The apartment was a modest, third-floor walk-up in a part of the city where the air didn't taste of industrial soot, but of salt from the distant sea and the faint, sweet ghost of blooming jasmine. It was sun-drenched, with large, uncurtained windows that let in a mercilessly bright light—a light that left no shadow deep enough for the brothers' shame to hide. They had refused the sterile luxury of five-star suites offered by former associates and rejected the hollow charity of distant relatives. They had chosen this cramped, three-bedroom space because it forced them to exist in the same air as their sins. There were no mahogany doors to hide behind, no sprawling gardens to retreat to, and no army of servants to buffer the tension of their own breathing.

Ananya was in the smallest room, the one with the best view of the sunrise. The door remained closed, a silent, wooden boundary between the "Diamond" and the five men who had spent three months grinding her into the dust. The flat was a laboratory of penance, and for the first time in their lives, the Rathore brothers were the ones performing the labor.