Chapter 26
CHAPTER 26
SHIVINA
W ithin minutes of the petrol bombs rolling into Diya’s beautiful studio, the whole place went up in flames. I knew we had to get Kuhu to safety before the place blew up, even if we had to jump out of the windows.
I grabbed a fire extinguisher and tried to put out the fire, but it was spreading too fast for me to handle alone. And at that moment, all I could think of was that I was never going to see my husband again. Ranvijay had become the centre of my universe in such a short time, and now I would never see him again. Life was so fucking unfair!
“Let’s get Kuhu out of here,” yelled Isha. “We can do this!”
She was right! We were going to make it out of here, no matter what, I decided firmly. I had to tell my husband that I was falling in love with him, and I had no intention of getting shish-kebabed in the studio before I did just that.
I pointed the staff to the fire exit before Isha and I helped Diya get Kuhu down the stairs. I also found some shawls and soaked them under the tap before I draped one over Kuhu and handed another to Diya.
“I’m terrified for my baby,” she whispered.
“We’ll get her out,” Isha promised.
With great difficulty, we got Kuhu out just before the studio went up in flames. We could hear the distant wail of the fire engine siren, but no help seemed to be forthcoming. Ranvijay declined my call for some reason, but Isha got through to her brother and then to Veer.
“The roads leading here are all blocked,” she said after she ended the last call. “It will take them ages to get here.
Meanwhile, Kuhu began to cough.
“Guys, I really need to get her to a hospital to have her checked out. She didn’t inhale much smoke, but I want to be sure she’s fine.”
Thankfully, Ranvijay called just then, and I was able to speak to him. The sound of his voice was so reassuring. And if he said he was coming to get me, I knew he’d fulfil his promise, no matter what. But the trouble was that we couldn’t wait for him to get here. We had to rescue ourselves because that was the only option.
Before I could tell him that, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and dropped my phone as I jumped up to drag Diya and Kuhu behind a car. The next minute, a hail of bullets rained in our direction. Isha jumped out of the way in time, but we were shaking with fear.
“What the fuck is happening? Why are people shooting at us?”
“Long story,” said Isha grimly. “No time to explain now. We need to get Kuhu out of here.”
“Where is Diya’s security team?” I cried.
Isha waved towards the parking lot outside the studio. Diya’s guards and my chauffeur were engaged in a firefight with a group of around ten men in jeeps. Our men were outnumbered, but they kept us covered.
“My car is over there,” said Isha, pointing to a red Mini Cooper parked in a corner. “I’ll drive us to the hospital.”
We ran to the car, and Diya jumped into the backseat with Kuhu on her lap.
“Shivina, you get in with them and keep the baby safe. Make her lie on the floor if you have to,” ordered Isha as she jumped into the car.
“Wait! Do you have any guns on you?”
She gave me a wide-eyed look.
“Do you know how to shoot?”
I nodded grimly. We were not likely to get out of here without being noticed, and I had a feeling those men were going to come after us. I was going to get Diya and Kuhu to the hospital safely, even if I had to take out each of those murderers. Because that’s what they were. Murderers. They had tried to kill us. The very thought made me furious!
“Open the boot and lift up the tarpaulin sheet,” she said, hitting a button on the dashboard. “Hurry!”
I ran around to the back of the car when the door of the boot slid up and lifted the blue tarpaulin sheet. When I realised what I was looking at, I gasped in shock. This wasn’t a gun… this was a fucking rocket launcher. A tiny one. But still a rocket launcher!
“Is this even legal?”
“Does it matter? It’s effective and efficient,” she said calmly, loading a pink assault rifle. “Will you be able to handle it?”
“I think so. I’ve handled big guns before. This shouldn’t be all that different.”
“It isn’t! By the way, say hello to Basanti,” she said, patting her pink gun lovingly.
“Rich people are weird,” I informed her as I undid the safety on the mini rocket launcher and loaded it before I got into the backseat next to Diya.
“Just don’t blow my head off,” Isha replied before she locked the door and sped out of the parking lot.
As expected, with a screech of tyres, our assailants gave chase. A volley of bullets flew in our direction. Isha let off a round of warning shots as she steered with one hand. The car careened to the side, and she cursed loud and long as she got it under control. I waited patiently for the right moment, terrified that I was going to blow all of us into kingdom come if I so much as twitched wrong.
Just when I had a clear view of the three jeeps that were following us, I lined up my weapon to aim at the vehicle in the centre and fired. The resulting blast took out all three jeeps. Their passengers went flying, and the jeeps crashed into each other while drifting wildly across the road.
“Speed up before they crash into us,” I screamed, and Isha hit the accelerator before she called Veer and told him what had just happened.
Throughout the rest of our journey, I kept one eye out for any more vehicles chasing us, but we made it to the hospital unmolested. Kuhu seemed fine, but Dheer was waiting for us with a team of doctors and hospital staff, and they took over immediately. They wheeled the baby into the ER, and I sank back into the backseat of the car in relief, tears streaming down my face.
A hand slammed into the door next to me, and Ranvijay poked his head in through the window.
“Are you all right?” he asked hoarsely.
I jumped out of the car straight into his arms, which closed around me like they’d never let me go again.
“I’m fine,” I whispered. “A little singed around the edges, that’s all.”
“You smell like barbecue chicken,” he joked before he crushed me into a tight embrace.
His lips found mine and claimed them in a deep, almost desperate kiss.
When he finally lifted his head, I could barely think straight. Except for one question that had been troubling me for the past hour.
“Ranvijay, what the hell is going on?”
He sighed and nuzzled the side of my face.
“No one is ever going to hurt you again, Shivina. I’ll keep you safe, no matter what.”
“I can keep myself safe, thank you very much,” I replied dryly. “But I just left a bunch of men strewn around the road like broken dolls. If I’m going to be arrested for using a fucking rocket launcher on the streets of Trikhera, then I deserve to know what is going on!”
“It’s a long story, baby,” he said evasively.
“I swear to god, Ranvijay, I will shove that rocket launcher up your ass if you don’t come clean right now,” I yelled.
Isha and Veer, who had been having their own little reunion in a corner, turned to me in surprise.
“I knew there was a reason I liked this girl the minute I set eyes on her,” cackled Isha.
My husband rolled his eyes at this evidence of solidarity and frowned at me. Before he could prevaricate, I turned to Isha.
“Can you tell me the whole truth, please?”
“The man who tried to kill us is Ayush Goel.”
“What have I ever done to him? I don’t even know any Ayush Goel,” I protested.
“Not you! He’s upset with us because Diya killed his mother, and I killed his sister,” she said sheepishly. “You just got caught in the crossfire.”
“Ohmigod! Why the hell aren’t you guys in jail?” I cried, aghast at how easily she spoke about murdering another woman.
“It’s not what you think,” explained Veer.
Between the three of them, they explained their long-standing feud with the Goels, as well as what they were trying to do to end the mafia raj in their towns.
“That sounds like a very noble task, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything more stupid,” I said bluntly.
“Excuse me?” said Isha, sounding offended.
“I’m sorry, but are you guys aware this isn’t the fifteenth century anymore? You don’t have to protect your people against invaders anymore? There is a whole police force to do that,” I snapped.
“Babe, my father had the entire police force in his pocket, and no one could harm a hair on his head even though he was a bloody warlord. He was even an Honourable Member of the Parliament for years. Everyone knew what he was doing, and nobody cared to stop him,” she said bitterly.
“That may be so, but vigilante justice is not the way to go about it.”
“If that’s the way you feel, you and Zarna are free to leave right now. We can have the marriage annulled, and you can have your old life back,” replied Ranvijay angrily, and I reared back in shock.
He spoke so easily about dissolving our marriage. As if it meant nothing to him. All that mattered was his need for vigilante justice.
His friends spoke up together, telling him not to be an idiot. But he ignored their words as he stared at me challengingly.
Tears welled up in my eyes at the way he dismissed our moments of bliss so easily. But it was clear that I’d been living in a fool’s paradise. I might have been falling in love with Ranvijay, but to him, this was just a business arrangement. I had mistaken good sex for something more, and that was on me. It wasn’t his fault.
As his wife, I had every right to object to him putting his life in danger for a fight that was not even his. He had no political ambitions like Veer. Nor did he have a personal grudge against the mafia, like Dheer. So why did he have to risk his neck every single day?
Isha and Veer moved away to give us a semblance of privacy.
I blinked back my tears and faced Ranvijay down fiercely.
“Fine, if that’s the way you feel, let’s end this farce,” I said coldly. “Just tell me one thing. Why did you even think of starting a family under these circumstances? Why bring a child into the world if there’s no guarantee of you being around to raise it?”
“It’s precisely because I know that I might not come back home from a fight someday that I wanted a child,” said Ranvijay starkly. “So that my bloodline doesn’t die with me.”
His words hit me right in the solar plexus, and I reeled from the shock of it. In his eyes, I really was nothing more than a womb for hire, while I had been dreaming of a happy ever after with my prince charming. I remembered wondering how God had allowed me to go unpunished for the role I played in deceiving Ranvijay, and I realised that this was to be my punishment. Karma wasn’t going easy on me. It was merely setting me up for the harshest punishment of all - heartbreak.
“If that was the case, you had no business keeping such an important detail from me when we got married,” I said slowly.
Ranvijay laughed bitterly.
“I don’t remember having much choice in the matter. You married me under false pretences, Shivina, so I don’t think I owe you an explanation of how I want to live my life.”
Wow! Just… wow!
He really didn’t care about me. I knew our relationship began as a marriage of convenience, but I thought it had grown into something magical over the past few months. I needed someone to slap the silly out of me right now because I’d made the classic rookie mistake of mistaking sex for love. Just because I was starving for someone to love me.
Never again, I decided. I didn’t need anyone to love me. Especially not someone who treated me so callously. I had to learn to love myself first.
“Fine. Then I’ll move out of your house tonight.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he said furiously. “You can’t move Zarna in the middle of her exams.”
“Don’t worry about my sister,” I flared. “She’s my responsibility, not yours.”
But I knew he was right. It wasn’t Zarna’s fault that I had decided to fall in love with my temporary husband. Ranvijay had been very clear about what he’d expected from me. So this was all on me. Well, I was going to fix it. As soon as Zarna’s exams were over, we were walking out of the palace and out of Ranvijay’s life for good.
“All right, Your Highness. Have it your way,” I said bitterly. “Zarna and I will be out of your life as soon as her exams are over.”
I turned around and walked away without saying a word to him. My chauffeur had arrived with the car, and even though he looked a little rough at the edges after the gunfight, he was in one piece.
“Take me home, Rajan,” I whispered.
I got into the car and drove away without looking back.