Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
DHRITHI
“Sit down, Goody. I’ll tell you what you need to know.” Ishaan, for the first time since she’d met him outside the hospital sounded tired and lost. His trademark sneer seemed to have disappeared into the hazy dusk that was slowly descending on the city of Mumbai.
“What I want to know,” she corrected him, still standing, her arms folded over her chest.
Now he smiled, a small peek of the shark he kept hidden within his civilized exterior. “Don’t push your luck,” he told her gently but the steel in his warning came through loud and clear.
Virat stood up from the chair he’d been seated on and walked over to the banister. Every muscle in his body tensed as he braced his forearms on the metal railing and stared out into the distance. She was pretty sure he wasn’t looking for the ocean sliver. She watched his profile, carved from aged grief, and she felt fear streak down her spine like lightning. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what had happened. The expression on Virat’s face told her she was better off living in ignorance.
“What did Varun do?” she whispered.
“It wasn’t just him.” It was Amay who answered her. “It was the Dusty Devils.”
The old nickname for Varun’s gang at school was a jarring reminder of happier times. It took her back to boisterous meals in their lunch hall, quiet study hours trading notes with friends, giggling gossip sessions in their dormitories after the lights went out, and an innocent friendship with the studious, quiet boy in the seat beside her.
“They bullied you?” she asked, when no one said anything further. But then The Dusty Devils bullied everyone.
“Not just us.” Ishaan scrubbed his hands through his hair. “It was graduation night. After the party, we managed to score a couple of bottles of beer and snuck out into the gardens in the far east corner of the grounds.”
Dhrithi knew the spot they were talking about. Far away, bordering the wall that hemmed the school grounds in was a little grove of thick trees. It had been a popular make out spot between the older kids. It had been the spot where Varun had forced their first kiss on her. She blocked the memory now and focused on the conversation, her hands instinctively rubbing at her arms to banish the sudden chill that had set in.
Amay glanced at Virat who was still staring into the distance, seeing God knows what. “They had someone tied to a tree. The massive old banyan tree near the-“
“I know which one,” Dhrithi whispered. That was the tree Varun had pushed her up against and-
She squeezed her eyes tight and shook her head to dispel the memory, revulsion crawling through her.
“It was a girl, wasn’t it?” she murmured, her voice a bare breath of sound. They had tied a girl to that tree.
Nobody answered her but she knew she was right. Instinctively, she knew that whatever was coming was nothing good. She could still feel the bark of the tree against the thin cotton of her t-shirt as Varun had smashed his lips into hers and ground himself against her, ignoring her whimpers of protest. Varun had chosen that tree for a reason, one that she had known nothing about.
“Yes.” Amay stepped forward, blocking her view of Virat. There was something deliberate in the movement but Dhrithi was unable to comprehend hidden meanings in that moment. She was already struggling with the truth being laid bare. He didn’t bother to elaborate on what they were doing to the girl. Dhrithi didn’t need to know. Bile rose in the back of her throat as the reality of what she’d always known about her husband smacked her in the face.
Husband.
The very word made her skin crawl, a thousand bugs skittering through her veins, revulsion living its truth in her very essence.
“We stumbled upon them.” Amay’s voice leaked bitterness and shame. “When we realised what was happening, we tried to help. But, we weren’t heroes. We were collateral damage in a battle we had no skills to fight.”
“They beat the shit out of us,” Ishaan said bluntly. “They would probably have killed us but a teacher heard our screams and came looking. If not for him…”
“What happened after that?” She knew what would have happened even before she asked the question but her wet eyes found Amay’s disgusted ones.
“What do you think happened? They had all the power. We had none. Scholarship students and unwanted children have always had none. We got thrown out of school. They didn’t expel us on the condition that we would keep our silence, but we had to leave immediately. If we made a noise, even a whisper, about what happened that night, they would ensure that we weren’t accepted into any college, anywhere in the world.”
“And the Dusty Devils?” The name was a burning brand on her tongue, one she wanted to spit out and curse.
Ishaan laughed, a sharp blade of sound. “Well, they thrived, didn’t they? Each one a greater success than the last.”
“And the girl?” she asked, her voice almost inaudible. “Is she okay?”
“Would you be, if it were you?” Virat asked, the first words he’d spoken, his voice a jagged sword. He looked down now, his gaze on the road far below and for a brief second, fear clutched at Dhrithi’s gut. She took an instinctive step forward but before she could say anything, Virat unclenched his hands from the railing and stepped back, his expression smoothening out, mask sliding back into place.
“What-“ She wet her lips, struggling to marshal her thoughts and ask the right questions. “What do you think this has to do with what is happening now?”
“We don’t know,” Ishaan answered. “But if that bunch is still going strong, whatever they’re involved in is nothing good.”
“No more,” Amay said quietly, his words dropping like stones in the quiet that had fallen around them. “This ends now. We couldn’t end it then but whatever this is, it ends now. We will end it for them.”
He glanced at Dhrithi, a challenge in his gaze. This was her world he was talking about detonating, the world her family still lived in, one to which she still belonged. The grieving widow of the rich, powerful Varun Gokhale, the dutiful bahu of an industrial powerhouse, Bharat Gokhale.
She met his gaze, resolve filling her and strengthening her spine.
“How can I help?”