12. Mayukhi
TWELVE
Mayukhi
“Why am I here?” Mayukhi asked again. She saw Dhrithi glance at the others. Whatever the other girl saw in their faces, she took a deep breath and leaned forward.
“Varun was,” Dhrithi paused. “Not a good husband,” she added after a moment. “I wasn’t happy in my marriage, long before it imploded quite so dramatically.”
“He was an abusive piece of shit. Got it.” Mayukhi leaned back against the couch, one leg crossed over the other. Beside her, she felt Ishaan shift, the heat of his body a burning brand against her side.
“You’re not questioning it?” Dhrithi’s level gaze held a level of wary that Mayukhi understood.
“No.”
Mayukhi wasn’t a fool. She’d watched Varun fuck his way through most of their social circle and beyond. She’d assumed Dhrithi and he had had an open marriage. From what she saw in Dhrithi’s face now, she knew that was not true. She’d also always known that Varun was mean, spiteful and held petty grudges. She’d assumed that the worst he was, was small minded and that he’d outgrown some of his immature, vicious shit. It would appear Mayukhi had made a lot of assumptions that were falling by the wayside now.
“When Varun died,” Dhrithi continued when it became clear that Mayukhi wasn’t going to say anything more than that one word. “The police opened up an investigation into his life, professional and personal.”
“Why? What was he doing?”
“We don’t know.”
Mayukhi scoffed, the disbelieving sound echoing in the otherwise silent room. “You don’t know?” She looked at Virat. “ You don’t know. If you don’t know, then how the hell am I supposed to?”
Virat didn’t reply but the tightening of pretty much every muscle in his face and body told her that he didn’t take that well. It wasn’t often he was accused of failing, she guessed. Well, too bad. She knew exactly who Virat Jha was and if the country’s most infamous fixer didn’t know something, she didn’t know how she, Mayukhi Chatterjee, Fashion Designer, was supposed to help. And that’s what this whole elaborate charade was about…her helping in some way. But what way exactly?
“I can’t help if I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to do.”
“We need to find out what they’re involved in,” Ishaan spoke for the first time, his voice gravelly with emotion she couldn’t identify.
“They?” Mayukhi’s gaze scanned the tight faces in the room. “You think they’re all in on whatever this is, the old gang?”
“The Dusty Devils,” Amay drawled the ridiculous name. “Have you ever known them to not do something together? It’s like they all share one collective brain cell.”
Mayukhi raised an eyebrow at the derisive comment. “And yet their collective brain cell seems to be outsmarting you guys at the moment.”
Again, it would seem she’d said the wrong thing. She sighed.
“I’ll ask again, why am I here?”
Before anyone could answer her, Mayukhi’s phone started to ring. She glanced at the display, her eyebrows shooting up. Naveen was calling.
“That’s why you’re here,” Ishaan said quietly, pointing to her buzzing phone. “You know them. They like you. You’re our ‘in’.”
“They tolerate me,” Mayukhi corrected, silencing her phone and letting the call go to voicemail. “You know this, Dhrithi. I’m not part of their inner circle. I never was. I’m a friend yes but I’m not in there twinning with their souls.”
“But you are part of their circle,” Ishaan answered when Dhrithi stayed silent. “Unlike us.”
“Is that what this is? A childhood vendetta?” She looked around at their tense faces. “I know they got you guys expelled or something. Are you trying to get even by smearing their reputations now?”
Her phone started to ring. Mayukhi silenced it again without even glancing at it.
“Their reputations,” Amay muttered. “Their fucking reputations.”
But before he could continue further, Virat spoke up, “No. It’s not a childhood vendetta.”
“No?” Mayukhi challenged.
“It’s an adult one,” he said quietly. “Whether you help us or not, Mayukhi, you should know this. We are going to destroy every single one of them. We will leave them with nothing. We will leave them as nothing.”
“Why should I help you?” Mayukhi demanded. “This is my world, my circle you’re talking about destroying.”
“I already hold your world in the palm of my hand,” Ishaan interrupted harshly. “Don’t give me a reason to grind it to dust beneath my boots.”
Fury erupted inside her at the cold reminder of what he’d done to her family. “You think reminding me of how much of an asshole you are is helping your case, Adajania? My father and I had nothing to do with whatever this shit is you have going on with the Crestwood crowd. We are nothing but collateral damage.”
Ishaan looked unmoved by her outburst. “I don’t need to help my case. You’ll do what I say or you’ll be the first one we leave standing with nothing. We are going to do this, Mayukhi. You are either with us or against us.”
“You don’t even know if there is something going on,” Mayukhi yelled. “You know nothing. Other than the fact that Varun slapped Dhrithi or something.”
Silence as cold as an iceberg melting in their midst blanketed the room. Dhrithi, her face pale and set, turned in her seat, her hands going to the edge of her t-shirt. She yanked it up, exposing her back to the room.
Mayukhi went still, her eyes going to the lattice of scars that crisscrossed Dhrithi’s back, each one with a tale to tell.
“It was a bit more than a slap,” Dhrithi said, her voice cool and remote, like her mind had taken her somewhere far, far away.
Mayukhi inhaled, a shaky breath.
“I could fax you my medical records so you could see the catalogue of broken bones and stitched up gashes but I think the bottom line is, you’re right, Yukhi. We could force you to help us but it’s not going to work unless you want to help us. I know they’ve been up to something and when that comes out, and it will, there will be no hole deep enough for them to hide.”
“Why didn’t you leave?” Mayukhi’s hands shook, the image of Dhrithi’s mutilated back seared into her brain.
“You knew Varun. Would he have let me?”
All the oxygen had left the room. Mayukhi took in a shuddering breath but it didn’t seem to help. Her vision darkened, patches of grey expanding and contracting in front of her.
“Yukhi?” Dhrithi’s concerned voice reached her from a distance.
“Breathe Kraken.” Ishaan’s rough voice penetrated her gasping daze. “You’re not actually going to be the drama queen who faints at the first sign of trouble, are you?”
Irritation swam through her as she smacked away the hand he had braced on her back.
“God, you’re so much work,” he continued to complain. “You’re supposed to be a hard ass and you can’t even get through one difficult conversation without swooning.”
Mayukhi’s head popped up, her eyes spitting fire. “Fuck you.”
“There you go,” he smirked, patting her back condescendingly. “Feeling better?”
Mayukhi’s phone rang again. Ashish this time. She stared at the screen for an endless moment before turning to meet Dhrithi’s eyes.
“I dated him, you know,” she murmured.
“Ashish?” Dhrithi frowned.
“Varun.” Mayukhi could feel the tightness of her chest return with the memories. “I dumped him two days before he started dating you.
They stared at each other, an endless moment.
“I’ll do it,” she said finally, with a short nod. “Not because of him.” She jerked her head in Ishaan’s direction. “But because of you.”
“Why?” Dhrithi asked. “You owe me nothing.”
“Do you know why I dumped him?” Mayukhi forced herself to meet Dhrithi’s eyes. “He wanted me to go to the grove at the end of the grounds. You know the one with the huge tree?”
Dhrithi nodded. They all knew that grove, each one of them had it burnt into the very marrow of their bones. They all knew that tree too.
“I knew what it meant.” Mayukhi’s eyes were unfocused, her gaze on a distant past only she could see. “I went along with it because even then, even before it all, I was scared of upsetting him.”
“Yukhi no!” Dhrithi’s distressed whisper had Mayukhi closing her eyes.
“No,” Mayukhi said, a single tear escaping her iron will. She scrubbed it away even before it could slip down her cheek. “No. It didn’t get that far. I changed my mind the minute he tried to kiss me.”
“Against the tree,” Dhrithi murmured, a horrified knowledge in her voice.
“Against the tree,” Mayukhi confirmed with a shudder. “I heard their voices, his friends, in the distance, laughing and talking. They were coming towards us. It distracted him. I forced him away from me just as the rest of the gang came into view. He was furious with me but he didn’t want to cause a scene in front of them. So, he made it look like they’d interrupted us and we’d stopped for lack of privacy. They apologised, made a few vulgar comments, shared a cigarette with him and left.”
Mayukhi stared down at the palm of her hand, her thumb rubbing at a small, circle of hardened skin, a callus of sorts. She held her hand out, palm up for them to see.
“I refused to continue what we’d started. He stubbed his cigarette out on me in retaliation. He held me in place and ground it out in my palm as I screamed and pleaded with him to stop. They heard me scream. I know they did. They heard me scream and they didn’t come back to help me. I’ve never forgotten.”
Dhrithi’s eyes glistened with tears. Mayukhi continued to look at her and only her. She couldn’t look at the others. She could handle hate, disdain and even anger. She couldn’t handle pity. Not from him.
“I should have warned you,” she told Dhrithi now. “I was so grateful that his attention had shifted from me to someone else, that I just…I didn’t want to do anything that would bring his attention back to me. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
She leaned forward and held her scarred palm out to Dhrithi who clasped it with her own.
“I’ll make it right. I’ll do this. For you.”
Her phone started to ring again and this time Mayukhi picked up, putting it on speaker.
“Naveen,” she said, her voice remarkably calm for what they’d just been discussing. But then, Mayukhi Chatterjee had spent a lifetime perfecting her mask, the only face she shared with the outside world. “I’m working,” she added. “What’s with the constant calls?”
“We need to talk, Yukhi. It’s urgent.”
She could see Virat place a recording device beside her phone and she pitched her voice a little higher to ensure clarity
“What about?” she asked.
“Are you really in love with Ishaan Adajania?” Naveen demanded, his voice ripe with fury.
Mayukhi met Ishaan’s guarded gaze. He shook his head slightly but she ignored him.
“No,” she said. “This engagement is a business arrangement with my father as I’m sure you’ve already figured out. Baba’s forcing me into it.”
The men in the room stilled, a wave of suppressed emotion rolling through them. She hoped they would trust her to know what she was doing.
“Perfect.” Naveen’s satisfied smirk was visible in his voice. “I knew you wouldn’t lower yourself to his level, Yukhi.”
“What do you want Naveen?” She forced herself to sound bored. “I have work to do.”
“We want you to help us take down your fiancé and his friends.”
Mayukhi smiled, fire lighting up her eyes. “It will be my absolute pleasure.”
Game on, bitches.