(Trigger warning:- Information and instances related to DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) is mentioned in this chapter. Please proceed with caution.)

"What's up with the sour mood?"

"Nothing. Get me those files related to Gaitonde's case, and close the door when you leave," I said.

My assistant, Chitra, was about to roll her eyes, but I gave her a warning look, and she ran off to complete the task while mumbling under her breath. It had been just five months since she started working with me after I had to fire my previous assistant for taking bribes from the opposite parties.

Few minutes later, I got the needed files and began my work. Unlike her predecessors, Chitra liked to disobey me and chew my head till I answered all of her queries. For now, she was worried about the case I was handling because according to her, there was no use going against a corrupted politician as they would get bail really easily.

"Can you just do your work and let me do mine?" I scolded.

"Yes, Sir." She nodded. "By the way, why did you suddenly go to Mathura four days ago? I don't remember it was in your schedule."

"I think I can grant myself a leave anytime I want and go anywhere I like."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Okay, okay, got it. It is all right if you are having an affair and don't want to share the details. I would have still loved though if you had-"

Chitra zoomed out of my office when I shot her a glare, signalling her to stop her nonsense. I shook my head once she left and moved Gaitonde's file to the side. I took out the blue file titled 'RYR-RB' and opened the first page. I read the interview I had with the principal of the school Reyna went to before she came to Mumbai.

Nothing seemed suspicious; the old lady had a lot to say about my sister-in-law, but it was nothing that I could use. During the conversation, she kept on mentioning about how Reyna was a bright child, too bright for her age, and how she excelled in academics and all that stuff. I wasn't surprised because I was already aware of how smart Reyna was; I wanted to know in deep how she was like and what happened exactly for her to drop out of school.

I didn't get any exact answer - I wasted my two hours listening to the principal ramble about her school, and whenever I brought up the main topic, she brushed me off by saying that she had seen a lot of students, so it was hard for her to remember the exact details of just one person.

I wasn't buying it, but I knew I couldn't force a complete stranger into telling me everything by only saying that I was investigating my friend's wife. By now, I was hundred percent assured that Reyna would never tell me anything herself or give an exact reason as to why she didn't take divorce from Yuvaan when she had the perfect chance.

And after seeing her react like that in Tamannah's party, I knew she was hiding something deep. I didn't want Yuvaan to go through that difficult phase again and fall back into depression - he didn't deserve what my cousin sister did to him. That's why, I cut her off entirely after she broke up with him and talked to her again only after four years because of my mother's blackmailing.

I would have preferred if Tammy had stayed abroad itself, but she had to come back. When asked for a reason, she would throw a tantrum and chant Yuvaan's name even when she had a fiance. I was frustrated with her!

And if she wasn't giving me enough headaches, there was Reyna on the other side. It had been just seven months since I knew that girl, and she was already testing my patience and my skills as a lawyer. Even after coming to Mathura, I couldn't find much about her, except for one thing.

While leaving the principal's office, I noticed some photographs hanging on the wall. There were a dozen of framed ones and some important ones were pinned to the green board. I roamed my eyes over them quickly and looked over my shoulder at the old lady seeping tea with no care in the world.

When she wasn't looking, I took off a pic from the board and kept it in my jacket. After returning to my car, I checked the photograph and narrowed my eyes on Reyna who was smiling at the camera with a huge trophy in her hand. She was standing with few other kids and they were holding chess pieces in their hands.

I squinted my eyes, and read what was written on the trophy: 1st prize, Reyna Bakshi, District Level Senior Chess Championship.

Senior? What the actual fuck? How old was she when she won it?

I went back to the Principal's office, and I was lucky that she had gone for lunch break. The peon let me in as I had familiarised with him. Reyna was present in quite a few of the pictures, and not just chess, she had won a lot of prizes in debates, quizzes and science events too.

I took a deep breath as I let it all sink in. She wasn't just showing her talent among the kids of her age but older than her also. The principal lied; you wouldn't keep so much pictures of a single student and then say that you couldn't remember much about him/her.

After leaving the school premises, I went to check the locality where Reyna lived. And... I wasted my time. There were only few people who were ready to answer me, and out of those handful, only one or two gave me some information. But just like the school, they didn't reveal much. Weirdly, they just kept talking about how the Bakshi family was a little odd, and Reyna was known for not listening to others.

That was actually a surprise. From what I had experienced so far, she was the most obedient person I had seen. She never looked me directly in the eyes before her marriage and some days after too.

Unfortunately, I had to stop my investigation after two days as I got a call from my assistant who informed me about the urgent cases. I was unhappy with the results, but what I noticed when I returned to Mumbai levelled it up nicely.

To check whether Reyna was still fond of Chess, I brought my personal board game to Yuvaan's house and waited for the couple to arrive. As expected, she asked if she could play, and I agreed. It was going all well, and as I had planned, I knocked off the pieces during our round and lied that I did it accidentally.

When she said that she remembered the locations of our pawns, I controlled myself from jumping out of my seat. If I was in court, I would have showed how much proud I was to prove my point. But when she lost purposely, I knew that she was acting and trying not to expose her skills.

I was done after two game rounds as it was enough for me, but when she made a sad face after I refused her normally, I didn't know how to react. She was crying, and Advait was looking at me as if I committed a crime.

Advait... that traitor. I knew he was aware of some stuff but wasn't telling me on purpose; he even gave a real gun to her. He had grown closer to Reyna a lot, and I didn't want to look like the only bad person. But after seeing Yuvaan go beast mode after seeing just one tear drop from his wife's eye, I understood the situation was far worse.

Both of my best friends had accepted her and saw no use of suspecting her. But her actions were clearly visible, and yet no one was willing to ask the questions. I didn't have any personal grudge against her, but after noticing the drastic change in her behaviour, my antennas were overworking.

Sometimes, I thought that I could be just overreacting and bending things my own way because I was a lawyer. I had to find a logic and reason behind everything, so it could be that why I didn't want to trust Reyna without any solid reason.

I was actually not happy with how much time I was investing in knowing the truth about her past, and even my intuition told me to let go of the issue, but my mind was a devil in disguise. It kept reminding me of old days and how rapidly the tables had turned.

And what exactly could have happened for her to talk like that about her own father? Did he... was it possible? No, Shaurya, you are going overboard now. There is no way her father would have... but what if he did harm her?

She showed no pain when Advait told her that her dad was tied up in the cell; she didn't even bat an eyelash. As I ran the events in my head while checking the file, her crying face flashed in front of my eyes.

She was an adult, wasn't she? Why would she cry out of the blue when I refused to play with her? And the way she was complaining to Yuvaan about me... it was as if a small kid was angry and telling everything to their parent.

I couldn't let it slide, so I grabbed my iPad and googled about her condition. It wasn't something to wave off that easily - it could be something serious too, and I had to find a clue somehow. I thought of the keywords and let the Google do its job.

The first two links boldly mentioned about mental trauma and the various personality disorders one can have after going through a tough trauma, especially during their childhood and teenage years. As I had a little bit of knowledge about this stuff after staying with Yuvaan for last five years, I quickly went to the page which had written about Multiple Identity Disorder aka Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).

{Dissociative identity disorder (DID), previously known as multiple personality disorder (MPD), is a mental disorder characterized by the maintenance of at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states.

{DID is associated with overwhelming traumas, or abuse during childhood. In about 90% of cases, there is a history of abuse in childhood (psychological, sexual or physical), while other cases are linked to experiences of war, or medical procedures during childhood.}

{DID symptoms include "the presence of two or more distinct personality states" accompanied by the inability to recall personal information, beyond what is expected through normal forgetfulness. Other symptoms include a loss of identity as related to individual distinct personality states, and loss referring to time, sense of self and consciousness.}

(Courtesy: Wikipedia)

As I went through the essential information, I nodded my head as I found a pattern in Reyna's behaviour. In the starting, she was a meek person, and it was easy to scare her, but it was also far easy to gain her trust too. You had to just speak a few kind words to her, and she would smile and do whatever you asked her to do.

That changed after Yuvaan and she went on their honeymoon. Yuv didn't tell me what had happened because I saw a change in his behaviour too, and when he announced that he didn't want to divorce her, I wanted to beat him up. There was a huge difference between the Reyna before and after the honeymoon.

And the recent incident... it confirmed that in the current situation, she trusted her husband the most.

Just what did Yuvaan do to bring that change and gain her faith in him? Sometimes, she acted like a mature person, and sometimes, she behaved like a kid.

I wasn't hundred percent sure if she did have DID, but it was confirmed that there was some mental issue which needed to be addressed soon. So, the first thing I did after waking up the next day was to grab my action figures and borrow a few toys from my nephew.

I went to Yuvaan's office and laid out all of my stuff on the table. I intentionally put my wallet and important files along with the toys after playing for a bit. I got a weird feeling in my stomach when Reyna indeed came and stood in front of me, looking at me as if I was a candyman.

I saw the struggle she was having, but I didn't say anything, or else Yuvaan would have punched me for making his wife cry. After a few minutes, she settled on the couch and acted like reading a magazine. According to my plan, the legal team called up Yuvaan to discuss some stuff, and I accompanied him.

I returned earlier than Yuvaan, and when I saw Reyna playing with the red toy car alone, I felt really bad. I had doubted that she would try to steal the confidential files and something along those lines. But instead of that, she was building an origami castle. I saw Yuvaan turn the corner, so I got inside the cabin and carried out the second part of my plan.

I scolded Reyna for touching my stuff without my permission, and she apologized with her head down. Fortunately, she didn't cry because Yuvaan arrived in time, and I told him what happened before he interrogated me. I observed them as they hugged each other - they looked good together, but...

As I couldn't get my mind to stop coming up with random theories, I didn't try to get involved with the Raichand couple and left early for home. Advait commented that I was getting too much involved, and it could be all in my head.

What if he was right? Was I getting too obsessed with my sister-in-law's life? If Yuvaan himself didn't see any harm, then why was I so bothered? What if I provoked her, and she shot me with her gun?

Maybe I should just focus on my work and not poke my nose in my friend's married life. Hmm... why did I become a lawyer? It is so difficult to let go off a case without knowing the answers. My curiosity will surely get me killed me one day.

After a long drive, I came back to my home and decided to sleep instead of watching a crime show. As I laid my head on my pillow, I remembered how Reyna hid the toy car under her palms and didn't return it. She stole it and was afraid if I noticed it or not.

What exactly happened with her? I wish it wasn't what I was thinking it was.

Now I had to relax and rethink everything before I created a mess. Maybe I was doing it all wrong the whole way. When the answer was standing in front of me in human form, what was the use of searching outside?

Reyna wasn't a criminal, and I wasn't someone to judge her for living her life the way she wanted. After what happened today, the picture became a bit clearer. She wasn't the culprit here - she was the victim.

And if I wanted my answers, I had to gain her trust again. I wouldn't tell her to leave - she could stay as long as she wanted. I just wished my best friend wouldn't suffer again; I wouldn't break my promise I made to him and his mom.

Yuvaan had already suffered a lot for the sins he didn't do. So no matter what happens, never leave Yuvaan's side.