Chapter 51 #4
Before she could start reprimanding him for unnecessarily involving himself in Suman's matters in front of her entire family — especially in front of her evil mother and troublesome sister — he quickly escaped citing some urgent work.
Well, technically, he did have work. But suddenly its urgency increased tenfold the moment his wife started approaching him like that.
Still, Shaurya had no regrets about interfering.
No woman deserved such harassment, and as the Chief Minister, he considered it his responsibility to help every woman in his state.
His government had already established legal assistance entities to help people — especially women — facing legal troubles, but he knew it still wasn't enough.
If he won the next elections, he planned to expand the entire system further.
That was, if he won again.
This time, Dev and his party were giving him an exceptionally tough fight. And though Shaurya finally had a family now, he refused to use his wife and daughter for political mileage or to improve his public image.
Not that Dev personally liked using his family either, but his youth association and PR team definitely knew how to highlight Dev's "family man" image — one advantage Dev had where Shaurya lacked badly.
Since Shaurya was already there in Akansha's hometown, he decided to visit Aakriti too, as she lived in a nearby town.
Honestly, saying his sister had changed a lot in these five years wouldn't even be enough.
He had never imagined she would become the woman she was today, but he was glad she had finally overcome her fears and found some peace in life.
Happiness still wasn't entirely a part of her world, but she had found contentment in simplicity.
She willingly gave up her luxurious life and shifted into a modest apartment near the old age home she now looked after. Serving the elderly there gave her a strange kind of peace. Looking at their sufferings made her realize how petty her own pain had once been.
Those people had spent their entire lives working endlessly to give their children better futures, never caring for their own health or retirement, and now, when they finally needed support, those same children had abandoned them.
Yet despite everything, those old souls still prayed every single day for the happiness and well-being of their children.
That was where Aakriti truly learned what selfless love meant.
The same selfless love her brothers and father had always showered upon her... love she failed to value back then.
Rajnath loved her so deeply that he was completely shattered when she tried taking her own life. It took her a long time to truly understand the gravity of her mistakes, and once she did, she wanted to abandon every comfort and spend her life serving those elderly people as repentance.
But Rajnath refused to let her stay there alone.
At the same time, he couldn't permanently move into the old age home either, considering the massive business empire he still had to run.
So instead, he shifted with her into a simple apartment nearby.
He quietly gave up his own comforts just to support his daughter emotionally, and she understood how blessed she actually was to have people who loved her so selflessly.
And Dev and Shaurya?
They suffered even more than she did.
She had watched Shaurya destroy himself little by little just to keep her alive. He went against his own values for her sake. She saw him breaking every passing minute, but at that time, she had been too consumed by her own pain and anger to notice his suffering properly.
Deep down, she had always known Shaurya loved Akansha. But she chose to remain trapped inside her own illusion and forced herself to believe otherwise. She was the one who pushed him toward revenge.
Then came the day Shaurya was stabbed while protecting Akansha. Even now, that sight haunted her.
He had been bleeding profusely, yet he still kept fighting the attackers to stop them from reaching Akansha. That was the first time genuine fear consumed Aakriti. She truly believed she would lose her brother that day.
And that was when the reality of the entire situation finally hit her properly.
After that incident, she stopped talking to Shaurya for some time. He misunderstood her silence as anger over him risking his life for Akansha, but in reality, she was finally processing the truth she had conveniently ignored all those years.
By the time she gathered enough courage to apologize and ask him to end all this revenge madness, he had already sent her abroad while he himself was still recovering from those fatal injuries.
And when she returned... Akansha was already gone. Shaurya looked like a dead soul from then onward. He was merely breathing. The guilt nearly suffocated her. She cursed herself every single day for not realizing things earlier.
With her stubbornness and irrational thirst to make her "sufferers" suffer, she had destroyed the life of the one man who did everything possible to keep her happy.
The same man who had stayed beside her through every circumstance.
The same man who sat outside her hospital room for forty-eight hours waiting for her to open her eyes.
He loved her more fiercely than even Dev sometimes did. And what did she give him in return?
She became the reason he lost the woman he loved more than his own life. She forced him to hurt Akansha and turned the woman he loved against him forever.
All for what?
A few venomous words Akansha had thrown in anger?
Now, looking back, her old pain felt embarrassingly small to the strong woman she had become today. She should have asked her brothers to destroy the actual culprit — Dilip Gandhi.
He was the one who manipulated her emotions and deliberately instigated her against Akansha. But back then, she had been too emotionally weak and blinded by hurt to understand his game.
Dilip had cleverly sprinkled salt over her wounds and shifted all the blame onto Akansha, diverting her anger completely. He was scared of her powerful background, and she foolishly danced exactly the way he wanted her to.
Ironically, Akansha had unknowingly done her a favor. She had saved Aakriti from a monster like Dilip Gandhi. If anything, Aakriti should have been grateful to her from the beginning. And now... she finally was.
Her health still wasn't completely fine. She still suffered from panic attacks, attended therapy sessions regularly, and visited clinics every month. But now the reason behind her suffering had changed entirely.
Earlier, it was heartbreak. Now, it was guilt.
Rajnath informed Aakriti about Shaurya's visit to the city, and she immediately left for the party office thinking he had come there for official work. She genuinely felt happy knowing Akansha and Siya had returned to his life.
Recently, Shaurya had shown her Siya's photographs and told her how Akansha named their daughter "Siyakriti" despite everything that had happened between them.
That moment completely broke Aakriti. She cried uncontrollably against Shaurya's chest, silently wishing those tears could somehow wash away her mistakes. Though Shaurya never blamed her, she knew the truth. She knew she had become one of the reasons behind his destruction.
However, the moment her driver casually informed her that Akansha and Siya were also there with Shaurya, panic immediately consumed her.
"Take a U-turn," she said instantly.
The driver tried convincing her repeatedly, but Aakriti stubbornly refused. She wasn't ready yet. Even the mere thought of facing Akansha made her palms sweat now.
Yes, Akansha's words had once hurt her badly... but what Aakriti did afterward was far worse. It was a sin she realized far too late. And from the day she accepted that truth, she had imagined apologizing to Akansha countless times, yet never truly gathered the courage to face her.
After dropping Aakriti back home, the driver immediately went searching for Shaurya at the party office. But after learning he wasn't there, he drove towards Akansha's parents' house instead, since Shaurya had arrived there with Akansha and Siya.
He tried calling Shaurya's personal number — the only contact he had — but unfortunately, Shaurya's phone had discharged and was left charging at Akansha's place before he stepped out.
The driver finally reached Akansha's house and knocked on the door. The moment Akansha opened it and saw him, her eyes widened slightly.
"Aap? (You...?)" she muttered in surprise.
He used to work at the Shekhawat ancestral mansion as a driver... perhaps he still did. For a brief second, uneasiness crossed her mind. Had Virendar Shekhawat sent him there? But why?
"Akansha ma'am... Namaste. How are you?" he asked warmly.
He had always been kind toward her.
During her days in the Shekhawat mansion, he had quietly helped her countless times. He secretly took her to markets, helped her with grocery shopping, and drove her wherever she needed without informing anyone because her mother-in-law preferred making her walk everywhere.
He even taught her how to properly choose vegetables and groceries because initially she knew absolutely nothing about such things. Ironically, once her mother-in-law discovered that weakness, she deliberately started sending Akansha alone for grocery work repeatedly.
More importantly, he was the one who took her to the university that day.
Though he himself never knew it, she managed to submit her thesis on time only because of him. A part of the "Dr." before her name existed because of his help.
"Namaste... I am good. How are you?" Akansha asked politely.
"I am fine. I heard a lot about Siya. God bless her," he said with a kind smile, and Akansha smiled softly in return.
"I also got to know you became a doctor now. I am very happy for you... and for Shaurya too. After all, he waited for this day for so long. Finally, that nameplate will become useful now."
Akansha frowned slightly.
"Nameplate?" she asked in confusion.
The driver smiled fondly.
"That very evening, after you submitted your thesis, Shaurya made a wooden nameplate with his own hands. It had 'Dr. Akansha Shaurya Shekhawat' carved on it. From that day onward, he kept waiting for the moment he could finally place it outside your house when the two of you moved into a new home."
Akansha froze completely.
Wait. What?
Shaurya knew she was submitting her thesis that day?
He knew she had been preparing for it all along?