Chapter 25
A dull, insistent throb pulsed through her head, dragging Kashvi out of sleep. With a low groan, she rubbed gently at the ache. She opened her eyes, and a sharp blade of sunlight cut across her vision. She suppressed another groan and covered her eyes with her hand, squeezing them shut.
‘Careful,’ a voice cut through the fog.
Kashvi felt sluggish, her mind struggling to cooperate as she looked at the man towering beside the sofa. ‘Dhruv’s… friend?’
Vihaan let out a huff of amusement. ‘I’d like to think I have a better reputation than that.’
‘Shh!’ Kashvi scolded immediately because his voice felt like it was booming inside her head. ‘Why are you screaming? Talk to me on mute.’
His chuckle slipped into the air as the pounding behind her eyes intensified. ‘Just how much did I drink?’
‘Enough to make me say I’m absolutely impressed,’ he said, helping her sit up.
The world tilted and a wave of nausea rolled over her. She pressed a hand to her stomach, waiting for the sensation to pass. ‘Great. Love that for me.’
‘Take it easy. Here’s some water. Drink it when you can,’ Vihaan said.
Before she could respond, the sunlight shifted again, catching her directly in the eyes. ‘Just kill me now and get it over with.’
Vihaan laughed, pulling the curtains halfway shut. ‘I’m not risking my life. I’ve heard enough stories about how dangerous Siya can be.’
‘Coward,’ Kashvi mumbled, blinking rapidly.
Finally, her vision cleared enough for her to catch a glimpse of her surroundings. It looked like a back room. Tall wooden shelves lined the walls, filled with an uneven mix of books and files, and a large desk had been pushed to one side.
The air carried a faint mix of coffee, wood polish, and alcohol. It made her stomach twist. ‘Where am I?’
‘You’re at our bar,’ Vihaan said.
Kashvi blinked in surprise. ‘Your bar?’
He nodded, taking a sip from his cup. ‘Didn’t Dhruv mention it to you last night?’
‘When did I meet him?’ she asked, more to herself.
Her thoughts moved slowly in fragments. She recalled leaving Swayam back at the mall.
Going home had been impossible, especially not when she was scared that Swayam might never come back to her at all.
It had been too much, so she had headed straight to meet Maithili.
Kashvi leaned forward to peek through the partially open curtains and saw the glass building glinting across the road.
Maithili’s office.
‘How did I get in here?’ she asked, turning around.
Vihaan lowered himself onto the edge of the sofa. ‘You thought the exit was this way. I believe you even asked Dhruv why someone would keep a sofa out on the road.’
‘I was that drunk? Brilliant.’ Kashvi dragged a hand over her face, fighting the sharp embarrassment. She didn’t even like drinking, but she had acted on impulse, and now it was kicking her in the ass. ‘What else did I say?’
Vihaan rubbed the back of his neck, looking away. ‘Maybe you should talk to Dhruv first.’
She was about to argue when she looked at the time.
Noon.
Kashvi rushed towards the table where her purse lay and began searching for her phone.
Vihaan stepped closer. ‘Hey, before you leave, please talk to Dhruv.’
She fumbled through the bag. ‘I’ll call him later. Thanks for letting me stay here, and tell Dhruv I said thanks too, but I really have to leave.’
Her hands shook as she remembered she’d switched off her phone, so she tipped her bag over, scattering everything across the table.
Where was Swayam?
Had he gone through with the engagement?
Had Viraj called with more demands while her phone was off?
‘Kashvi, breathe. Calm down,’ Vihaan said, gently tugging at her elbow. ‘You don’t remember what you told him?’
The hair at her nape prickled at something in his tone. ‘Why are you asking me like that? What did I say?’
‘Just wait here and I’ll get Dhruv,’ Vihaan said carefully.
Kashvi stiffened. ‘What did Dhruv tell you?’
The night before was an absolute blur, and that freaked her out.
For a while, her stepbrother had been their father’s spy. What if he still was? What if he told him whatever she’d foolishly revealed in her drunken stupor?
Her breath caught with fear, and she snapped. ‘If you two get some clever idea to hand Dad something to use against me, I swear I will punch both of you.’
‘You’re too late for that,’ came a voice from behind her.
Kashvi whirled towards the door where Dhruv stood, leaning against the wooden frame.
The sight of him knocked the anger out of her instantly because the bruise was impossible to miss.
The dark mark around his right eye had already turned an angry shade of blue and purple. His collar sat crookedly, torn along one side, and his shirt was completely crumpled. She had never seen him look so dishevelled.
‘What happened to you? Did you get into trouble again?’ she asked.
Dhruv rolled his eyes. ‘No, Mom,’ he said mockingly.
‘Don’t you dare,’ Kashvi snapped, closing the distance between them. ‘Don’t act smart right now. Who did this?’
His right eye was swollen badly enough to distort the natural line of his cheekbone, and an instinctive, visceral anger surged through her.
How dare someone hurt him like this?
‘You should see the other guy,’ he said, his eyes darkening, stripped of any civility.
The tension practically radiated off him, and Kashvi swallowed hard. ‘Am I supposed to see the other guy at the morgue or…’
A corner of his mouth tugged upwards. ‘I left him alive as a courtesy to Swayam. If that man wasn’t his cousin, I wouldn’t have stopped where I did.’
Kashvi gasped, her eyes going wide with disbelief. ‘I told you about… Viraj?’
When he nodded, she surged forward to grab his arm. ‘Dhruv, what did you do?’
He gave her an unimpressed look. ‘How about I ask you the questions now? Why didn’t you tell us what was happening? Not even Siya or Swayam?’
Kashvi shook her head urgently. ‘Dhruv, you can’t tell anyone. Not Di, and especially not… Swayam. If Viraj finds out that I told you…’
‘Hey, just relax,’ he said gently.
‘Relax?’ she echoed, fear breaking through her voice. ‘He has my pictures! Do you understand what that means? And if he decides to...’
‘I took care of it.’
His words sliced cleanly through her spiral. ‘What?’ she asked, trying to process them.
‘I took care of it,’ he repeated firmly.
‘We took care of it,’ Vihaan corrected.
‘Yeah, yeah, team effort,’ Dhruv muttered, waving him off.
‘What does that mean? What did you guys do?’ she asked, looking between them.
Dhruv reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a phone. She gasped when she recognised the devil sticker on the back of the phone case.
It was Viraj’s phone, shattered beyond repair.
She struggled to process the shock. ‘How did you even... how do you have his phone? I don’t understand.’
Before Dhruv could answer, Vihaan spoke up. ‘You see, Kashvi, we’re part of a vigilante group, and we believe in aggression against men who forget basic morality when it comes to women.’
Her mind stalled as she tried to decide whether he was serious. Vihaan pointed at the phone in Dhruv’s hand. ‘What you’re looking at is justice.’
She glanced back at Dhruv, bewildered. ‘Okay, what the hell is he talking about?’
Dhruv glared at his friend, then shook his head. ‘Don’t listen to him, Kashvi. How we got it doesn’t matter. What matters is that everything he had on you is out of his hands.’
‘So he has nothing on me?’
‘Nothing,’ Dhruv said, meeting her gaze without hesitation.
‘What if he has backups? What if he has copies stored somewhere else?’ she asked, spiralling because she was too scared to believe it.
‘We made sure to ask, more than once,’ Dhruv assured her. ‘He didn’t break, which means we get to hope there aren’t any more copies.’
A strange, fragile sense of hope began to bloom in her chest. Finally, she forced the words out. ‘So... I’m free?’
‘Yes,’ Dhruv said, gripping her shoulders firmly. ‘I promise.’
The chokehold around her heart finally loosened, and she threw her arms around him as the words tumbled out. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’
The short-lived relief quickly vanished when she felt Dhruv flinch.
Kashvi pulled back immediately. ‘Oh my God. What did I do?’
Dhruv shook his head, though one hand instinctively rubbed over his stomach. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, brushing it off.
‘Don’t worry, he’s a lot tougher than he looks,’ Vihaan chuckled. ‘In fact, go ahead and punch him just to test it out.’
Dhruv shot him a dirty look, then turned to Kashvi with a pleading expression. ‘Some other day.’
Kashvi lightly touched his cheek and caught him hiss in pain. ‘Did Viraj do this?’
‘It got this bad because I got sloppy.’
‘He’s always sloppy,’ Vihaan added.
‘You’re just bitter because you didn’t get your beauty sleep,’ Dhruv shot back.
Vihaan scoffed. ‘Maybe I would have if you hadn’t kept me up all night trying to pull data from that broken piece of metal, which, by the way, was a complete waste of time.’
‘Maybe you shouldn’t have broken the phone then,’ Dhruv muttered.
Vihaan countered instantly, ‘You told me to take care of it, not bring it back in one piece.’
‘I foolishly assumed you had enough sense to know I didn’t need a dead-or-alive directive.’
Kashvi barely heard their bickering, her gaze fixed on the bruise that made Dhruv tense every time he spoke. ‘I can’t believe you did this, went through all this, just for me,’ she mumbled.
‘It’s no big deal,’ Dhruv shrugged.
The ease with which he dismissed it made her want him to understand she meant it. ‘No, it’s a huge deal. I don’t even know how to thank either of you.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I do,’ Kashvi said, taking a deep breath. She met his gaze head-on. ‘In fact, I owe you much more than that. You know, for someone younger than you, I’ve spent a very long time being your personal tormentor. Though I won’t deny that you made it easy by being annoying most of the time.’
Dhruv lifted his hands in surrender, a faint smile playing on his lips.