Chapter 48 #3
“What?” She blinked her eyes open slowly, looking at the dark world outside their window through the sheer curtains.
“Go to sleep now.”
“But I want to do this to you…”
“Sleep, now.”
She protested half-heartedly but he lay her down, turned her on her side and got to his feet.
She closed her eyes, exhausted. He returned and pushed her pillow under her head, pushed her other two cushions between her knees and she felt her shawl land over her body.
Amaal opened her eyes groggily, in time to see his groin.
His shorts weren’t tented. She squinted, trying to make sure she was seeing it right as he tucked her shawl around her.
“Sleep peacefully.” He murmured, stroking his palm over her hair and moving away. Amaal couldn’t keep her eyes open, but the worry inside her wouldn’t let her sleep be peaceful. He was not ok. Things were not right with him and he was not sharing with her. He was snapping, but not sharing.
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Her body was tired but her mind startled awake.
Amaal stared at the dark ceiling, lit by the breezy turns of the sheer curtains.
She heard unmistakable clicks of car doors in one synchronised rhythm.
Atharva’s Z+. Amaal jumped to her feet and ran to the window.
She wasn’t imagining it. Atharva and Altaf were walking inside the building, the cars lined up quietly on the road, security standing.
She rushed quietly to the bedroom door and found Samar in deep sleep.
He hadn’t stirred yet, thank god. She pushed down the handle of his door and pulled it soundlessly close.
Before Atharva could ring the bell and wake him up, Amaal quietly turned the latch and pulled open the main door.
He was already on her floor, barreling towards her.
She put a finger over her mouth. “Don’t wake up Samar. What happened?” She whispered.
Atharva strode inside, leaving Altaf to guard the door. Amaal nodded at him and shut the door.
“Saba saw Iram!”
“Low!” She followed him into the hall and put on a small night light.
“That day when she escaped, Saba saw her, met her under the hospital and still let her go and didn’t tell us!” Atharva turned on her, looking like he was ready to commit murder. She had never seen him like this.
“How the hell did she let my wife go?!” He thundered.
“Down, he is asleep,” Amaal whisper-screamed, ready to throw something at his head if he yelled again.
“I am telling you that Saba saw her that day and let her go without telling anybody and you are telling me to keep it down!”
“Atharva, he is on sleeping pills. I swear if you wake him…”
“I’m already awake.”
They turned, and Samar was walking out of his bedroom, only his shorts from last night on. Amaal was surprised he hadn’t put his T-shirt back on after… even the thought made her blush.
Then she looked at Atharva, and frowned.
Samar hadn’t put his T-shirt on even after hearing Atharva in the house.
Was Atharva so special that Samar did not care that he saw him at his worst?
Or was she not good enough, close enough, strong enough to see him bare?
A bitter taste invaded her mouth at the thought.
“Sorry, go back to sleep,” Atharva said halfheartedly.
“Too late. What are you doing at 12 in my house? Screaming about Saba.”
“My Press Secretary happens to sleep on your couch and she needs to come with me.”
“Where?”
“This does not concern you,” Amaal ordered him, unable to hold back on her bitterness. “Go to sleep.”
Samar did not spare her a glance, and she seethed more.
“Where are you taking Amaal at 12 in the night?” He took a seat on the dining table chair because he was still not strong enough to hold himself up in half-sleep.
“Secretariat.”
“Why?”
“Ok, you two can talk like I do not exist. I’m going to sleep. Feel free to leave when your party for two is over. Goodnight.” She reached for her pillow and shawl when Samar got to his feet — “Sit, Amaal.”
“You sit,” she snarled.
“Sit,” Atharva ordered, silencing them. “Both of you.”
They turned to him, and he glared. “Now.”
Samar trudged back to his chair and sat down, and Amaal moved her bedding aside to sit on the sofa, as far away from Samar as possible.
“Decide how you will do this,” Atharva ordered her. “But I want Saba first thing tomorrow morning. And when I’m done with her, she is out.”
Amaal sighed. Another human resource nightmare. But first she needed to know what had happened. If it was as Atharva said, then it was also a security nightmare. Saba knew too much about their party, their leaders, and some about Iram, too, to be dropped off like that.
“It’s not that easy.”
“The alternative is to keep her in my office, my secretariat, around my family knowing that she let Iram leave and never uttered a word? What were her intentions?”
“Not good, that I guarantee,” Amaal sliced him a look.
“What do you mean?”
“You know very well what I mean.”
Saba was their PR Associate, and had taken up a lot of the Press Secretary duties while Amaal had been busy with Samar.
But it was an open secret that she was found more often around Atharva than she was supposed to be.
It was clear as day to most people who worked with her. How had Atharva been so clueless?
“You can’t mean that!”
“It’s a possibility.”
Atharva scoffed and turned towards Samar, as if he would have a different opinion. Amaal doubted it. Samar was as low on EQ as men could get. Sometimes even lower.
“Iram told you this?” Samar asked.
“If you even imply that she is lying…”
“No, I didn’t mean that. I was just asking.”
Amaal let out a quiet sigh. Crisis averted.
“What reason do you think she had, Amaal?” Samar eyed her.
“It’s a bullshit reason.” Atharva intervened. “Maybe she is working for Sayyid Butt… How did I not think about this earlier?”
“She is not.” Amaal asserted.
“And how are you so sure?”
“We run regular background checks plus deep dives on each of our staff members. You know it. You get the reports. After Iram, audits were run on each. It came clean.”
“So you say she did this out of some misplaced heartbreak?”
“Heartbreak?” Samar piped in. “At your hands?”
Atharva held his hands out at the absurdity. And Samar smirked at him. What was that? Old memories? Womanising with… Amaal stopped herself from going there. Samar had told her this in confidence, baring the lowest part of him. She could not throw it in his face, even in thought.
“Let me speak to her tomorrow,” she offered, pulling herself out of this emotional mess that her mind was. She never let emotion cloud her work.
“I will speak to her.” Atharva declared.
“No. Neither of you is equipped to deal with human resource issues. The last time you two ‘spoke’ to somebody she was ready to up and leave KDP.”
Samar burst out laughing.
“This is not funny.”
Samar wheezed, his chest rippling and wrinkling as his head went back in one of those rare laughs. At least somebody was enjoying this.
“This is insane,” he pinched his eyes, still vibrating. “Some ex of yours let your wife run away and did not tell you.”
“My wife would have been home with my son that day had she said something!” Atharva thundered. And Samar’s face went grave. The room plunged into silence.
“I have been under a lot of stress,” Atharva’s voice softened. “I did not mean to come here like this and scream at you both.”
“What is happening with the Usama Aziz protests?” Samar gave him an opening to switch topics.
“That’s way down on my list of problems right now.”
“The blast in PoK?”
Atharva cut his eyes to her.
“He was here with me when we got the news.” She defended. There were secrets she kept from Samar for Atharva the Chief Minister, but there were some that she couldn’t, purely by virtue of living with him.
“It is sealed, Atharva,” Samar swore to him.
“It better be.”
“I know what it must have cost you to bring her back. I don’t know all the details. But I know enough, and I will take it to my grave. I give you my word.”
Atharva sighed, then went and lowered himself on the chair next to Samar’s.
“The CM of Gilgit-Baltistan, Dilshad Khan. He was the senior Mir’s co-conspirator.”
“In the trafficking of kids?” Samar asked what Amaal already knew.
The CM of Gilgit-Baltistan, along with Iram’s biological father, the Mir of Nagar, and Sayyid Butt had cracked the conspiracy.
They had contacted Aamir Haider and Mohsin Sheikh here and sent Iram and her twin brother, Noor across.
Noor had died, Aamir Haider’s son Sufiyaan had taken his place, and Iram had been left out of the loop, given to Aamir Haider’s wife in exchange for the son they took.
“When everything was lost and Sufiyaan died here, like a fool I went and threatened Sayyid Butt with his mother,” Atharva told Samar.
“To scoop information. To get something out of him to trace Iram’s parents.
But then Iram’s car got wired. I have a hunch…
more than a hunch, that Dilshad Khan ran the mission on Butt’s request. To finish any lingering evidence of their misdeeds. ”
“Didn’t he realise that Iram was there in his town for months?” Amaal asked.
“No. That was my greatest challenge. To take her out of there from under his nose.”
“And did he figure it out?” Samar frowned.
“He will, soon enough. These things can’t remain sealed for long. The airport was closed but there is ground staff, engineers, ATC. Somebody would slip up someday. And this man lives off exploiting information.”
“It’s a good thing then that she is never setting foot there ever again,” Samar said. “Have you tightened her security?”
“Shehzad is out. I have to get a replacement. For now she doesn’t leave the house, not without me, at least.”
“But she will, at some point.”
“We’ll see then.”
“How is she adapting?” Amaal got up and stepped up to the duo. They were again talking like they once used to, looking at each other without looking like they wanted to kill each other.
“With Arth? And everything else?” Amaal clarified.
“It’s work in progress.” Atharva smiled. “But he can wrap anybody around his finger.”
“Ada is coming tomorrow, isn’t she?”
“Hmm,” he pushed to his feet. “That reminds me, I have to tell Altaf about sending a car for her.”
“I will come tomorrow night to meet them all.”
Amaal felt Samar’s gaze on her. She ignored him.
“I will be in the Secretariat by noon,” Atharva said. "Finish whatever you have with Saba before then. I will not wait another minute to talk to her.”
“Where are you going tomorrow first half?”
“Baramulla. For the broad gauge rail project inauguration.”
“Is it safe?”
“Let them come.”
“Atharva.”
“You think Altaf will let me go if it is not?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “Fine. Just keep your mouth shut about your PoK trip. We are trying to play it down, as if it was nothing. No big deal.”
“I know. You finish with Saba and then I will take over.”
“Ok, listen to me. Go home, go to sleep. When you wake up tomorrow, you will understand why I ask you not to do the talking.”
Atharva huffed, then turned to Samar — “How annoyed are you on a scale of 1 to 10 with the sensible talk?”
“7. I don’t listen to half the things.”
“Get out of my house and you get out of my hall,” Amaal ordered.
Two deep laughs echoed in the said hall as Samar walked Atharva to the door.
They talked there in hushed whispers but Amaal didn’t care.
She switched off the small light in the hall, lay down on the sofa and pulled her shawl over her.
The door clicked shut and she closed her eyes.
Samar’s heat came closer. She felt him, standing over her. And then he was gone.