Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25
DIYA
I had come into the study to wait for Dheer. I wanted to tell him that I was moving back home and filing for divorce. And to tell him that he better not fight it. Well, he’d just made my work easier.
“Please join us, Your Highness,” I invited coldly. “This is a lovely reunion.”
“Diya, it’s not what you think,” said Dheer warily.
“It’s really not,” added that woman.
I skewered her with a glare and she promptly shut up. This had nothing to do with her and everything to do with my soon-to-be ex-husband. Alright, maybe it had something to do with her because she was here in my house. But she wouldn’t be here if Dheer hadn’t invited her.
“I don’t want to hear it. All I came here to say was that you will hear from my lawyers soon. Don’t fight the divorce because I want nothing from you, Dheer. But I promise you, if you try to drag this out just to make me miserable, I will leave you with nothing. Nothing! ”
“Raksha, can you wait outside, please? I’d like to speak to my wife,” said Dheer.
“I have nothing more to say to you, so please don’t leave on my account,” I said sarcastically.
“I’m not getting in the middle of this,” muttered Raksha, as she scuttled out of the study.
“A little late for that,” I quipped.
“Stop it, Diya,” snapped Dheer.
“Don’t snarl at me,” I snapped back.
The lethargy of my grief was giving way to fury, and instead of biting it back as I had done nine years ago, I let him have it.
“How dare you bring that woman into our house?” I yelled.
“I can explain. Raksha is just a friend,” he replied placatingly.
I picked up the paperweight from his desk and lobbed it at the wall in anger. It crashed into the wall but didn’t make a dent in the solid construction of the past century.
“A friend who was the reason you dumped me nine years ago! Was it not enough that you broke my heart before? Did you have to do it all over again, and with the same woman?” I asked brokenly.
“I admit I hurt you nine years ago, and I know I can never make up for it, but I did no such thing this time, Diya. Please believe me,” he begged.
“Then tell me why she’s here.”
“Raksha is the private investigator I hired to find the dead woman,” he shouted.
I froze in horror at his words.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Was your ex-fiancée the only person you could have hired for the job?”
“What difference does our past relationship make, Diya? She was the best person for the job,” he argued. “And she got us amazing results.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at him coldly.
“If that’s true, why didn’t you tell me?”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you tell me when you hired her?”
“Raksha is on permanent retainer with my company. I didn’t hire her just for this job.”
“Oh, so your ex-fiancée is still employed by your company, and you think this is okay? How is it okay, Dheer?” I yelled again.
“Because there is nothing between us! And there never was,” he yelled back.
You could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed his bombshell. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. Because why would he say that?
“You brought that woman to my twenty-first birthday party and introduced her as your fiancée. Correct?”
“Yes, but…”
I held up a hand angrily.
“I’m not done! You told me you fell in love with her at first sight, correct?”
“Yes, but…”
“You kissed her at my birthday party. Right in front of me! Correct?”
“It was just a tiny peck, but yes,” he said, sounding annoyed.
I liked how he had the balls to be annoyed in this situation. Fucking cheek!
“Then how in everlasting hell do you claim that there was nothing between the two of you?” I hissed.
“Because there wasn’t,” he said uncomfortably. “I hired her to pretend to be engaged to me for that evening.”
“What! Why would you do that when you knew you were supposed to ask for my hand that evening? Oh! ”
I figured out why he faked an engagement with another woman instead of asking for my hand. Because he didn’t want to marry me.
The breath left my body in a whoosh. I had thought I was hurting last night, but that was nothing compared to how I felt. Sure, I grieved for having loved a man who never loved me back. Not then, and not now. But I also felt deeply humiliated. Dheer had to fake an engagement to get rid of me. Because I couldn’t take a hint. I was also furious! How dare he play such childish games with me?
“So you didn’t have the balls to tell me to my face that you didn’t want me, but you had the balls to come up with such an elaborate charade? Do you know what I went through, apart from being the laughingstock of our society? I spent the past nine years trying to get over you. You sacrificed your friendship with Veer! And for what? I can’t believe you were so cruel to me when you could just have told me that you didn’t want to marry me,” I said, with tears running down my face.
“I had my reasons,” he yelled.
“I don’t want to hear your bloody excuses. Despite what you and I were to each other, despite what you and Veer were to each other, despite what our families were to each other, you didn’t think I was worthy of one honest, painful conversation,” I replied bitterly, wiping my tears away. “In light of all that, I can’t understand why you married me at all. But we can correct that mistake, Your Highness. We’re done. Now and forever.”
I turned around and walked out of the room with my head high because I’d rather die than shed another tear in Dheer’s presence.
“Diya, wait…” he called, but I ignored him.
There was nothing more to be said. My marriage was over. Raksha was waiting outside the room when I walked out and she hesitated when she saw me.
“I’m… I’m sorry, Your Highness. For the part I played in hurting you,” she said softly.
I walked past her without replying and she sighed heavily as she entered Dheer’s study. I waited until I heard the door swung shut behind her before I made for the front door. Ramsingh wasn’t at his usual post in the hallway, and there was no one to see me leave the palace.
I was done with Trikhera for good, I decided. I walked out of the palace and when the guards looked at me enquiringly, I told them I was going for a little walk. They looked doubtful, but they opened the gates for me after I assured them that His Highness knew about it.
It took me ten minutes to reach the main road, and I hailed a passing auto-rickshaw.
“Airport chaloge?” I asked and hopped in when the driver nodded.
Thankfully, I was still carrying my purse when I’d gone into the study. I could buy a ticket back home at the airport.
I don’t know when I realised something was wrong, but maybe it was the way the driver kept peering into the rearview mirror that tipped me off.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Someone’s following us,” he said, sounding worried. “And they have guns!”
I whipped my head out of the auto to check what was going on and gasped in horror when I saw a whole convoy of SUVs bearing down on us. For a minute, I wondered if it was Dheer chasing me down, but Dheer would never shoot at me.
I ducked back in when a hail of bullets whizzed past my head.
“Chalo, bhagao gadi,” I cried, but the auto driver shook his head apologetically before he pulled up by the side of the road and jumped out of the vehicle. He ran for cover as the cars roared up next to me.
I jumped out of the auto, prepared to run for my life, but Alka Goel blocked my way.
“You bitch,” she hissed. “You couldn’t leave well alone, could you? And now, my son is in jail. Because of you!”
“He deserves it,” I said defiantly. “He’s a murderer.”
She backhanded me sharply and my head snapped back with the force of the blow.
“Aukaad mei reh, chhori,” she snarled. “I think it’s time to teach all you royals your real place.”
She grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to the car that was closest to us. I struggled like I was possessed, but she was very strong for such a skinny and spare woman. Maybe it was anger that gave her that strength. She threw me in the back of the car and got in next to me. Before I could jump out from the other side, the driver locked the doors and we set off.
I stuffed my hand inside my handbag and tried to unlock my phone surreptitiously, but the blasted thing needed my face ID.
“Take us home,” she ordered, and the car sped down the highway towards Goel House.
“You can’t get away with this,” I spat, and she laughed.
“Of course, I will! We’re the Goels, my dear. I’m not a pampered blue-blooded princess like you. I’m hardy. I’m strong. And I’m ruthless. I will destroy anyone who stands in my way. Including your precious beast of a husband.”
I snorted in derision at her claim.
“Dheer will have the whole army at your door if you don’t let me go. You don’t know with whom you’re messing,” I warned.
She burst out laughing. A manic, crazy cackle that sent shivers down my spine because she sounded unhinged.
“Little girl, do you ? Do you know anything about your husband? He’s no pampered prince, your Dheer. He’s the beast of Trikhera! He’s an animal. A murderer,” she hissed.
I shrank away from her. She really had lost her mind.
“Stop the fucking car! Now!” I yelled frantically.
Alka Goel leaned forward and put a finger on her lips.
“Shhh,” she said in a sibilant whisper. “Be quiet or I’ll slice up that pretty face.”
She pulled out a small butterfly knife and held it against my cheek. I froze in my seat because she looked crazy enough to do it.
When we arrived at her house, she pushed me out of the car and I fell on the cobblestones of the driveway. Her husband came running out of the house.
“Are you mad, Alka? I’m trying to get Ayush bailed out as soon as possible. Why did you bring this slut here?” he demanded.
Alka Goel sauntered over to him and placed her knife against his lips threateningly.
“Don’t interfere in my business, my dear. You stick to your turf and let me stick to mine.”
Her husband flinched at her words and backed away warily.
“Do as you like, but don’t complain when this blows up in our face. You think Randheer Shekhawat will let this go unavenged?”
“Let him come,” said Alka Goel, moving to sit on the big wooden swing that hung in the portico. She pulled one leg up onto the seat and began to swing gently. “I look forward to ending his tyranny.”
I got to my feet and a beefy thug pushed me towards the madwoman. He threw me at her feet and I turned to her husband.
“Don’t allow this, Mr Goel. It will only get in the way of your son’s freedom,” I reasoned.
He gave a mirthless laugh and walked back into the house without a word. Clearly, he wasn’t going to help me.
“You should have thought about the consequences of your actions,” said his wife.
She nudged me with her foot.
“See that hole in the ground? That’s where we had buried that chor, Sheela. And that’s where we will bury you.”
I reached my hand inside my bag and her eyes sharpened when she saw that.
“Fools! Take her purse and break her phone before her husband tracks her down. We don’t want to make it too easy for him,” she snarled.
I raised my hand and swung my heavy, leather handbag at her face as hard as I could. She shrieked as it made contact with her cheekbones. The butterfly knife slipped out of her hand and fell to the ground. I scrambled to pick it up before her men could and held it out when one of them approached me.
Alka Goel was holding her cheek as she screamed in anger, spittle flying out of her mouth as she called me every nasty name in the book.
“Get her,” she yelled. “Beat the bitch black and blue. Right now!”
I swung the knife wildly at the man in front of me and he took a step back.
“Stay away from me,” I hissed.
My hand shook as I waved the small knife because I knew I wasn’t capable of using it ever again. Not after what had happened the last time. Now that I knew what it felt like to kill a man, I didn’t think I could do it again.
The men backed me into a corner and snatched it from my hand.
Just then, I heard the roar of a motorbike approaching the property. The men turned in surprise which turned to shock, and then to fear when there was a loud blast that blew a massive hole in the high wall that surrounded the mansion.
There was pin-drop silence as they all leaned forward to peer at it. Alka Goel spat out a mouthful of blood and waved a hand towards it.
“What the hell was that?” she asked in confusion.
When the dust cleared, we saw a man walking through the hole with a rocket launcher on his shoulder.
I knew that weapon. Hell, I knew that man.
It was Dheer!