Chapter 25
25
A rmaan stood in the warehouse studying the three men suspended from the ceiling. Arlo and Vasily had been working on them for a while now. However, even with broken noses and ribs, they still hadn’t given any answers.
Armaan sighed, flexing his hands. It had been four days since he had been released from the hospital, but Mihir hadn’t allowed him to step out of the house. Today, he’d put his foot down. Mihir had given in on the condition that Mihir would go with him. Armaan needed answers, and these men before him were the only ones who could give them to him.
Arlo smashed one of the men’s faces in front of him. “How did you know where to find our boss?”
“I told you. We only followed what we were t… told,” the second man replied.
“Who gave you the order to hurt my brother?” Mihir asked.
“We d… don’t know,” the same man said. “K… Karl got the instructions. We simply followed them.”
“What’s this Karl’s full name?” Mihir asked.
“They don’t know anything, boss,” Vasily said. “We’ve been at it for hours. Looks like their leader was the one in charge of everything.”
These men had targeted Navya and him. They had tried to hurt her. Rage refilled in Armaan’s veins.
Pulling out his gun, he pointed it to the first man. “Tell us your boss’s full name.”
“I don’t know,” the man on the other end said.
Armaan fired. The man screamed as the bullet hit his shoulder.
“Shall we try this again?” Armaan looked at the second man, whose eyes were filled with fear. “I don’t have time for this. Tell me your boss’s full name.”
“Karl Leipzig,” the man finally said.
“Where can I find him?” Armaan asked.
Fear was painted on the man’s face, yet he stayed quiet. Armaan smiled, pulled the trigger, and shot the man in the knee. He squealed in pain.
Armaan approached the third man. “I was generous with those two. You, I will shoot between the eyes. Either tell me what I want or die.”
“Wait… wait…” the man said. “I will tell you everything.”
“Speak,” Armaan ordered icily.
“Karl got a call last week from someone informing us that you were the target. The job was to kill you. The date and location were informed at the last minute. We got a call that you would be at Club Poseidon the evening of the attack. The payment was credited to Karl’s bank account as well. The plan was to launch an attack when you arrived in the private parking. But you never came. Tired of waiting, we were going to abort when Karl got a call that you were already in the private parking. Sure enough, we stepped out of our car and found you arguing with the girl.”
Armaan shared a look with Mihir. For sure, he, too, was thinking what Armaan was. Whoever had targeted Armaan had been there in the nightclub that night. That was how they had known to look for Armaan in the private parking at that particular moment.
“What about the girl with me?” Armaan asked. “Was she also a target?”
“Our instructions were only to kill you. But if she came in the way, then we were to eliminate her as well.”
Fuck. Which meant Navya wasn’t safe. Fear poked him in the chest, but he calmed himself to pay attention to the scene in front of him.
“Where can we find this Karl?” Mihir asked.
He blurted out the addresses of every possible location of their leader.
“What else?” Mihir asked.
“There’s nothing else, I swear.”
“What about the attack on our brother in London?” Armaan asked.
“What brother?” the man said. “I don’t know anything about any attack in London. I swear I don’t. We are just low-level guys. No one tells us more than needed.”
Armaan had expected that reply, but he needed to ask. Thinking of Vedant made his heart hurt. Vedant was recovering. He would get better, and they would find that fucker Ivan and end his existence once and for all.
Mihir looked at Vasily. “If they don’t have anything more to share, finish them off.”
Loud pleads followed as Armaan exited with Mihir. They hadn’t even reached their car when they heard three gunshots. Vasily appeared soon, wiping his hands with a rag. Arlo followed close behind, his face stilted.
“They didn’t have anything more to share and were wasting our time,” Vasily explained. “We ought to look for their leader Karl.”
When Vasily went to open the driver door of Armaan’s Bentley, Armaan raised a hand, beckoning the rest of their security. He pointed at two of his men. “You two, please go in my Bentley with Vasily. Sit in the back, both of you, and Arlo and the rest of the team, please continue in the other SUV. Mihir and I will take the second vehicle. We need to shake things up, so anyone following us or targeting us doesn’t know which car we are taking when.”
“Are you sure, boss?” Vasily asked.
“He’s right,” Mihir said. “Let’s keep doing things differently, henceforth. You never know who is watching us from where.”
Nodding, Vasily took the wheel of the Bentley. After the attack, Mihir was stricter with their safety. He had become so paranoid that he had doubled the security around their house as well.
Mihir drove as soon as Armaan clasped his seatbelt. Even doing that hurt his ribs. Actually, now that he was seated, a lot of his aches and pains made their presence known. His shoulder hurt, his ribs even more, and the back of his head was throbbing.
“Are you okay, da ?” Mihir was studying him carefully, missing nothing, as usual.
“No, but I will get there.” Ignoring his pain, he said, “One thing I don’t understand is how the hell did they know I would be at Club Poseidon that night. Even Navya didn’t know I was going to be there. She texted me at about ten pm that night and said she was there with Ananya. I went to surprise her.”
“Do you remember more from that night?” Mihir asked carefully.
“Nothing more than what I’ve already told you.”
“What if Ivan bought over someone working at Club Poseidon to fix this attack?” Mihir voiced out. “That person may have recognised you and must’ve passed on the information to those men.”
Armaan thought through his brother’s words. He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. Those men were already waiting for me. They expected me to be there that night, and they knew that I’d take the private parking. Why would they think that? And why that night? Navya and I had no plans to go out. We were to meet at the yacht, and as promised to you, I haven’t been going out at night for weeks except for the night of the attack.”
“Fuck. Again, it comes back to that particular night. Why that night?” Mihir cursed. “We have so many questions and so few answers.”
Armaan’s phone rang. His pulse spiked when he saw it was Navya calling. He stared at the phone as it continued to ring.
“Aren’t you going to answer her?” Mihir asked.
“No.” Putting his phone on silent, he shoved it in his jacket’s pocket.
“You need to talk to her, Armaan.”
His lips compressed. “Since when are you pro Navya?”
“I am pro you, and you are miserable without her,” Mihir said. “You look lost ever since you woke up at the hospital, not to mention your sour and grumpy mood. That is supposed to be my signature look, not yours. You’re the happy brother, the naughty one, and I hate seeing you so heartbroken and sad. Talk to her, brother. You won’t be in peace until you do.”
“She doesn’t love me, Mihir.”
“It could be a misunderstanding.”
“I heard her say it.”
“She says she cleared it with you before that final blow on your head. What if you don’t remember resolving it with her?”
“If I clear it with her and realize that she actually loves me, then I won’t be able to let her go. What if I can’t protect her? Bringing her into my life is too damn risky for her right now.”
“Shouldn’t that be her choice as well? I believe she fought those men for you, with you, fearlessly. That man Karl possibly knows that she is important to you. What if Ivan also knows? What if he uses her to get to you?”
“That is why I need to stay away from her. If they don’t see me with her for a while, they will understand that we aren’t together. She will never be targeted ever.”
“Fuck, you’re an idiot.”
Ignoring the jibe, Armaan asked, “Is someone watching over her?”
“Her brother has put security around the family. Also, I have put someone to follow her around as well, discreetly, of course. Someone who even our security doesn’t know.”
“Why?”
“I’m just finding it hard to trust anyone right now,” Mihir said.
“Good, I want her safe always.”
Mihir looked at him. “You need to talk to her. I believe she’s been coming to the house daily, and you have instructed the security to send her away.”
He didn’t want to talk about Navya. It was too bloody painful.
“I want to go visit Vedant,” Armaan deflected. “Although he is getting better, I need to see for myself that he is alright. Besides, we need to update him on what happened to me too. Maybe he can shed more light on everything now that he is fully conscious. Hopefully, he remembers some details from that attack on him.”
Now that he was back on his feet and able to move about, Armaan had been itching to go meet his brother. His heart would settle only once he saw with his own eyes that Vedant was fine and completely out of danger.
Mihir nodded. “Alright. Let’s go tonight, but we keep this private between us. I’ll organize the jet, and we’ll inform our home staff and security of the plan only at the last minute.”
“Agreed,” Armaan said.
That night, as he sat in his plane, he finally looked at his phone. There were dozens of missed calls, voice notes, and messages from Navya, begging him to listen to her. God, this separation from her was pure torture. How he ached to hold her close and breathe her in. His brother was right; he wouldn’t have any peace until he talked to her. But right now, her safety was of the top most priority. It was more important than his own feelings.
He hardened his heart. He had to keep her away from him. Even if that meant he’d have to let her go, he would do it. Eventually, she would stop calling and texting him. She would hate him for not responding to her and thus move on. And even though it killed him, he would continue to ignore her and make her believe the worst of him. Her safety came first. While he wasn’t certain of what she felt for him, she would come first for him, always.