Ch14 Waiting for You #3
And in the next moment Rudraksh’s face vanished from my sight…
Time skip four and a half hours later.
We were already in Kashi. Mamaji’s private plane had brought us, and now we sat in the car speeding toward home.
I sat lost in my thoughts, turning that last look into Rudraksh over and over in my head.
What was it I had seen in his eyes that final time?
Why does it feel as if everything is not over that so much is still left unsaid?
A strange certainty kept rising in me: Rudraksh will come back for me.
Why do I trust him so completely? We have known each other only a few days, yet it feels like I have known him for years.
Drowning in my own thoughts, I didn’t notice when we reached home. Mamaji opened the car door for me; I stepped out without really thinking. Nanu caught my arm and guided me inside. It was barely morning barely six o’clock and still half-dark when Nanu led me through the house.
The moment they saw me, Nani, Mami and Dhara rushed forward.
Mami hugged me, sobbing, but I stood there mute; words wouldn’t come.
Nani gathered me into her arms and wept with me.
Then she stepped back, took my cheeks in her hands and asked, trembling: “Rivu, what have you done to yourself? What is this the sindoor, the mangalsutra? How..?”
Through my tears I managed to say, “Nani, this sindoor, this mangalsutra they are in my husband’s name, Nani…”
Nani’s face changed. For a heartbeat she seemed to waver, then she whispered, “You don’t have to accept this marriage, Rivu. We will get you a divorce. Don’t worry.”
I was stunned. “Nani you always said divorce isn’t part of our culture. Why are you saying that now?”
Before Nani could answer, Nanu cut in sharply, exasperated. “Stop arguing here. Bring her in she’s tired, can’t you see?” He guided me to the sofa in the hall and Mami gave me a glass of water.
As everyone was trying to speak at once, Mamaji’s guards barged in, dragging my father, Naresh Bedi, behind them. He was shouting, struggling pleading to be released. I watched in shock, barely able to make sense of what was happening.
I looked at Mamaji and demanded, “What are you doing? Why have you brought him here?”
Mamaji’s voice was steady, but there was a hardness under it. “There are many questions your father must answer, Rivanya. That’s why I brought him here.”
My heart lurched. Everything I had feared every dread that had lived at the edge of my thoughts suddenly felt dangerously close.
Mamaji strode up to Papa and tore into him with a fury that left the room stunned.
“Did you forget how you ruined my sister’s life?” he spat. “ And now you left your own daughter to die, all for your own convenience.”
Papa stood mute the guilt was written on his face. Mamaji didn’t give him time to defend himself.
“Do you even know who is that person You forced this marriage on my child?” he demanded.
Papa swallowed and replied, “Yes Rudraksh Vardhan. The heir to Vardhanpur, owner of the Vardhan industries.”
Mamaji’s laugh was bitter, full of contempt. “Is that all you know? You don’t know the whole truth.”
Confused, Papa asked, “What do you mean?”
Mamaji’s voice went cold. “Rudraksh Vardhan may be the future King and the face everyone admires, but what you don’t know is where his power truly comes from. He’s tied to the mafia. He’s not a respectable industrialist he’s deep in the underworld.”
The blow hit me harder than it hit Papa. I felt my legs go weak and sank onto the sofa, as if someone had folded the world beneath me. How could Rudraksh have hidden something so monstrous? How had I not seen it?
“Rudraksh… and the mafia?” Papa echoed, incredulous.
Mamaji’s eyes were steel. “Yes. That man the one people praise for charity and prosperity he’s ruthless, ruthless to a degree that makes him monstrous.”
Their words stung, but I could not accept them at face value. The room’s whispers the cold, accusatory glances were unbearable. I wanted to flee the spectacle, to stop the shouting before it tore everything apart.
Papa moved toward me. “Rivanya, wait,” he said, voice low and raw. “What I did there’s no excuse. I can’t take it back. But I can free you from this bond. I will remove those sindoor and the mangalsutra and give you back your life.”
He reached out as if to wipe my sindoor away. I flinched and then anger like a hot flame rose up in me. I jerked his hand away as if it were an insult.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, every syllable sharp. “Who gave you the right to touch my signs of marriage?”
Papa’s answer was steadier than I expected. “I’m trying to undo the mistake. I’ll break those symbols and make you free.”
Something inside me snapped. My voice, which I had always kept soft and careful, rose in a pitch they had never heard.
“How dare you?” I shouted, every eye in the room swallowing the sound.
“Who gave you the right to strip away my Sindoor and Mangalsutra? Who gave any of you the right to decide what I must wear or not wear? Those are mine not props for your conscience, not trinkets to be picked up and discarded by a man who has wronged me.”
Heat flamed up my throat. I had never been righteous like this in front of them; I had been the obedient daughter, the dutiful girl. But that moment demanded something else. Pain, grief and a fierce, burning pride braided together into a single resolve.
I planted my feet and raised my voice so that every corner of the room heard me.
“Listen carefully. I am not Rivanya Bedi anymore. I am Rivanya Rudraksh Vardhan. I am the wife of Rudraksh Vardhan his ardhangini. No one not father, not anyone, not a single hand in this house has the right to touch my sindoor, my mangalsutra, my marriage.
If anyone here thinks they can take those away from me, if anyone dares to lay a hand on the symbols of my suhag, you will see a side of me you have never imagined. I will not be treated like a thing to be given, or taken, or returned.”
The room fell into a charged silence. I could feel my pulse in my throat and the tremor in my hands, but underneath it all was a hard, steadier beat: determination.
Hurt had made me fierce; shame had sharpened my voice.
This was my life now, forced or chosen, and I would guard its dignity with everything I had.
Nani stepped forward, eyes blazing with anger. “Rivanya how can you say such things? Aren’t you ashamed to call that man your husband?” she snapped.
I answered, voice steady but sharp with the same heat, “No, Nani I’m not ashamed. And why would I be? Do you even know the truth about my husband?”
My words landed like stones. I put everything on the line then, my chest tight with a strange, fierce calm.
“This is my first and final warning,” I told them.
“Don’t you dare lay a hand on the symbols of my marriage my mangalsutra, my sindoor. That mangalsutra binds me to my husband. That sindoor is the mark I wear every day with the belief that it protects him from every danger. Between my sindoor and my mangalsutra and me, no one else must come.”
I turned to look at Papa. My voice hardened, but there was no pleading in it now.
“And don’t forget that I am Katha Bedi’s daughter her values are in me. Even if you forced this marriage, I stand in this relationship of my own accord now. I told you I had no ties to you; I even returned your surname. Remember that you are not speaking to Rivanya Bedi anymore.
You are speaking to Rivanya Rudraksh Vardhan the elder bahu of the Vardhan family. So show some respect.”
For a moment the room held its breath. Nani’s expression changed from furious reproach to a stunned, suspicious silence; her hands trembled slightly as she realized I was no longer the quiet girl she thought she could shame into submission.
Papa’s face tightened shame, perhaps, or the sharp recognition that he had underestimated what he’d set into motion.
Mamaji’s anger softened into a hard, puzzled disbelief; he exchanged rapid, uneasy glances with Nanu as if recalculating everything he’d thought he knew about me and the marriage.
Then I steadied my voice and said what I needed them to hear next, louder this time so no one could mistake my conviction.
“And one more thing: remember this Rudraksh will come to take me back. He will come for me.” I said his name out loud for the first time in front of them, and saying it made something in me settle. “I am sure of it. Rudraksh will come for me.”
Hearing my certainty, a ripple went through the room. Some faces were skeptical, some afraid, some grudgingly respectful. But in my chest, saying his name openly not as a whisper, not as an accusation, but as an anchor felt like calling destiny itself. I believed it. I believed he would come.