CHAPTER 1: The Price of a Father

9:47 PM | Apollo Hospital Corridor

The antiseptic smell had permanently embedded itself in Aanya's clothes, her hair, her soul. She sat on the cold marble floor, her back pressed against the wall, her fingers trembling as she held the bill.

"End Stage Renal Failure - Immediate Transplant Required"

"Estimated Cost: ₹25,00,000"

Twenty-five lakhs.

The number blurred as tears threatened to spill. Her father, Rajiv Sharma, lay behind those ICU doors—the man who had raised her alone after her mother died when she was twelve. The retired school teacher who sold his gold watch to pay for her design school fees. The father who never once complained, never once asked for anything, and now lay fighting for his life while she couldn't even afford to save him.

Her phone buzzed, cutting through the silence of the hospital corridor.

Kavya: Di? Any update? I'm in the library but I can't focus.

Aanya: He's stable. The surgery worked. But Kavya... the cost. It's 25 lakhs.

Three dots appeared immediately. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.

Kavya: I'll drop out. I'll work full time at the café. You said they were hiring—

Aanya: No. You're finishing medical school. That's non-negotiable. Papa would kill me if I let you quit.

Kavya: But how? We've sold everything. The house is mortgaged. Maa's jewelry is gone.

Kavya: Di, what are we going to do?

Aanya closed her eyes. What indeed? She had sold her mother's gold bangles last week—the ones her father had saved for her wedding. The café job paid peanuts. Her design degree had landed her nothing but rejection letters.

Aanya: I'll find a way. I always do.

She typed the lie with practiced ease. Kavya didn't need to know that she had exactly ₹2,347 in her account. That she'd been surviving on one meal a day. That she'd applied for twenty-three loans and been rejected by all.

The hospital PA system crackled. "Visiting hours end in fifteen minutes."

Aanya stood, her legs numb from sitting too long. She walked to the ICU window. Her father looked small in that bed, tubes snaking from his arms, his face pale and sunken. But he was alive. The transplant had worked. Now it was just about money.

Just. About. Money.

As if money was ever just anything.

She was turning to leave when her phone buzzed again. Unknown number.

Unknown: I hear you need money. 25 lakhs. Tonight. No questions. Be at the Arya Samaj Mandir, Sector 15. 11 PM. Come alone.

Aanya stared at the message. Her heart hammered.

A scam. It had to be a scam. Some creep who preyed on desperate girls.

But what if it wasn't?

What if someone out there could actually help?

She thought of her father's face. The way he'd held her hand before surgery and whispered, "Don't worry, beti. Everything will be okay."

He was wrong. Everything wasn't okay. But maybe, just maybe, this could make it okay.

Aanya: Who is this?

Unknown: 11 PM. Don't be late.