CHAPTER 44 #3
She takes a step behind. “How could he even do something like this? What was he thinking?” Her voice rises with every question as tears continue spilling down her cheeks.
“I... I can’t believe Samarjeet would kill Dad.
Did he never once think about Mom? About what she would go through when she found out her own son killed her husband?
She shakes her head frantically. “No… Mom loves him so much. No... no... How could he kill Dad?”
She drags a shaking hand through her hair, breathing hard.
“I always knew Samarjeet had an evil side. He hated me. He never treated me like a sister. He never respected Mom, never listened to Dad. Their ideologies never matched. Whatever Dad decided, he never agreed readily. He always challenged him at every step and was always a big headache to Dad. I’ve seen it my entire life. ”
More tears fall. “But that doesn’t mean he would kill him,” she sobs. “How could he do this? No…” The disbelief finally begins to turn into rage. “I… I’m not going to spare him. If he really killed Dad, I won’t leave him alive.”
Then she loses control. Everything inside her explodes all at once. Shock. Anger. Frustration. Devastation.
“I’ll kill him with my f*cking hands.”
The flower vase on the side table nearly topples when she shoves past it. Then she sweeps her hand over the desk. Files and folders crash to the floor as papers flutter everywhere as she lashes out at anything and everything within reach.
I don’t stop her or try to silence her. I just watch, letting her rage burn through her because right now, she needs to vent before she can breathe again.
“I’ll not let him live!” she shouts. “I’m going to kill him.”
The pain in her voice is enough to tear through me. The intel had shocked me too. Learning that Samarjeet killed Shamsher Vardhaan was something even I hadn’t expected. But my own shock became insignificant the moment I saw Siya.
Because for me, this is information. For her, this is family.
This is about her father, her brother, and her mother. This is her entire world tearing itself apart in front of her.
Her wounds are too personal, and I can see that she’s no longer thinking clearly. Before she can hurt herself in the process, I finally step forward and pull her back.
“Stop.” I wrap my arms around her from behind and hold her firmly against me. My palm presses gently against her forehead as I try to steady her.
“Stop it, Siya. Calm down. Please.”
But she is far beyond calm.
“Leave me!” She struggles against my hold. “I’m going to Cape Town. I’m not going to leave him, Raghav.”
Her voice breaks. “Dad didn’t deserve this from his own son.” Her rage keeps pouring out all over again.
I let her fight me for a few moments before finally managing to guide her towards the couch. She resists at first, but eventually, I make her sit down. I sit beside her, holding both her hands as though letting go would make her fall apart all over again.
“Siya,” I say quietly, waiting until she finally looks at me. “Men like Samarjeet can never be trusted. If he truly had that kind of evil intention inside him, then, yes... he could do something like this.”
She stiffens.
“I know that you’re hurt right now, and I understand why. But if you lose yourself like this...” I squeeze her hands gently. “Then who is going to handle your mom?”
The moment I say it, I see the realisation hit her. Her mother still doesn’t know. And suddenly, a new fear replaces the rage, and her entire body seems to shiver.
“I can’t tell Mom,” she whispers. “I can’t. I know how much this will break her. Samarjeet is her son, Raghav. She’ll never be able to bear this.”
I remain silent for a moment.
“As far as I know, your mom is stronger than you think,” I tell her softly. “Yes, this is going to be a huge shock to her. But she deserves to know the truth. We have to tell her.”
She shivers at the very thought of it. I can’t see her like this… so fragile and vulnerable. I move closer to her and cup her face.
“I know this is hard. What Samarjeet has done is completely unacceptable. There are lines even men like us do not cross. And he crossed every one of them. He committed a sin, and he’ll pay for it, Siya. I promise you that.”
Slowly, some of the tension leaves her body. She lowers her eyes and stares at her trembling hands.
“I feel so sorry for Dad,” she whispers. “I knew Samarjeet was never happy after Dad adopted me. He always fought with him over it.”
I swallow. Finally, Siya is telling me herself that she was adopted. That she isn’t a Vardhaan. I stay quiet and let her speak.
“Dad loved me so much, and Samarjeet hated that. He was always afraid that whatever money, property, or share existed would eventually be divided between the two of us. And he wasn’t ready for that.”
She shakes her head slowly.
“There were so many times I saw him fighting with Dad over it. I even told him that I didn’t want anything. That I wanted nothing that belonged to the Vardhaans. He could have it all if he wanted. I never cared about any of it.”
Her eyes fill again.
“All I wanted from him was for him to stop disrespecting Dad,” she pauses. “To show some love and affection towards Mom. That was the only thing I fought with him about since childhood. But he never cared. I don’t know what got into his head that he could do something like this.”
For a few moments, neither of us speaks. The storm inside her has calmed slightly, but the silence only makes the other revelation echo louder inside my head.
“Siya...”
She raises her eyes to mine.
“If you’re not Shamsher Vardhaan’s daughter...” I pause. “Then who are you?”
Something changes in her expression. The rage disappears. Even the grief seems to take a step back. She just looks at me and says the last thing I ever expected to hear.
“I’m Ranjit Gill’s daughter.”
I freeze.
Siya notices the shock on my face and adds, “The same Ranjit Gill… your closest bodyguard.”
No. For a second, I forget how to breathe. I can’t believe it.
Siya is Ranjit Gill’s daughter? The daughter of the man who had meant more to me than my own father during my childhood?
“I was nine years old when I got the news that your father, Tej Khurana, had shot my Dad,” Siya continues. “I was shattered and all alone. I had no idea what to do or nowhere to go to.”
Her fingers tighten slightly around mine. “And that’s when Shamsher Vardhaan walked into our house. He placed his hand on my head and took me with him.”
A faint, bittersweet smile appears on her lips.
“He’d always admired my father’s loyalty. My father, Ranjit, was a good man, and he was fiercely loyal to Tej Khurana. That was something Shamsher Vardhaan respected.”
She looks down at our joined hands.
“For years, he had tried to convince my father to come and work for him, but Dad always refused. He kept saying he would never leave the Bat Gang for anyone else. And now I know why.”
I frown.
“He wasn’t loyal to your father, Raghav. He was loyal to you. He didn’t stay for Tej Khurana. He stayed for you. To protect you.”
She gives me a sad smile.
“Being your bodyguard was never just a job for him. And that’s why he never left, even when Shamsher Vardhaan offered him more money.” A tear slides down her cheek. “He still refused.”
Yes. Because Ranjit loved me like a son.
“Who would’ve thought that the same love he had for you would one day become the reason he was killed?”
My eyes fill with tears.
“Your father killed him only because, somewhere along the way, you started loving and admiring my father more than your own father.”
Neither of us speaks for several seconds. Finally, Siya lifts a trembling hand and wipes the tears from her face.
“Nobody knew about this. And Shamsher Vardhaan...” Her voice falters before she forces herself to continue. “He took me under his wing. He and his wife, Rukmini Vardhaan, adopted me. That’s how I became the Vardhaan mafia princess. That’s how I grew up with them, and they became my family.”
I stare at her for a long moment, letting every piece of the puzzle fall into place. Then another memory surfaces.
“At Meher’s baby shower...” I say slowly. “When you were talking about Samarjeet and suddenly stopped... when you left that sentence unfinished... this is what you were hiding, isn’t it?”
Siya nods. “Yes.”
My thumb brushes over her knuckles before the question I’ve been holding back finally leaves my lips.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes slowly rise to mine.
“Why did you hide something this big from me, Siya?”
“I wanted to tell you, Raghav.” Siya lets out a weary breath.
“But there was never a right time. I was already angry because of the way our marriage happened. And that night, when you woke up from that nightmare, when you told me about your father and about how you found out that Taj Khurana was responsible for killing your bodyguard…” She pauses to swallow.
“I wanted to tell you everything. I wanted to tell you that the man you mourned all these years, the man whose death changed your life... was my father.”
A tear slips down her cheek.
“But I couldn’t. Because your pain was too much for me to add mine to it. I just couldn’t do it. And that music you hear, the one he gave you? It was the melody he had taught me when I was a child.”
A lone tear falls from my eye, and Siya reaches up to wipe it away.
“And all this time, I never knew how much it meant to you. But that night, when I heard you listening to it, I realised how much you loved him. How much you still respected him and missed him… just like me.”
And as those words leave her mouth, another memory stirs somewhere in the back of my mind.
I was twelve, maybe thirteen then. I was alone in one of the courtyards of the Vardhaan Mansion, cleaning my gun. By then, I already knew how to shoot. My father made sure of that. I was completely focused on the weapon in my hands when a small voice interrupted me.
“Can you let me hold that?”