My stepmother forced me to marry a rich but disabled man. On our wedding night, I lifted him up and put him on the bed; we fell… and I discovered a shocking truth.
My name is Aarohi Sharma, and I am 24 years old.
Since childhood, I have lived with my stepmother, a cold and pragmatic woman. For years, she repeated a single lesson to me, over and over:
“Daughter, never marry a poor man.”
“You don’t need love; what you need is a quiet and secure life.”
At the time, I thought it was just the advice of a woman who had suffered too much in life.
Until the day she forced me to marry a disabled man.
His name was Arnav Malhotra, the only son of one of the richest and most powerful families in Jaipur, although in this story, his influence extended as far as Mexico, where his family had businesses and connections with the economic elite
Five years earlier, Arnav had been in a car accident that, they said, left him paralyzed. Since then, he had lived apart from the public eye and rarely appeared at social events.
Rumors circulated that Arnav was cold, rude, and resentful toward women.
But because of my father’s debts, my stepmother pressured me into the marriage.
“If you agree to marry Arnav, the bank won’t take this house.”
“Please, Aarohi… do it for your father.”
I bit my lip and nodded.
But inside, what I felt wasn’t sacrifice, but humiliation.
The wedding was a lavish affair at an old colonial hacienda, restored as a palace in the heart of Mexico. I wore a deep red sari embroidered with gold, but my heart was empty.
The groom sat in a wheelchair, his face as cold as marble. He didn’t smile. He didn’t speak.
His eyes were fixed on me, deep and mysterious.
The wedding night.
I entered the room nervously. He was still there, sitting in his wheelchair, the candlelight casting shadows across his handsome yet stern face.
“Let me help you lie down,” I said, my voice trembling.
He pressed his lips together slightly.
“It’s not necessary. I can do it myself.”
I took a step back, but then I saw his body shudder.
I rushed toward him instinctively.
“Watch out!”
But we both fell to the floor.
The thud echoed loudly in the silent room.
I landed on top of him, my face burning with embarrassment.
And in that precise moment, I froze, realizing…
… realizing that the muscles beneath his expensive silk shirt were rock-hard, perfectly toned, and pressing firmly against my own body. There was no atrophy, no weakness, no sign of a man whose lower limbs had been useless for five long years. But before I could process the sudden, overwhelming warmth of his hands catching me by the waist, a sharp, metallic object hidden beneath his vest dug straight into my ribs.
It was a sleek, tactical silencer pistol, strapped to an inner shoulder holster.
For a second, the world went completely silent. My breath hitched in my throat as I stared down into Arnav Malhotra’s eyes. The dull, lifeless gaze he had worn all evening during our lavish wedding at the Mexican hacienda was entirely gone. In its place were two piercing, lethal daggers of dark amber, burning with an intense, calculated alertness.
