CHAPTER 23 #3
We settle into our seats just as the aircraft begins taxiing across the runway. Outside the window, the lights of Cape Town blurs with every passing second, and my chest tightens as reality finally starts to sink in.
I’m married to Raghav, and every escape plan I had spent months building has just turned to ashes tonight.
***************
An hour later – In flight
The moment the jet stabilises midair, and the seatbelt signs turn off, I get up and head straight towards the cabin suite at the rear section of the jet. I cannot bear the bridal lehenga any longer. Every inch of that outfit feels humiliating.
To reach the cabin, I have to walk past the rear end where Raghav and Haider are seated. But I don’t even spare Raghav a glance while crossing him. Yet from the corner of my eye, I notice he has already changed his clothes sometime during the flight.
The bloodstained Dark Prince who stormed a wedding is gone now, and is replaced by a man in yet another black shirt with the sleeves carelessly rolled up to his forearms and rugged dark jeans.
His hair is still slightly damp, suggesting he has showered too.
But that changes absolutely nothing. Because the madness and arrogance from tonight is still there on his face.
As I enter the cabin, I look around the suite. Our luggage, which Trisha had secretly moved out of the Vardhaan Mansion for our escape, has obviously been loaded onto the jet as well.
The RK emblem is everywhere here too, taunting me from every direction, as if reminding me exactly whose world I have been dragged into.
Angrily, I begin tearing off the bridal jewellery piece by piece, except the mangalsutra.
My fingers hesitate for a moment around the black beads, but ultimately, I remove it and toss it onto the counter.
After a quick shower, I step out again, the last traces of even the sindoor disappearing down the drain along with everything else.
I’m no longer Siya Vardhaan trapped in a bridal lehenga inside a blood-soaked mandap.
Instead, I’m wearing one of my travel outfits: ivory wide-leg track pants paired with a matching soft button-down shirt layered over a fitted inner top.
Elegant and comfortable for the flight journey.
Making sure there are no visible symbols of my marriage left on my body, I walk back out of the cabin and deliberately look at Raghav.
I want to see his reaction to my first act of defiance after this forced marriage.
Although I already know it will not end well.
Raghav is alone now and is looking outside the window with one hand loosely holding a glass of whiskey. At first, he doesn’t notice me. But then his eyes land on me, taking me in… without the mangalsutra, without the sindoor, without any visible symbol that connects me to him.
A muscle ticks in his jaw, and the grip around the whiskey glass tightens slightly.
Good.
I meet his stare with equal hostility before walking past him towards Mom without slowing down. If he thinks forcing me to marry him means I will simply accept it quietly, then he’s about to be very disappointed.
When I return to my seat, Mom is still the same.
Furious, shaken, and visibly disturbed. I’ve never seen her like this before.
She’s always been the softer one between my parents, the kind who carried her pain quietly instead of exploding in anger.
Even during arguments with Samarjeet, she never completely lost control.
Yes, she fought back when needed and stood her ground. But there was always restraint in her anger. Tonight, that restraint is gone after watching her daughter get emotionally cornered into a forced marriage in front of the entire underworld.
I can still see the rage in her eyes as she looks at Raghav. She hates him right now. Truly hates him for what he did to me tonight. And seeing her like heartbroken like this hurts me as well.
Slowly, she tells me her side of the story.
Apparently, Mom had been waiting for Trisha to extract her from Vardhaan Mansion, exactly the way we had originally planned.
But before Trisha could reach her, Haider arrived first, claiming that Trisha had sent him to safely get her out before the wedding ceremony began.
Mom trusted him immediately and quietly left with him.
At that point, they were still inside the mansion, moving carefully through hidden corridors to avoid the Vardhaan guards.
Everything had been going as per plan until the gunfire suddenly erupted from downstairs.
Then Haider quickly moved her to a secure location near the first-floor balcony, which overlooked the lawn. From that vantage point, she saw everything happening at the mandap. Right from Raghav entering the mansion to him announcing to everyone present there that he was going to marry me.
My fingers tighten unconsciously around the edge of the seat as I recall that moment again.
Mom looks at me with tears in her eyes.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing downstairs,” she whispers painfully. “My daughter… getting married like that.”
“I tried to stop him, Mom,” I admit quietly, my own voice trembling now. “I tried talking sense into him. I argued. I fought back. I refused him again and again. But then… he threatened me.”
Mom’s expression tightens immediately.
“He said he would never let me see you again,” I continue. “That was my breaking point. You were already missing by then. Trisha couldn’t find you anywhere inside the mansion, and nobody knew where you had gone.”
I swallow hard.
“At that point, I thought Raghav had taken you away somewhere... that he had hidden you from me on purpose.”
My fingers curl tighter into my lap. “I had no idea you were still inside the mansion the whole time. No idea you were upstairs watching all of it happen, feeling just as helpless as I was.”
“Oh, Siya,” Mom sighs, holding back her tears.
“I even tried calling out your name from upstairs to let you know you didn’t have to do it, but Haider stopped me.
The moment I tried revealing myself, he covered my mouth and physically held me back.
I even argued with him after that. I kept asking him why Raghav was doing this when it was never the original plan.
He was the one helping us escape, wasn’t he?
Then why was he suddenly forcing you into a marriage instead? ”