But prison walls could not undo what had already been destroyed.
The Wadhwa mansion remained silent long after justice had been declared. A house could be sealed, a man could be locked away, but the absence of a mother could not be reversed. Karan was left standing at the centre of it all, too young to understand how a world could shatter so completely and yet continue to exist for everyone else.
The Goel family vanished almost overnight from Mumbai, away from scrutiny, away from the bloodstain their surname carried. Dilip’s second wife did not stay to face the consequences of his crimes. She left the city quietly, taking the children with her. She kept them hidden, changed addresses, erased trails, and made sure the children never had to face their father’s sins or the name he had ruined forever.
Daksh was sixteen then, old enough to understand his father’s crimes. But Mishti was only nine. She was too young to grasp the truth, which was why her mother lied to Mishti that Dilip died in an accident. That was the story she was told, and she never questioned.
Karan, however, was left alone to bear the brunt of his losses. There was no mother to shield him. No father to guide him. The house echoed with memories that refused to fade. Nights were the worst. Sleep came rarely, and when it did, it brought back the sound of a gunshot and the sight of his mother’s body collapsing.
Mala, his aunt, came whenever she could. Although she lived in Delhi with her son Abhimanyu, handling the other arm of the business there, she made frequent trips to Mumbai. She tried to fill the void in Karan’s life with her presence. But shecould not replace a mother. She could only remind him that he was not entirely alone.
Rajat’s father, Vishwanath, did what he could from the outside. Using influence, persistence, and old loyalties, he worked tirelessly to pull the Wadhwa Corporation back from the brink. Accounts were recovered where possible. Control was returned to Karan’s name. What Dilip had stolen could not be entirely restored, but the company survived.
Karan grew up inside all that silence. Years passed, and the raw wound turned harder. The grief did not soften; it only sharpened and became a vow that lived quietly inside him, waiting. For revenge! From the Goels.
He was too young, powerless and dependent then to act. But the spark for justice did not fade with time. It only fuelled the flames.
He began searching for the Goel family the moment he was capable. He hired spies and agencies to do that work for him. Tracing, following names that had been deliberately erased. It took years to rebuild the chain. Years to uncover where the Goels had gone, how they had survived, and more importantly, how they had thrived.
Two Years Ago
He finally found them after they returned to Mumbai barely two years ago. Dilip’s second wife, Mishti’s mother, had died two years after his imprisonment. But his son, Daksh, now owned the DG Group. He was respected, established and spoken of with admiration in business circles. Dilip’s daughter, Mishti, had been completing her master’s degree and was enjoying the privilege and comfort of her family.
They lived openly. Nobody in the circle knew who they were. Nobody knew that their wealth was built on stolen money. Thattheir lifestyle had been paid for with blood. That their dignity was borrowed from a crime buried beneath silence and time.
The Goels were now a wealthy family who moved through society as though they had been born into honour and class.
Karan watched them from a distance, living the life that should have died the day his mother did. He watched the world accept them, applaud them, shelter them. He watched as the past was forgotten by everyone except the one boy who had been forced to grow up in its aftermath.
What burned deeper was the truth he uncovered later.
Even behind bars, Dilip Goel had not stopped providing for his family. Prison had taken his freedom, not his influence. He still had men on the outside, loyal to him, indebted to him, men who knew how to move money quietly and plant foundations without raising alarms. Using the wealth he had siphoned from the Wadhwas over the years, Dilip had seeded a business for his son.
Trinity & Co.
Daksh’s ownership was deliberately kept in the shadows. Officially, names like ‘R Menon’ spearheaded the company. But the control, the profits, the real power flowed exactly where Dilip intended it to.
To his son.
Dilip had ensured that no one, especially anyone connected to the Wadhwas, would ever suspect who Trinity truly belonged to. It was a shield built of paperwork, a fortress designed to protect stolen wealth.
And Mishti? She had grown up inside that fortress. She laughed, learned, and dreamed, all while standing on the ruins of a family she never knew about.
Daksh had known it all, although he never supported Dilip’s crime and had cut off all direct ties with him. He never visited his father, never spoke his name openly, never defended whathad been done. But he never walked away from the business his father had built for him that time.
How could he, after all? How could a young boy, barely sixteen that time, abandon everything that ensured his survival, his status, his future? How could he choose poverty when comfort lay within reach? He had told himself that he was not responsible for the crime, not pulled the trigger. But just merely inherited circumstances.
The Goels never faced struggles. No sudden falls. No loss of comfort. The money kept flowing. Their lives remained intact. Even without ever contacting their father, directly or indirectly, they continued to live well, protected by the very wealth he had secured for them through theft and murder.
Karan watched it all. And now knowing that they had returned to the city, his waiting ended. The Goel siblings moved onto his radar completely. He studied every detail about them.
Their businesses. Their money. Their relationships. Their vulnerabilities. Every weakness was noted. He followed every thread patiently, without haste, because Karan never believed in loud destruction. He believed in weakening foundations so thoroughly that collapse looked inevitable rather than forced.
The first name he placed under his quiet scrutiny was DG Group.
From the outside, it was a polished enterprise. But Karan knew better. He had studied the numbers long enough and had seen that DG Group was not self-sustained. It leaned heavily on invisible support, on capital that did not originate where it was claimed to. And anything that survived on borrowed strength could be starved.
He began with DG Group’s clients. Not by snatching them overnight, but by worrying them. A whisper here, a delayed payment there, a sudden offer that arrived just a little tooperfectly timed. He ensured that DG Group lost contracts. Too many of them. Stability was the illusion Karan attacked first.
