That night, after the suffocating family dinner, Devandra retreated into his study. The desk lamp cast a harsh glow across his tense face. The laptop screen in front of him blinked with a flood of unread emails, yet his mind was elsewhere. His grandmother’s words echoed relentlessly:

“Don’t lie to me, Devandra. I know when you’re pretending.”

He pressed his temples, exhaling heavily. “Damn it,” he muttered. “If I don’t move fast, they’ll destroy me themselves.”

His phone buzzed. The name on the screen curled his lips into a faint smile: Liora.

He answered. “Hello.”

Her sultry voice, both playful and concerned, flowed through the line. “Dev, you sound tense....