The first light of dawn crept through the latticed jharokhas of the Mehra haveli like an unwelcome intruder, slanting golden bars across the bridal chamber and illuminating the wreckage of the night before. Anu Rao—now Anu Mehra, though the name felt like a brand seared into her soul—stirred fitfully beneath the tangled crimson sheets, her body a symphony of aches and throbs that sang of violation and reluctant awakening. At 22, she had entered this marriage with the fragile dreams of a girl raised on Bollywood romances and whispered tales of gentle suitors, only to be shattered by the reality of Arjun Veer Mehra's unyielding possession. Her 5'6" frame, once a canvas of soft curves and unmarred olive skin, now bore the brutal artistry of his claim: the twin hickeys on her throat pulsed with a deep, plum-colored ache, swollen and tender under the faint brush of silk; fingerprint bruises mottled her inner thighs in angry purple crescents, each one a stark reminder of how he'd pried her open and held her splayed; her small breasts, still pebbled from the chill of the sheets, welted red along the undersides where his fingers had dug in like vices, and lower still, between her legs, a dull, insistent burn radiated from her core—raw, stretched, and leaking the remnants of his seed in a sticky betrayal that made her cheeks flame even in solitude.