The Name That Kills
Anika didn’t attend Inspector Iyer’s funeral.
Not because she didn’t want to—but because attending it would have been a death sentence.
The news channels called it a heart attack. A lonely retired officer found dead at his desk. No signs of struggle. No suspects. Closed within hours.
She watched the report from a roadside lodge miles away, the curtains drawn, the TV volume barely audible. Lies came easy to people who had been lying for decades.
The sealed file lay open on the bed.
Inside, beneath the crime photos and falsified reports, was something Iyer had hidden well—a handwritten statement, unsigned, unstamped.
A confession that was never allowed to exist.
Arjun Rao was auditing Rao Industrial Estate.
He discovered shell companies, ghost workers, and missing funds.
The money funded something illegal. Something violent.
Anika read the next line three times.
Orders came from within the Rao family itself.
Her hands shook.
Rao wasn’t just a surname.
It was a network.
She flipped the page.
Names.
Directors.
Trusts.
Political donors.
Police transfers signed overnight.
And one name circled repeatedly, darker than the rest:
VIKRAM RAO
Chairman. Philanthropist. Media darling.
Her adoptive uncle.
Anika’s breath stopped.
Memories crashed into her—family gatherings where Vikram Rao’s smile never reached his eyes, the way conversations died when he entered a room, the way her adoption papers had been processed too fast.
Trust no Rao.
The words burned now.
Her phone rang.
This time, it wasn’t an unknown number.
Vikram Rao (Uncle)
She let it ring.
Again.
Then a message.
Anika, beta. I hear you’ve been asking dangerous questions.
Her stomach turned.
Another message followed.
Your parents were weak people. They couldn’t handle the world we live in.
She typed back before fear could stop her.
You killed my father.
The reply came instantly.
No.
I saved you.
The door downstairs creaked.
Anika froze.
Footsteps climbed slowly, deliberately, each one measured like a countdown. She grabbed the knife again, heart pounding so hard it hurt.
The handle outside her room turned.
A familiar voice spoke softly through the door.
“Anika. Come home. This isn’t your fight.”
Her uncle.
Standing on the other side.
She backed away as the door opened.
Vikram Rao stepped inside, impeccably dressed, eyes calm, almost kind. Behind him stood two men with no expressions at all.
“You should have stayed an orphan,” he said gently. “You would have lived longer.”
Anika raised the knife, tears streaking down her face—not from fear now, but rage.
“You murdered him,” she said. “You erased my mother.”
Vikram sighed. “Your father chose the wrong ledger. Your mother chose to run.” He paused. “She didn’t get far.”
The room tilted.
“She’s dead?” Anika whispered.
“No,” he said. “Worse.”
One of the men stepped forward, holding a file.
Vikram smiled.
“She’s alive. And she’s been waiting twenty-six years for you to stop digging.”
Anika’s scream tore out of her chest as the truth finally settled in:
Her mother wasn’t missing.
She was imprisoned.
And the only reason Anika was allowed to live…
Was because she hadn’t remembered who she really was.
Yet.
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