The vidai ceremony was a blur of performative weeping and crude jokes. Riya’s mother fake-cried while her aunts whispered final, graphic advice about keeping her pussy tight. Then she was ushered into the waiting car—a big, old Ambassador, the pride of Chudaipur. It was her chariot to a new hell.

The seating arrangement was no accident. The driver, a distant cousin named Bheem, grinned at her in the rearview mirror. In the passenger seat sat Rudra’s father, Suresh—Sasurji. He was a heavier, older version of Rudra, with the same possessive glint in his eyes.