Chapter - 2
There was a debt to be paid and I would rather pay it with my life than watch my entire family get killed.
The words had barely left my mouth when Papa shot up straighter on the bed, eyes blazing through the tears.
"Enough. Not another word, Parthvi!"
Papa's voice was so sharp, so loud that it sliced straight through my spine and I looked up at him, startled.
His eyes were burning now, no longer just wet and defeated. There was anger there. Fear. Panic.
"You are not going," he said, every word hard and shaking. "Do you understand me, Parthvi? You are not going anywhere near that man."
"But Papa...."
"I said no." He pushed the word out like it hurt. "I will die before I let anything happen to you. I will go to him. I will surrender. I will give him my life. But you are not paying for my sins."
My throat tightened. "It's not that simple."
"Yes, it is." he snapped. "You are my daughter. I ruined his life. If a life has to be given, it will be mine."
"And you think he'll stop there?" I could hear my own voice rising, but I couldn't control it. "You think he just wants to kill you and walk away in peace? Today he said he wants you to watch everything you love crumble. That is not about your death, Papa. That is about us."
He opened his mouth but no sound came out.
Mumma sat frozen beside him, one hand on his arm, her eyes wide and red. She looked like someone had taken all the air out of her body and left her to collapse slowly.
"We have to try something else." Bhaiya said. "We can talk to someone. Get help. Lawyers, police, someone...."
"Help?" I turned to him. "From whom? The very system he funds? The police that probably salutes his car when it passes by? The courts that can drag a case for thirty years while he destroys us in three months? This is not some normal man, bhaiya. This is Rudra Adhiraj Raisinghania."
Even saying his name made my stomach twist.
Bhabhi wiped her cheeks and whispered, "There has to be another way."
There isn't." I said, and the certainty in my own voice scared me. "We don't have ten doors to choose from. We have two. Either I go to him myself or he comes here and tears this family apart, slowly. Piece by piece as he promised."
"Stop it," Mumma whispered. "Please, stop talking like this."
"Enough." Papa's voice shook but his jaw was set. "I have decided. You will not go. You will stay in this house. I will go tomorrow. I will talk to him. I will beg if I have to. I will take whatever he wants to give me."
"And what if that whatever he wants includes the lives of everyone of us Papa?" I asked, my voice cracking. "What if he decides that watching you burn isn't enough unless he burns us first?"
Nobody answered.
For a brief second, I felt like I could hear all our hearts beating in that room.
I took a breath that scraped my chest. "If anything happens to any of you," I said, each word slow and clear, "if he hurts you, or Mumma, or bhaiya or Bhabhi... I will not be able to live either anyway."
"I mean it." I whispered. "I will not be here, breathing, when I know that I can ensure that all of you remain safe. So either I go to him and try to stop whatever this is, or he destroys you and I end it for myself. There is no third option where I just stand by and watch."
Papa stared at me like I had reached into his chest and ripped his heart out in front of him.
"What has gotten into to you Parthvi?" he whispered. "Don't talk about your life like it is something you can throw away."
"What about yours?" I shot back. "You were ready to throw yours away in front of him, remember? You just decided the same thing for yourself two minutes ago."
"That is different." he said, louder. "I am the one who pulled the trigger. Not you."
"And we all are the ones who have to live with what you did," I replied, my voice suddenly very calm. "So stop acting like this is only your story now Papa."
Bhaiya scrubbed a hand over his face. "Pri, please. Just give it a night. We'll think tomorrow."
"I don't want another second to think about it bhaiya. I have made my decision." I replied just as immediately.
"I will not send you," Papa repeated, his voice breaking now. "If I have to stand at that gate and block the road with my own body, I will do it. Over my dead body, you will go to him."
I swallowed hard. "That is exactly what I am afraid of."
His brows pulled together, confused.
I let out a breath. "You are all ready to die for me, but none of you are ready to let me live for you," I said, and this time my voice was barely more than a whisper.
That was what hurt the most.
Mum started crying again. Bhabhi put a hand over her eyes. Jai bhaiya suddenly found something very interesting to stare at on the floor.
I looked at them one by one, memorising their faces in this exact moment. Broken. Terrified. Mine.
"I can't sit here and wait for him to decide how to destroy us." I said. "I won't. If something has to be given, it will be me. If someone has to stand in front of whatever storm is coming, it will be me."
Papa just shook his head over and over, like if he did it enough, my words would vanish.
"I am done talking." he said finally. "My decision is final. You are not going. End of discussion."
It felt like he slammed a door on my chest.
"Fine." I said, wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand. "Then you make sure nothing happens to any of you."
His eyes flickered. "Of course I will."
"Because if it does....." I added, meeting his gaze one last time, "remember what I said. I will take my life with my own hands."
I didn't wait for their reactions this time.
If I stayed one more second, I would either break down or say something that would be so hurtful that I won't be able to take it back ever.
I didn't want to do either.
I turned around and walked out of the room.
I heard Mumma call my name. I heard Ruhani bhabhi tell me to stop.
I did not.
I went down the stairs, through the destroyed living room. A few remaining broken glass crunched under my shoes. A photo frame lay face down near the wall. The curtains were half torn. Everything smelled like dust, fear and something burnt that I couldn't name.
I grabbed my phone from the table and shoved my feet into my sneakers and unlocked the main door.
The clock in the hall read 10:52 p.m.
Perfect time to make more bad decisions.
The air outside hit me like a different world. The lane was mostly quiet except for a few barks of dogs here and there.
I stepped out and closed the door behind me.
For a second, I just stood there.
What was I doing? Where was I going? I didn't even know.
I just knew I could not breathe in that house anymore so I started walking.
I shoved my phone into my pocket without checking it. I knew there would be calls, messages, maybe both. If I saw my mother's name flash on the screen, I would go back. If I heard Jai's voice, I would apologise. And I was not ready to apologise for wanting to save them.
My legs moved on their own. Turn left. Turn right. Another lane. Another dark corner of Udaipur. My home.
The night was cooler than I expected. My cheeks still felt hot. My eyes stung, but I refused to cry again. I had done enough of that for one lifetime.
Scenes kept replaying in my mind. The queen falling. Two little boys covered in blood. A palace balcony. Our living room. Papa bowing his head.
Everything was just hammering hard inside my head.
"What do they expect me to do? Let him ruin their lives while I stand and watch him do it?" I asked to myself, wrapping my arms around myself.
Then, my thoughts went even more haywire that I could have possibly imagined at the time.
Would I forgive, if I had watched my mother die like that?
No.
So how could I hate him completely for wanting revenge?
"Parthvi, what the fuck is wrong with you? You just sympathised with the man who can wipe your entire family off the face of this earth." I scolded myself but deep inside, I could not shake that feeling of guilt.
I didn't realise that I had drifted off the cracked footpath and closer to the road until I heard it.
A horn ripped through the silence.
Bright headlights swallowed my vision and for a second, my heart stopped as everything in me froze and the world moved too fast and too slow at the same time while I stood there breathless and stupid.
The car stopped inches from me and my knees gave out and I sank onto them, palms catching rough road. The sting was sharp, grounding and very real.
Perfect, as if i needed another disaster.
The back door of the car opened and footsteps approached me but I stayed kneeling, breathing too fast, trying to pull myself back together before a complete stranger witnessed my breakdown tonight.
A shadow stopped in front of me.
Not too close, thankfully and I closed my eyes for a small second before I opened them again.
His shoes were the first thing I saw, They looked polished, dark and expensive. Not the kind you see on regular people strolling at almost eleven thirty in the night.
I forced my gaze higher.
Tailored trousers. A long dark coat, fair enough. It is December. and his shoulders were so straight that it looked like he was trying to keep them straight. No one can stand so straight!
And then his face.
Sharp, controlled and expressionless.
For a moment, we just stared at each other and the only sound in the world was my breathing which was too fast, too shaky and way too loud.
"I'm...." I tried to speak but my voice cracked like glass. Great. "I'm sorry. I didn't see....."
He cut me off, not with words but with the slightest tilt of his head.
A gesture that was so subtle yet so commanding that I stopped talking immediately.
God! Why was I intimidated by a stranger?
He didn't reach out to help me up, simply waited.
I swallowed and pushed myself up to my feet. My palms burned from the scrape but I forced myself to straighten my spine.
I didn't want to look weak, at least in front of a total stranger.
Once I was standing, he finally spoke.
"Are you hurt?" a simple question.
Physically, yes. Emotionally, also yes. But I was not going to tell him that.
I shook my head quickly. "No. Just distracted."
He studied me for a second and it was not the kind of study people do when they try to understand you. It was the way someone examines damage.
Like checking if a crack was superficial or structural.
My throat tightened again.
Before I could embarrass myself further, he reached into his car, grabbed a bottle of water and held it towards me.
"Thank you." I whispered.
He didn't respond and I opened the bottle and took a sip, my breaths slowly evening out.
Only then did he speak again. "Where do you live?"
"Yeah I am not telling you that." I replied just as immediately, rolling my eyes at his audacity.
He did not react to my very obvious stranger-danger energy I had just thrown at him.
He just blinked once like he was recalibrating how to deal with an irrational child and then, very calmly, he said, "I am not asking to follow you in. I am asking so you that do not end up under another car."
His voice wasn't annoyed. If anything, it was bored. Like he had already decided this argument was beneath him.
My jaw tensed. "Well, thanks for the input, but I'm fine. I'll walk."
He didn't move aside but did not step any closer either.
He simply looked at me like he was waiting for my brain to catch up with reality.
I huffed. "I'm not completely helpless, okay? I just had a bad night."
Still no reaction.
Nothing. Not a twitch. Not a breath shift.
Just that unnervingly steady stare.
God. Who was this man?
Before my brain could come up with something, he did.
"Get in." He said, like that was the only logical next step.
I blinked. "Excuse me?"
He did not repeat himself but looked at me and then at the open back door like the conversation was already over and I hadn't caught up yet.
This was so freaking humiliating but my brain was too busy being dumb to come up with a nice insult for him to his face which sucked to be honest. That is why I was mostly just stunned by his audacity.
I am not getting in a stranger's car." I told him, squaring my shoulders. "I might be having a mental breakdown but I am not brainless."
"Clearly." He replied, tone flat. "You only stepped in front of a moving car, not under it. That must have taken some awareness."
I stared at him.
Did this man just insult me in the calmest way possible?
"Wow." I muttered. "You're hilarious."
He didn't even blink.
"I'll walk." I added, hugging myself tighter. "My house is nearby."
"Your house is not the only thing on this road." He said simply. "And you were not watching where you were going."
I glared at him. "You know your driver could have just driven past, right? You did not have to stop and give a character analysis in the middle of the road."
"He did try driving." he said, completely unbothered. "You stepped in front of that."
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
Okay, fair point.
He watched me go through my entire internal argument in silence and then said, very calmly, very quietly,
"Either you get in, or you stay here in the middle of the road and wait for someone less patient to come by. But I need you to make your decision in the next one minute.."
The worst part? He was right.
I exhaled sharply, more in irritation with myself than with him. "Fine. But if you're a serial killer, I swear to God, I'm going to haunt you."
His eyes met mine for a brief second, and for the first time, something almost like amusement flickered there.
Almost.
"I am not interested in killing you." He replied dryly. "Now get in."
Rude.
I muttered something under my breath that my mother would have fainted at and slipped into the backseat. The leather was cold and my clothes were dusty and I suddenly felt very, very small sitting in that car.
He closed the door after me, went around, and got inside from the other side before his driver started to drive.
"Which way?" He asked.
"Straight, then left at the second turn." I replied, already staring out of the window and kept looking out till I saw my house in view.
"Here." I murmured when our lane appeared.
He turned in without question.
My house came into view and my stomach dropped a little. The broken windows, the chaos, the half-open gate hanging crooked on its hinges.
He took it all in with one quick glance and then looked away, like it didn't matter.
Or like he already knew. But how could he know? I was probably going a little crazy.
He pulled up in front of the gate and stopped.
I opened the door. Cold air rushed in again.
"Thank you." I said, pausing with one foot out. "For... you know... not running me over. And the water. And the unsolicited safety lecture."
He didn't smile.
Didn't say you're welcome.
Just held my gaze for a second and said, "Watch the road next time."
That was it.
I nodded once and stepped out fully, closing the door behind me.
I turned back, maybe to ask his name, maybe to say something else, I don't even know.
But the car was already moving. I wrapped my arms around myself and walked through the broken gate, bracing myself to face the reality of my life once again.