Ruhi's arrest was quiet at first.
Charges:
Criminal conspiracy
Obstruction of justice
Aiding a fugitive network
Her legal career was already collapsing. Her license suspended. Media beginning to circle.
But Raghav wasn't done.
From prison, he requested one final statement under a sealed deposition.
Not for reduction.
Not for appeal.
For clarity.
He asked specifically for Mahi to be present.
Against Nikhil's advice, she went.
The Deposition Room
Raghav looked thinner.
Not weaker.
Just contained.
He smiled faintly when he saw her.
"You look tired."
"Say what you have to say," she replied coldly.
He slid a folder across the metal table.
"Your friend didn't just pass information."
Mahi didn't touch it.
"She redirected it."
Silence.
"What do you mean?"
Raghav's voice lowered.
"Three years ago. A trafficking case."
Mahi froze.
The Operation Kaveri bust.
A warehouse raid.
Two hostages had died when backup arrived late.
The delay had been blamed on a communications glitch.
"It wasn't a glitch," Raghav said softly.
Mahi's blood ran cold.
"She rerouted the internal dispatch call by eleven minutes."
The room seemed to tilt.
"No," Mahi whispered.
"She thought it would slow you down. Nothing more. She didn't know violence would escalate."
The folder contained internal logs.
Time stamps altered.
IP traced.
To Ruhi.
The reroute had allowed Raghav's men to move product before the raid.
But it had also escalated tension.
And two innocent people paid for it.
Mahi felt sick.
"She never told me."
"Of course she didn't," Raghav replied calmly. "You were her hero. Heroes aren't supposed to bleed."
Ruhi's Last Conversation
Ruhi requested to see Mahi before formal conviction.
They met in a holding cell visitation room.
No glass.
Just space.
Ruhi looked exhausted.
Not defensive.
Not proud.
Just defeated.
"You knew," Mahi said quietly.
Ruhi nodded once.
"I thought it would just delay you."
"You rerouted emergency response."
"I didn't think they'd kill them."
"But they did."
Silence swallowed the air.
Ruhi's voice broke for the first time.
"I didn't mean for anyone to die."
"But they did," Mahi repeated.
Tears slipped down Ruhi's face.
"And you were praised for bravery that day."
That landed like a blade.
"You got medals. Recognition."
Mahi felt something shatter inside.
"And you got what?" she whispered.
Ruhi laughed bitterly through tears.
"I got to sit in the audience."
The resentment poured out now.
"If you hadn't gone undercover. If you hadn't been chosen for every major operation. If you hadn't stepped into every room and taken the air with you—"
Her voice hardened.
"Everyone would have lived normally."
There it was.
Blame.
"If you hadn't come into the middle of everything, Mahi… maybe I wouldn't have needed to prove I mattered."
Mahi stared at her.
"I never asked you to compete."
"You didn't have to."
That was the cruelty of it.
Ruhi wasn't defending her crime.
She was explaining her wound.
"It's all because of you," Ruhi whispered. "You changed the orbit of every room. And I was tired of spinning around you."
Mahi stood slowly.
"You killed people."
Ruhi nodded, tears falling freely.
"Yes."
No excuses left.
No strategy.
Just truth.
As guards escorted her away, she said one last thing:
"I didn't want to be the villain. I just didn't want to be invisible."
The Emotional Withdrawal
Mahi didn't cry immediately.
She went home.
Sat on the edge of the bed.
And removed every photo frame that had Ruhi in it.
Not angrily.
Mechanically.
Nikhil watched quietly.
"She blamed me," Mahi said softly.
"She made her choices."
"But what if I didn't see it? What if I was so focused on cases, on you, on survival, that I ignored the person right beside me?"
"That doesn't make you responsible for murder."
Mahi's voice lowered.
"But if I hadn't entered that case… those hostages…"
Nikhil stepped closer.
"No."
She didn't look at him.
"I destroy everything I walk into."
That scared him.
More than guns.
More than Raghav.
This wasn't anger.
This was self-erasure.
Distance
Over the next weeks, Mahi became quieter.
Still functional.
Still sharp in the field.
But emotionally… distant.
She stopped initiating touch.
Stopped sharing thoughts.
She slept facing the wall.
Nikhil didn't push.
He knew this wasn't about him.
It was about guilt infecting identity.
One night he finally asked softly,
"Are you leaving me too?"
She turned slowly.
"I don't know if I'm good for anyone."
"That's Ruhi talking."
"No," she whispered. "That's statistics."
The room went silent.
"I was undercover with a criminal who manipulated me."
"I trusted a best friend who manipulated me."
"I almost lost you because of that same criminal."
Her voice cracked.
"Maybe I'm the common denominator."
Nikhil crossed the distance.
Firm this time.
"You are not a curse."
She didn't argue.
But she didn't agree either.
The Final Blow
Media broke the story.
"Rising Lawyer Secretly Aided Crime Syndicate — Linked to Deadly Raid Delay."
Ruhi's career was destroyed publicly.
Disbarred permanently.
Reputation erased.
In her final press statement before sentencing, she said:
"I made unforgivable choices. I allowed jealousy to become justification. No one forced me."
But off-camera, when she saw Mahi one last time, she whispered:
"If you hadn't walked into every room shining… I wouldn't have needed to dim you."
It wasn't apology.
It wasn't redemption.
It was projection.
But it lingered.
The Question
That night, Mahi stood by the window.
City lights below.
War finally quiet.
Raghav contained.
Ruhi convicted.
But she felt emptier than during any gunfight.
"Does love survive constant warfare?" she asked again softly.
Nikhil stood behind her.
This time, he didn't answer with strength.
He answered with truth.
"It doesn't survive if one of us decides they're unworthy of it."
Silence.
He stepped closer.
"You didn't create her jealousy. You didn't reroute that call. You didn't kill those people."
She closed her eyes.
"But I was there."
"Yes."
"And you saved dozens more."
She finally turned toward him.
Raw. Fragile.
"Why do you stay?"
He didn't hesitate.
"Because loving you isn't a battle. It's a choice."
"And if I pull away?"
"I'll wait."
"And if I break?"
"I'll hold."
Not dramatic.
Not desperate.
Steady.
For the first time in weeks, she leaned into him willingly.
Not because she was strong.
But because she was tired of standing alone.
Somewhere in prison, Raghav read the headlines about Ruhi's conviction.
He smiled faintly.
Because his final move hadn't been escape.
It had been corrosion.
But what he didn't know yet—
Was that corrosion only wins
If love stops choosing itself.