I never wanted this life. The mansion, the money, the weight of a name I didn’t choose. My son loved a woman beneath his station, and I cast him out. Now he’s gone. Dead. And all that remains is a letter—my grandson, alive, in the gutters of Mumbai.

I send Prem to retrieve him. He fails. Or lies. I don’t know anymore.

So I go myself.

The slum reeks of sweat and despair. Children play in sewage. And there, in a crumbling room, I see him—my blood, cradled by a drunkard named Shankar. He looks up, eyes bloodshot but defiant.

‘You don’t belong here,’ he slurs.

I step forward. ‘He does. He’s mine.’

The boy clings to Shankar. This man—this nobody—dares to hold my legacy.

But then Pinku steps out, flamboyant in a bright kurta, voice sharp. ‘Oh, the royal father arrives. Late, as usual.’

I don’t understand. Not the defiance. Not the shame in their eyes.

What did I miss?

What did I destroy?