Him
Icouldn’t sleep last night. The thoughts of her whereabouts have been a constant on my mind, although I can’t deny the constant struggle my brain has been put through.
A civil war, between what I know and what I want to believe. She must not be okay. That’s the closest that I can get. The rage that boils through my veins each time my mind descends down the next steps, is unimaginably poisonous. My own venom filling my veins, killing the rest of what’s left of me painfully slow.
I need to get to her faster than ever, after knowing who’s behind this.
They say we get what we deserve, and I admit I must’ve deserved this pain for making her go through hell for the simple act of looking at me once. For being selfish enough to punish her for the innocence on her angelic face. For being fresh... different in an ocean of spiritually dark doppelgangers.
But what I find unjust is why is she the one carrying out the sentence in my name. She doesn’t deserve this pain. My pain!
And I am guilty. After all, life was still great when I had to look at her from a distance. She was happy, better off without me.
I need to give her back her life.
Divit pats my back, “Do not act out of aggression. We’re here to get information to contact him... Its Disha’s life on the line – remember that. Okay?”
On a normal day I would not have taken it lightly, but all this wouldn’t be happening at all if this were a normal day. So, I nod.
The two storied mansion seems like straight out of horror movie even in broad daylight, in the absence of my sister. I mean she was the life essence of this place after Mom’s death. Her marriage was the last time this house seemed like home to me. Ever since she left, I’ve been visiting my father’s only if absolutely necessary, which does not happen much.
Mostly because he doesn’t give a shit about me, and I happily return the sentiment.
But today...
Today I need him to answer the questions I have long dreaded to ask him out openly.
I wasn’t afraid of him, but the fact that he had very little guilt about getting his child abused by a stranger was enough for me to realize that there was nothing to know. No questions needed. I knew the answer.
He was covering his own tracks – settling dues, maybe. And I was the price.
I enter the study and find him seated behind the desk. His smile more welcoming than necessary.
“How was your flight son?” he asks. The last word burning the metallic flavor of hate on my tongue when I gulp it down.
Keep it professional...I mutter in my head.
My hand flexes before meeting his. A friendly pat on my shoulder almost stealing my attention, before getting seated right across him.
“It was comfortable. How are you?”
He smiles, pleasantly surprised by my question, “Good. I see, my son has finally grown up. You were here to discuss something important, so... what is it?”
“Getting straight to business as usual.” I mutter and continue, not giving him a chance for justifying his cold behavior. “I had questions regarding your business... our business I mean.”
His brows shoot up in surprise, “Are you finally planning to do away with your stupid indecision?”
“I don’t know. But if I’m giving it a thought, I’ll need to know everything. About everything.” I cock a brow, “Why have you been transacting in foreign currency for a substantial part of business? I don’t remember expanding to the Balkans.”
“Have you been keeping a track? And why most importantly?” His tone as cold as always.
“That’s not the correct answer. The correct answer is that you’re working with the MK Group, and helping them hide their dirty tracks.” I deadpan.
“And you’ve been looking at it how? Is it one of your talents? Hacking last time, I checked.” He leans back like he knew it was coming, “Doesn’t surprise me that you’re becoming a criminal yourself.”
“Regardless of what my measures are... I have enough on you over the years and it would take me less than ten seconds to send it to whoever it concerns, to get you where you’ve always belonged. And this business... don’t even get me started.”
“If you wanted it, you wouldn’t have come here all the way to threaten me. So tell me... What is it that you want?”
“I need answers. And I need specific information about a man you know.” My heart rising to my throat.
He huffs a sigh in response, “Naksh... why don’t you stop playing around and be more specific?”
“What do you know about the owners of the MK Group and why have you been into business with them?”
His brows furrow in confusion, “What? Why are you –”
I retort cutting his question midway, “Answer me. I don’t have the patience for what’s and why’s?”
He leans forward, almost smiling, “I’ll tell you a life lesson son, there are times when you make a mistake. When you try to back away from it, you make another mistake. And then you fall into the vicious cycle of going back and forth making the same mistakes until you have nothing left to lose. Except... you have something that you cannot afford to lose. What extent you go for saving that one thing is up to you.”
He pauses, “I went as far as I could and still couldn’t save one of you.”
My eyes twitch at the cryptic connotation. One of you?
“Do you mean sacrificing one of your children at the hands of an abuser and abandon your wife when she went missing was you being the savior?”
The smile on his face dies an instant death at the mention of his own karma.
“Don’t call her my wife. I loathe that woman.” He hisses charging towards me.
I get to my feet to look him in the eye, “You loathe my mother?”
“Yes. I despise her.” His voice low, and full of poison.
“Why? Is it because she never indulged in your sick festivities. Your bloody fuck parties?” I bark.
He shouts back and I catch his hand midair. That’s when he spews the venom, he built all over these years.
“Because Maya was a whore. She was his bloody slut. I had no business being with her...”
His confession hits my chest like a goddamn bullet bursting right through my heart. The uproar inside me gets out of control and in a matter of seconds, the whole conversation goes off track. My tight fist lands on his jaw before I could even think of what I was doing.
What the fuck was I thinking? Mom would be so mad...
My hands tremble with guilt and confusion. And anger, burning down as Divit rushes inside the home office to catch my hands before I do anything that would scar my memory forever.
Divit might be leaner than me, but our strengths are comparable. Good for me, because I always end up needing him when I lose control.
“Stop it, Dude! He’s your father...”
“No, I’m not.” My father’s words pierce a hole in whatever was left of our relationship.
Both me and Divit stand speechless as he continues.
“I’m not his father. Maya had conceived you before our marriage. You’re Konstantin’s son. Not mine. Not mine...” his voice breaks.
And so does my heart... So does my heart!
“W – what?” the words come out of my mouth, even though my paralyzed lips hardly move.
For the first time in the entire life, I see tears of anguish slip past my old and weak father’s eyes. “I could not save you... You were never mine, even though I gave you my name, and I loved you... I loved you, son. But he claimed you soon after he found you were old enough to conveniently slip into his dirty lifestyle.”
He joins his hands before me, while something noiselessly breaks inside me. “Forgive me my son. I could not save you. I could not...” His breathing escalates, and I realize he is having some kind of an attack.
“Dad? No... dad...” I rush when he stumbles, barely catching him midair.
“We need to rush him to the hospital. Fast!” Divit says picking his senseless body with me.
Dad...please wake up! I need you!
I need you!
THE FACT THAT I ALWAYSbelieved it was him who invited the bastard into the household, or hosted the puke worthy parties while his children slept in their rooms just upstairs. Or that he let him force me to do things that should have been far, far away from even the mind of a fourteen-year-old, makes me sad to think I never even considered the other angles of that situation.
And that alone made me venomous against my real father. Not just some biological sperm donor.
“I have been trying to contact him for the past few months, but all I am getting is another man answering for him. He’s not replying to any of my messages either. I guess he must’ve already planned it.” Dad swallows the pills I bought off the store this morning.
“Here... keep the cold compress while you talk.” I avert my gaze from the red and black on his face.
“Sorry?” he asks, narrowing his eyes on me when I shove the cold pack at his cheek.
His usual frustrated expression was another thing which led me to believe that since he hated me for no good reason, must he be willing to let a stranger groom and exploit his child in an inappropriate way.
And God! do I hate my own name now? Since the woman who gave it has been the Queen Bee this whole time. The one who made all of this mess in my life possible in the first place.
Dad adjusts himself upright, uncomfortable with the dizziness still somewhat in his head.
“Come here...” he demands, wrapping his hand around me when I approach him.
“I know I have done terribly as a father, but you’re still my son... if you’re okay with that? I’ve never treated you like another’s... and it wasn’t because of Maya. It was because of you.”
There’s a sense of truth to his gaze while he speaks.
“You know when I first learned about it, I was furious. But when I looked in your eyes... your eyes were so pure... so gentle. You were so little at the time, so innocent... I could not let you go. But that monster, he took away your innocence. He took away my everything.” His voice breaks again.
That’s right, and now he’s trying to finish all that I have left in me. But this time – this time I’ll be the destroyer. Not him!
“What did he do to coerce you to organize such monstrosities at home, Dad? What did he do to convince you to give up on me?”
He smiles painfully at my question, “I never gave up on you, Naksh. But I can guarantee you’d do the same thing if you were in my position.”
His eyes grow distant, “Konstantin and I were both bidders in a contest for an offshore firm, that’s how we’d first met. But he acquired it and I already had a huge capital investment so we started working together. Our relationship grew more and more personal over the years. Little did I know...”
His lips curl into a smile just a tiny bit, hardly enough to notice it was ever there.
“Both of us were in London attending an international seminar where I met Maya for the first time. Charming, witty, and bold. And so professional that I had to ask her out before returning or I was afraid I’d never see her again. From there things went on so fast, it quickly escalated to marriage and I was beyond happy. After all, I was with the woman I fell in love with.”
His sighs before continuing, “For the first few years everything was going well. I was too blinded by happiness when you were born, that I never noticed that there was something wrong with her. She was getting too involved with him, and I was fooling myself into thinking I was getting jealous over simple coincidences... too many coincidences... He was getting invited to the same parties as us. We used to end up going to the same holiday and Maya used to fall ill and stay back...”
He pauses to pinch the bridge of his nose before continuing with an exhale.
“When your sister was five, Maya started getting anxious about getting back to business. And I hesitated since Anushka was really young, but she had ways to get me to agree with her. So, eventually I gave in and she started assisting me. And from there on her demands worsened. She started having dinner parties, inviting her guests and mine; people that had no business coming into my house... And Konstantin was one of them.”
He sounds weak... The sad look lingering in beneath his droopy lids is a telltale in itself.
“Soon, dinner parties transformed into drug parties and I don’t even remember the point where it got darker. Konstantin had his eyes on you ever since he first saw you. But the night when you got downstairs during one of their orgies, that’s when he realized you were old enough to be introduced to his dark world. Grown enough to be snatched away from me.”
He gulps hard, “You know what they did when I resisted, they threatened me about your sister Naksh. Maya was ruthless about her own daughter. I had to be a silent spectator to my son’s passing. I’m so, so sorry.” He breaks down into what seems like silent sobbing.
Twenty-four hours and I am looking at my father in a totally different light.
I sense Divit shift uncomfortably a tiny bit at my periphery before he readjusts to pay a closer attention. Nobody speaks for about a good five minutes or so.
Then Divit clears his throat, “So, how can we get to him?”
Dad’s looks at him almost amused, “How can we get to him? You don’t get to him; he gets to you.”
“Is there no way to reach him out?” My own lips trembling. I need to find him.
He shakes his head, “You don’t understand, Naksh. There are way too many like us. Blackmailed, stolen from, and broken even; to the extent that he would not survive a day if it were easy to get to him.”
“There has to be a way...”
“If you’re looking for a straight path, then let me tell you – there are none. But if you look closely, sometimes people leave trails in the devilry they do. Perhaps, you’ll get lucky enough to find it.”
And for the first time in my life, Dad’s words have had a different kind of effect on me. Hope!
He will leave a trail.
And it will lead me to my baby...