The Book No One Knew About

The night was drawing to its peak. The air inside the grand hall of the Chitrakshi Book Fair was thick with emotion, woven with both grief and admiration for the woman whose absence had left a void in so many hearts.

At the center of it all, Kiaan Roy stood upon the dais.

The microphone hummed softly as he adjusted it, his face solemn yet steady. He had always been a composed man, but tonight, a deep sadness sat behind his eyes. He scanned the room—Bipin Sen and his family, still struggling to carry their loss with dignity; Akash Pal, standing among the guests, watching with an expression unreadable.

Kiaan took a deep breath.

“I stand here today not only as a friend of Chitrakshi Sen but as someone who knew a side of her that perhaps few did,”he began. “She was more than what the world saw—more than a daughter, a fiancée, or a businesswoman. She was a thinker, a dreamer… and a writer.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

He hesitated for a moment before lifting a small, elegant book bound in deep blue leather.

“No one knows this, but Chitra—Chitrakshi Sen—wrote a book.”

The silence deepened. Even Bipin Sen, lost in his grief, lifted his gaze toward Kiaan.

Akash Pal’s fingers twitched at his side.

“I am the only one she ever told about it,” Kiaan continued, his voice quieter now. “I never read it. I don’t know what’s inside these pages. But I do know to whom it was addressed. And I want that person to know…”

His eyes scanned the room, lingering just briefly on one man.

“This book is all about him. And only him.”

A slow hush fell upon the audience.

Akash Pal’s heartbeat quickened.

Me?

His grip on his phone tightened, the messages from Chitrakshi and Kiaan still fresh on the screen. The words blurred in his mind, colliding with the sudden weight of this revelation.

He had to hear it. He had to know.

Kiaan, standing firm, turned the first page.

His voice, steady and clear, filled the hall.

“My demon… I have seen you in sweat, in rage, and I have sensed your fighting and revolting spirit. I have heard the richness of your words as they fell into my poor ears, and I have pondered over them. Yes, my demon, I have pondered them again and again.”

Akash Pal inhaled sharply.

“The words that fell into my ears—‘You rich people are jealous of people like us. You fear us, fear what we might become if given a chance”

The exact. Same. Words.

His fingers curled around the phone, gripping it like a lifeline, yet it felt like a noose tightening around his throat.

How?

The words Kiaan was reading aloud from Chitrakshi Sen’s book—words that should have only existed in ink, buried within the pages—were appearing, line by line, in the backup messages extracted from her phone.

His mind raced.

Did she write these words first in the book? Or had she sent them to someone—perhaps Kiaan Roy—before immortalizing them in print?

And why had Kiaan known about the book when Akash had not?

A slow, insidious dread crawled up Akash’s spine. His throat felt parched, his fingers numb.

His phone vibrated once more.

Words That Cut Deeper Than a Blade

Kiaan Roy turned the next page, his voice unwavering as he continued reading from the book no one had known existed until tonight.

“My demon… I saw a nerve on your forehead when you stood like an armed man who fights for his future.”

The air in the grand hall seemed to shift. The murmurs of the audience dimmed into a hush, their attention locked on Kiaan’s every word.

Akash Pal, standing rigid among them, could feel the blood in his veins turn to ice. His fingers twitched, his grip tightening around the phone that had just received the same lines—forwarded from Chitrakshi Sen’s recovered messages.

He swallowed hard, but his throat was dry.

“I want to see the same nerve when he feels that the love of his life slips from his hands into another’s.”

Akash’s breath stilled.

The words hit him like a dagger—sharp, deliberate, meant to wound.

He could see it, as if time had rewound itself: the moments when he had stood before Chitrakshi, his jaw clenched, veins pulsing in anger, his forehead furrowed in determination. She had seen him like that. She had memorized him like that.

But the last part—“when the love of his life slips from his hands into another’s”—it burned.

Had she been testing him? Had she wanted to see if he would fight for her? If he would rage against the idea of losing her?

Did she expect him to battle against Kiaan Roy for her affection?

Akash’s jaw clenched, his breath shallow.

And then, another terrible thought crept into his mind.

Had she been speaking of him at all?