Chapter 215

She never imagined that one day her husband would be asking her about who the father was of the child in her belly, the question hanging between them like a blade she had always feared would fall. The shame and fear she had carried alone for so long now spilled out into the open air of the terrace, raw and exposed under the quiet night sky.

Her lips shivered as she spoke, the words catching in her throat before she forced them out. “I was... raped... by a guard in the brothel. And my uncle sent him away.” The word ‘raped’ landed between them like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples of horror across his face. Her voice was small at first, trembling, but she kept going, determined to lay it all bare. Roshanay narrated the whole incident to him truthfully, every detail she had tried so hard to bury: the dark room that smelled of cheap perfume and stale smoke, the rough hands pinning her down, the way she had screamed until her voice broke and no one came. She told h