She turned. Rohan, her golden-boy brother, the family’s pride, now looked like a stranger in the moonlight. His smile was gone. Replaced by something hollow.
Rohan laughed—a broken, ugly sound. “She was going to sell the land. Give it to the villagers. I built an empire on that soil, Gulabo. I couldn’t let her turn it into dust.”
Rohan stumbled back. “You don’t have proof.”
Gulabo’s tears dried before they fell. In that moment, the shy village girl who stitched quilts for a living died. Someone new rose from the well’s shadow.
“The mirror doesn’t lie,” Gulabo said. “And neither will the police.”
“You were never meant to find this, didi,” a voice crackled behind her.
“You killed her,” Gulabo whispered. “Our own mother.”
