Wings & Chains (Season 2) Chapter - 2
Chapter 2 – First Collision
Three days later, Aditya saw her again — though this time, not by accident.
The opening of the Lumina Gallery was the kind of event where cameras flashed, journalists murmured, and champagne flowed like a quiet river through the crowd. The air was laced with expensive perfume and the faint, sterile scent of fresh paint on the gallery walls.
Aditya wasn’t here for the art. He had instructed his assistant to find out where Aarvi Kapoor would be next. That’s what he had learned — her name, her profession, a vague outline of her work as a freelance photographer specializing in travel and wildlife. No permanent studio, no fixed address. She moved too much to be predictable.
Until tonight.
She was standing by a large photograph — a candid capture of a hawk mid-flight, wings stretched, eyes locked on something beyond the frame. The colors of the sunset behind it seemed to be in motion, as though the bird might break free from the photograph itself.
Aditya came to stand beside her. “Fitting,” he murmured, nodding toward the hawk.
Aarvi glanced at him without surprise, as though she had expected him. “Why fitting?”
“Freedom in motion,” he said. “But still captured. Still… framed.”
Her lips curved faintly. “Framed, yes. But not owned. It can leave whenever it chooses — the real hawk, I mean.”
“And yet,” he countered, “you kept a piece of it here. A memory, frozen. That’s your frame.”
She turned to face him fully, and the hum of voices in the gallery faded, replaced by the silent lock of their gazes.
“Memories,” she said slowly, “are the only things you can keep without owning the person or the thing. They stay because they want to.”
Something in his chest shifted, but he didn’t let it show. “And what if wanting isn’t enough? What if letting go means never seeing it again?”
“Then maybe,” she said softly, “you were never meant to keep it.”
Inner thought – Aditya
She talks in riddles… or maybe she’s just telling me something I don’t want to hear.
The sound of applause broke their eye contact — the gallery owner announcing the evening’s featured artists. Aarvi gave him a small nod, almost like a polite goodbye, and began to walk toward the stage area.
He caught her name on the announcer’s lips — her photograph had been selected for the closing highlight. He watched her accept the recognition with the same calm, unhurried poise she had shown at the garden — smiling without performing, thanking without flattery.
When she stepped down, he was there.
“I’d like to discuss your work,” he said. “I have a proposition.”
She raised an eyebrow. “A business proposition?”
“Possibly.” His tone was smooth, but his eyes held a challenge. “I want to fund your next project.”
She didn’t hesitate. “No.”
That caught him off guard. “You don’t even know the terms.”
“I don’t need to,” she said, already turning away. “Money always comes with strings in your world, Mr. Varma. And I don’t like strings.”
Inner thought – Aarvi
The kind of man who never lets go isn’t the kind of man you let in.
He watched her walk away again — the crowd parting around her as though she carried her own invisible current. The refusal didn’t sting; it intrigued.
Because if Aarvi Kapoor didn’t want strings…
Aditya Varma was prepared to weave something far more invisible — something she wouldn’t even realize she was caught in until she no longer wanted to escape.
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