& Then They Loved (Ampersand Love #3)

31. The Fixer

31

The Fixer

Vihaan

V ihaan slid the paper across the table towards his surprised cousin. The dark lighting within the private entertainment room at Velocity matched his mood and hid his anger well.

“I thought you called me to the club to hang out,” Rahul said, just barely looking at the contract in front of him.

“You thought wrong.”

It had taken every ounce of Vihaan’s control to let his cousin leave Ethos a few days ago without decapitating him. But retaliating within his office would have brought notice to Vera’s involvement. Instead, he’d invited Rahul to Velocity to. . . talk. Now that they were both face-to-face, he was struggling to remember to use his words instead of his fists. Booming bass thrummed through the thick walls, and he wondered if that would muffle any sounds of flesh hitting flesh in case his cousin only responded to an alternate method of persuasion.

“Sign the release statement. ”

Rahul scoffed, sitting back with a petulant twist to his mouth. “I just got here, Cuz. I want to have a good time and this looks like work. Not in the mood for that.”

Vihaan didn’t skip a beat. “You think this is a negotiation? The only reason I’m asking in private is because I respect your father enough to give you one last chance. Take the out I’m offering you and leave.”

His cousin glanced to the side where Rian and Arjun stood before grabbing the paper in front of him. He leafed through it, his skin growing mottled. “I’m not signing this! This states that due to my negligence, the ad campaign is cancelled without penalty to Ethos or its employees!”

Vihaan tilted his head and shot him an insolent look. “So?”

“I can’t cover the penalty fees! My father, fucking miser, already holds my purse strings. I need this project.”

“You should have thought about that before you decided to behave like a lecherous pig.”

Rahul slammed both palms on the tabletop and shot to his feet, looming over Vihaan threateningly.

“You can’t make me sign. Trying to scare me with your friends as backup won’t work.”

Vihaan barked out a humourless laugh, languidly unfolding himself to stand once more.

“You think they are here to hurt you?” He guffawed, shaking his head condescendingly. “They’re here for your safety, asshat. So that I don’t put you in a coma.”

Confusion and alarm flickered across Rahul’s face, nervous energy causing him to launch into an attack.

Pain exploded behind his eye as Vihaan took a hit to the top of his cheek, and then another. He staggered back, throwing one hand up to stop his friends from intervening.

He couldn’t hold back a snort, his grin bloody and gruesome. He could finally drop all pretense and do what he’d been wanting to since he’d seen finger marks on Vera’s skin. Wiping the edge of his mouth with his thumb, Vihaan turned to face Rahul once more.

“Thank you. Now I won’t feel so bad for what I’m going to do to you.”

Without waiting, he drew his fist back and swung, landing a thundering blow to his cousin’s jaw.

“You broke my tooth!” Rahul screeched, teetering back as he clutched his bleeding mouth.

“For what you tried to pull with Vera in my office, I should make you eat your teeth.”

Rahul’s eyes widened, his lips beginning to swell, making him look exactly like the toad he was. “Whatever she said, she’s lying to you! She threw herself at me and I said no.”

“There is no world in which Vera Talwar would even look at you and if you had half a brain cell, you’d have come up with a more believable lie.”

“You can’t trust her. Remember she took money from—”

“There were cameras in the room, you imbecile. I know what you said,” Vihaan revealed, grabbing the hand which had touched Vera’s ass. “I know exactly what you did.” He twisted the thumb he held, bending it backward till Rahul dropped to his knees, his features contorting in pain.

“If you look at her, if you think of her, if you even breathe in her general direction, you will find out firsthand how hard life is when you’re fed through a tube,” Vihaan warned, his voice so cold and deathly that Rahul went white with fear. Whimpering, he held his aching hand against his body and threw a pleading look at the only source of aid he believed he had.

“Help me. How could you stand there and watch him do this to me?” he begged, scrambling to his feet.

“Watch him do what?” Arjun asked innocently, turning to the tall man beside him. “Did you see anything, Shetty? ”

Rian took two steps closer to Rahul and kneed him in the balls before anyone could guess at his intentions.

“See what?” Rian asked, grinning brightly as Rahul doubled over with a cry and fell to his knees, both hands clasped over his groin.

“I’ll sue you all,” Rahul threatened impotently, trying to crawl away, his face red with pain. “I’ll get the CCTV footage and I’ll call the media and expo—”

“I don’t think that’ll be possible,” Arjun cut in to end his tirade. “As the new owner of this club, I am terribly sorry that our CCTVs are out of operation today. It’s the damndest thing.”

“You’re. . . sorry?”

“Not really,” Arjun shrugged. “Sounded nice to say it so I did.”

“When did you buy Velocity?” Vihaan asked curiously.

Arjun checked his watch. “Three hours ago. Didn’t know what you were planning so I figured I’d play it safe.”

“Nice.” Rian fist bumped him. “Does this mean I can get in without paying a cover charge?”

“You’re fucking loaded. Don’t be cheap.”

Rian chuckled, picking up his drink and sipping it. “Free is always good.”

“I’ll consider it if you admit I’m better at basketball,” Arjun bargained.

“Guys,” Vihaan sighed, catching Rahul by his collar as he tried to slither away. “Focus.”

Rahul’s eyes darted towards the exit, sweat streaming off his face and darkening the shirt he wore. “I’ll get you all back. You attacked me because of that bi—”

A hard fist connecting with Rahul’s cheek cut him off. He fell to the ground with a thud, rolling back and forth with a hand over his face.

He blubbered piteously, holding his broken nose as rivulets of warm blood streaked over his lips and down the side of his neck .

“Quit whining,” Vihaan spat. “Now, here are the three things that you will do if you want to walk out of here with your limbs still attached to your worthless body.”

Rahul whimpered, and Vihaan took that as an agreement. Kneeling down next to the still-cowering man, he snapped his fingers.

“One: You will send an apology to Vera. Make it sincere. Beg, if you must.”

“Two: The ad campaign is off. I won’t subject her to working with you in this lifetime. You will release Ethos from any penalty because you chose to behave like a dickhead and will explain that to your father.”

“And three: You will leave town. At least for a couple months if not the rest of the year. Because if Vera has to see your ugly face again anytime soon, I will release the video of you from your last trip to Thailand and let it go viral. I can only imagine what your father will do with your inheritance after he sees you dancing in a sea-shell bra with peacock feathers stuffed up your ass.”

Rahul stared at him in abject terror, an odd choking noise stuck in his throat.

“Go!” Vihaan barked, watching his cousin scurry and stumble in his haste to escape with his life intact. When he finally turned towards his friends, they were observing him with a curious mixture of pride, amusement and concern. “What?” he self-consciously asked, joining them at their booth. He reached for the chilled beer bottle, pressing it against the top of his cheek for relief.

“Not exactly what I had in mind when you said you wanted boy’s night at the club,” Arjun teased. “You ready to tell us what is happening with you and Vera?”

“Damned if I understand it.”

Rian and Arjun exchanged looks before turning in unison to stare at Vihaan. He sighed, knowing that neither man would let him leave today without an explanation for his behaviour. After that evening when they caught him with Vera, about to get hot and heavy, it was only a matter of time.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he grumbled, chugging down half the bottle of beer, letting its coolness soothe some of the ache inside his mouth.

“How about from the beginning?” Rian suggested, patiently waiting until Vihaan gave in.

For someone who had assiduously refrained from mentioning Vera for half a lifetime, Vihaan found himself recalling every little detail about their childhood together. Their rivalry, their fights, his boyish interest which he could only express through silly bullying attempts, her fierceness which kept him wanting to battle with her so that she wouldn’t ignore him, finally befriending and falling in love with her before she’d betrayed him. Every moment of the first eighteen years of his life with Vera played in his mind with the clarity of high-definition cinema. By the time he’d finished telling a captive Arjun and Rian everything, it was all he could do to not give in to the absolute agony of having to relive their breakup and the hurt he’d endured at knowing she didn’t care for him as he had believed.

“Wow. That’s quite the history, man.”

“Yeah,” Vihaan quietly agreed with Arjun. “I felt used. And foolish. Ironically, if it was money she wanted, I could have given her so much more. She didn’t believe I was capable of being more than a fuck-up and took the first offer my father made her.”

A contemplative silence shrouded the three friends.

“After everything you told us,” Arjun admitted after a minute, “I finally understand why you were so angry with me when you thought I was marrying Kaya for money.”

“You were?” Rian questioned.

“It was the whole merger thing,” Arjun explained. “Anyway, what’re you going to do now? ”

“No clue,” Vihaan admitted. He could barely think straight when it came to Vera. “All I know is that at least for now, she’s mine to take care of.”

“Have you considered that there is more?”

Vihaan shot Rian a puzzled glance.

“People change, V. I might not have said this if we hadn’t already met her. Vera doesn’t come across as a gold-digger.”

“I agree with Rian,” Arjun muttered, garnering identical looks of shock from his two friends. “She seemed like a decent woman. When I left Kaya behind in Velas, you were the one who urged me to forget the past and focus on the future. I feel like I owe it to you to tell you to do the same.”

“Aditi has hung out with Vera quite a bit,” Rian added. “If there was anything concerning about the kind of person she is, Aditi would have been the first to pick up on it. She likes Vera a lot.”

“So do you,” Arjun added, pointing towards Vihaan with the butt of his bottle.

“I’m fond of her, yes. Of course I am. But it’s just a fling,” Vihaan protested, startled when Rian laughed so loud, he sprayed his beer everywhere.

“Dude!”

“Sorry,” he snorted, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ve heard a lot of bullshit but what you just said takes the cake. You don’t beat up a man and threaten his entire existence over a fling.” Rian pointed one long finger in Vihaan’s direction. “You love her.”

Acceptance warred with uncertainty, his entire body awash with the slow glow of hope even as his mind tried to reject it. “I made that mistake once,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if I have the strength to make it again.”

Vihaan couldn’t decipher the look that his friends exchanged before Arjun spoke again, clapping him on the back encouragingly.

“It’s only a mistake if it doesn’t end in a happily-ever-after.”