sacred. And she could finally breathe.

She opened her lunchbox, eating alone with her legs tucked beneath her. The food was cold, but she didn't care. It was quiet. No one was calling her names. No one was spitting laughter into her skin. She was just a girl with her meal. Her fingers grazed her stomach.

Round....Soft....Always there. She had never been thin. Not even as a child. She remembered people poking her arms, laughing about how her cheeks looked "puffed with air." But she also remembered dancing barefoot in the courtyard as her mother clapped along. Remembered the feel of ghungroos biting into her ankles. The rhythm that lived in her bones.

She had been good. More than good. She had been a dream. That's what her mother used to say. "Innu, you dance like wind. You make silence move."

Seven years of classical training. Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi... all of it. Until her parents died. Until the fire took them. And the music died too. Now, her days were spent on her feet — scrubbing, cooking, fetching, serving. Her legs ached. Her knees swelled. Her fingers bled.

But the weight? It stayed. It clung to her hips. Her thighs. Her back. It didn't melt no matter how many hours she stood or skipped meals. It just stayed. She wasn't obese. But she was fat. And the world had punished her for it in a hundred thousand tiny ways. But here... Here, beneath the gulmohar... Her body didn't feel like a curse.

It felt grounded. Real. Strong. She moved her feet slightly, feeling the earth beneath them. A slow rhythm pulsed in her veins. The one she thought she'd buried. The dancer's beat.

You dance like wind, Innu.

A faint breeze danced through the leaves above, lifting a few strands of her hair. The air smelled of dust, heat, and jasmine — but she didn't notice the eyes watching her from the second-floor window of the Raizada mansion.

Raahil Raizada stood still, expression unreadable, gaze locked on her as she chewed slowly under the gulmohar tree like a forgotten ghost. He didn't blink. Didn't smirk. Didn't move. He simply...watched.

As the girl they had dragged into their world without consent sat alone in the garden, eating in silence. No tears. No rebellion. Just this quiet grief stitched into every motion. 

Few days later,

The days bled into each other like bruises that never healed. Innaya moved like a ghost — silent, obedient, almost spectral. Her palm, still tender beneath its bandage, ached with every movement, but she said nothing. Complained to no one. In this house, pain was the language. And she was fluent now.

That evening, as the sun began to bleed into the horizon, Innaya finished preparing the dinner trays — silver thalis arranged with saffron rice, dal shimmering with ghee, and naan still warm to the touch. She tucked her bandaged hand beneath the tray for balance, holding it close to her chest as she stepped toward the dining hall.

The door was ajar. Laughter spilled out. Not the kind that brought joy. But the kind that peeled skin. She stepped forward——and froze. Her breath caught. Her knees buckled, and the tray nearly slid from her fingers. What she saw wasn't a dinner table. It was a desecration. Bodies. Skin. Moaning. Writhing.

Raahil's men — shirtless, flushed, their mouths wet with drink and sin — entwined with women in ways that made her stomach curdle. A woman — barely clothed, her lips red and swollen — was sprawled across the same polished table where soup was served yesterday. Another, naked and on her knees, pleasured one of the brothers like it was a ritual, her eyes vacant, her movements practiced.

A guard leaned into a maid against the wall, his hands everywhere, her giggles sharp and hollow like broken glass. on the table. Under it. Against the fireplace. Everywhere. It was not sex. It was theatre. Cruel, hungry, and without mercy. And in the center of it all — like a god surveying his kingdom of ruin — sat Raahil Raizada.

Unmoved. Silent. A glass of amber liquor in his hand, shirt half-unbuttoned, his long legs stretched out beneath him. He didn't speak. Didn't touch. But he watched. Not with arousal, but with complete, terrifying detachment — as if he were watching animals in a pit he owned. This wasn't chaos to him. It was routine. It was control.

Innaya stumbled back, the tray finally crashing to the floor with a clang that no one even noticed. Not one head turned. Because no one cared. Not in this house. She turned and ran. Blindly. Down the hallway. Through the corridor that reeked of cigar smoke and perfume and something fouler still.

She barely made it to the kitchen before the nausea won. She dropped to her knees and vomited — everything she had dared to keep down since morning. Her fingers gripped the cold floor, her nails scraping against the tile as she cried and retched and shook with a shame that wasn't even hers.

Her body trembled, but no one came. And somewhere in her gut, beneath the bile and the bruise of survival, she realized: in a house where power was asserted through lust, cruelty, and dominance......being untouched was a blessing.

Next day,

The kitchen was alive with scent and steam — turmeric, garlic, and ghee rising into the stale, heated air like a false promise of comfort. Innaya stood at the stove, carefully stirring a pot of dal. Her hand — still raw from the burn two days ago — ached with every movement. She didn't wince. Didn't cry. She simply held the ladle tighter, letting her silence speak for her. Her posture was tight, her gaze fixed on the slow, golden swirl.

Behind her, the world refused to be quiet.

Three maids — young, sharp-tongued, pretty in a loud, deliberate way — leaned against the marble counters as if the kitchen were theirs to lounge in. Their clothes were tighter than the aprons they never wore, their lips painted in glossy shades of lust. They weren't cooking. They were gossiping. Bragging. Breaking each other open with laughter.

"I still can't believe it," one of them said with a smirk. "That man, I didn't even let me take my heels off. Bent me over the sink in the wine cellar like I was made for it."

The other two shrieked.

"You mean kabir?" one whispered, eyes wide with delight. "He doesn't even talk to people. I thought he hated everyone."

"Not in bed, he doesn't," the first one purred. "He doesn't speak. He devours."

The second maid leaned in with a scandalous grin. "Please. Raahil's sir bodyguard left marks that still haven't faded. I had to walk like a broken puppet for three days."

Another round of laughter, louder, more wicked. Innaya kept stirring. Her shoulders rigid. Her face burning. Her ears aching from the filth and the jealousy and the cruel reminder that in this place — in this house — desire was currency.

And she had none.

"I don't care what anyone says," the third chimed in, plucking a cherry from the counter and sucking it between her teeth. "Veer sir? Silent, rude, rough as hell. But that man? He doesn't just fuck. He ruins."

They giggled again, the sound sharp as blades.

"God, yes. He's so cold during the day, but at night?" The first one fanned herself. "He took me in the hallway last week. Said nothing. Just looked at me and I was gone."

A small silence followed. Then one of them tilted her head, eyes flicking toward the stove. Toward her. Innaya. Still stirring. Still pretending not to hear.

"Except her," the maid said loudly, voice coated in fake sympathy. "She sleeps under the same roof but no one's ever even looked her way."

A quiet scoff. "Who would? She's not exactly the kind you bend over marble, is she?"

"She's not even a woman," the third muttered, biting into her fruit. "Just a fat shadow who makes our tea."

Their laughter echoed again, and this time it landed differently. Not like mockery. But like truth. Undeniable. Cruel. Ancient. Innaya's grip on the ladle trembled.

Her body had heard these words before — in school corridors, in overheard conversations, in the tight-fitting blouses that never sat right. But here... it hurt more.

The kitchen eventually emptied. The laughter drifted out with the sound of heels clicking down the corridor. No one spared her a glance. She wiped her hands on her apron and walked outside.

To the back garden. No one ever followed her here. There was a small cement bench near the old shed, partly shaded by a neem tree. She sat with her plate of plain rice and dal, alone. The sky above was soft and overcast, like even the sun didn't want to shine on this place today.

She took slow bites. The silence was merciful. But inside her chest, the voices still echoed.

"Just a fat shadow..."

"Not the kind they bend over marble..."

She looked down at her plate. Then at her hands. Rough. Burnt. Brown. Soft in some places. Calloused in others. Not delicate. Not desirable.

But maybe... Maybe being untouched in a house like this was a blessing. Her voice, barely a whisper, drifted into the wind.

"Thank you... for letting me be invisible."

A single tear rolled down her cheek. Not from sadness. From the strange, aching gratitude of being overlooked in a place where beauty was punished. Where desire was used like a weapon. She closed her eyes. And let the wind carry her silence. Because silence, in a house like this, was the only kind of safety left.