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"GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME, ELSE!"

"Else, what?" Sanskar roared agitated.

"You better spill out things!" Laksh warned further tightening his hold making Madhu close his eyes to control his rising anger. The air around them was getting thicker.

"Look, whoever you're..." Sanskar's words trailed off as they were interrupted with a different ringtone. "Somebody's phone is ringing."

And it didn't take time for Madhu to push Laksh away from him and fetch a smart phone from his pocket in addition to the phone he already had in his hands; which made Sanskar furious and the brothers charged on.

"The bl**dy hell!" Madhu yelled as the phone broke into mere pieces and he was pushed onto the wall again.

"Laksh! Sanskar!" Swara rushed towards them as the commotion grabbed the attention of the sisters; others except them were off to temple.

"Laksh, what are you even doing? Leave Madhu!" She tried to pull apart them horrified at the sight ahead her. But the brothers were too strong to be budged by her. "I SAID JUST LEAVE HIM!" She shrieked in anger. "ELSE IT WON'T END ON A GOOD NOTE, MIND IT!"

And the brothers froze! "You know him?" They couldn't help but voice their thoughts together.

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"You gotta be kidding us, right!" Laksh asked exasperated while Sanskar waited for the silence to end.

Swara was standing in RagSan's room leaning the wall with her head hung while Ragini was sitting on their bed with legs crossed, a pillow on her lap on which she rested her elbows, her fingers crossing each other between her nose and lips; her red eyes blinking constantly as various expressions flashed across her face showing evidently the thousands of calculations running inside her mind.

Madhu occupied another corner, not far from the couples, his fake moustache taken off giving the clear view of the fellow in mid-twenties.

"Swara, will you just open your mouth for God's sake?" Laksh was literally losing his patience seeing a lip-zipped Swara and Madhu. "We had enough of your silence!"

Ragini closed her eyes in irritation, her face grim, as she felt the start of a splitting headache. She fisted her left palm, pressing her forehead lightly which turned into slight bangs on her forehead.

"Ragz/Ragu/Ragini..." But she raised her right palm stopping everyone at their places and drew the hand to massage her forehead.

"THIS IS NOT REALLY HAPPENING, RIGHT!" Swara flinched at Ragini's tone as her eyes teared up. "SERIOUSLY!!!"

"Exactly! Care to explain, Swara? Don't tell me that you had your share of 'villaingiri' along with this, Madhu or God-knows-who. We had been holding on to our insanity not expecting this and now; are fed up with being clowns here! How much more will you keep us in dark?"

"IN DARK?" Ragini couldn't lessen her outrage as she spat to Laksh cutting him between. "IT WOULD BE BETTER IF WE TALK OUT THIS A LITTLE LATER, LAKSH MAHESWARI OR ELSE, I MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO CENSOR THE WORDS I WOULD SAY; AND TRUST ME, YOU WON'T FEEL HAPPY LISTENING TO ME."

It would be an understatement to say that Laksh was surprised; he was bewildered at Ragini's outrage towards him! Wasn't he also trying to get a clue about the things? He didn't intend to burden anyone with accusations but the silence was making him go crazy, as usual.

Swara's revelation that she knew Madhu hadn't gone well with Ragini. In fact, two vases and glass were broken; Swara was restricted from uttering a syllable from the past half an hour, and Ragini's wrath was clearly evident in her face and glares.

But, somehow Sanskar felt the silence essential at the moment. The truth was that Ragini's tone did surprise Sanskar too and a talk at this moment would only end up being a brawl that won't help any of them. He wanted to let Swaragini take their time and be aware of the truths by the end of the day itself.

"ARVIND, YOU CAN'T BE KIDDING MAN!!" Ragini couldn't help but yell frustrated, her voice cracked in between; making SanLak shocked again.

"Arvind who??" Laksh asked puzzled.

"Arvind, as in Arvind from Banaras?" Sanskar asked amused, for the first time, recognizing the person to be Dida's neighbor boy while Swara nodded in confirmation. "Means you three?" Sanskar whispered as they all glanced at each other.

"Ragu, but" Arvind aka Madhu sighed in dismay. "It was Ananya on call and she was calling continuously. I couldn't continue to ignore it. She said it was something so important."

"IMPORTANT, MY FOOT!! This is not some children's game to spoil once and get back everything to normal pacifying at the next moment. And Swara, WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU THEN?" Ragini further covered her face with her palms trying to suppress her anger. BUT IT WAS TOO MUCH TO HANDLE FOR HER!

"Come to the point, Ragini!" Laksh pushed her further and that was it!

"POINT!? WHAT EXPLANATION WOULD YOU NEED MR.MAHESWARI?" She snapped at Laksh, throwing the pillow to the floor and getting on her feet. "AND EVEN IF YOU GET WHATEVER YOU WANT, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? Jumping to another conclusion and doing something extremely stupid, right? AND FYI, YOUR IMPULSIVENESS IS NOT GOING TO HELP US. So it would be better if you give me, at least, a few minutes to get a grip on the matter."

Arvind walked to the balcony calling Ananya while Sanskar sighed sensing that something went terribly wrong. So much had been happening around them without their knowledge and there would have been some serious reason for Ragini to conceal it from them. A sudden rush of various thoughts was creating havoc in him. Then, what would be these three people going through! And the next moment, he could only sigh again seeing his brother bringing out the unseen version of Ragini.

"I believe that you had enough minutes, days, and even weeks for getting a grip over things, right!" Laksh continued as if decided to dig out his own pit. 'Else, the matter might be shrugged off again.' He thought.

"Enough is enough, Bhai! We had been putting up with the sisters' act for long!" He said glancing Sanskar in between gesturing him to hold on.

"Laksh, we will talk later," Swara answered him in a serious voice. "Things are pretty serious. Please!"

"And you think hiding from us would help?" Sanskar asked in a defeated tone clearly showing his disappointment.

"Swara, you had been pretending to help us! Can't this be called cheating?" Laksh spoke, hurt evident in his raised tone.

"DARE YOU ACCUSE HER AGAIN!" Ragini was losing her sanity with each moment passing and her health making things a little bad. "WELL, YOU'RE THE GREAT LAKSH MAHESWARI AND IT'S NORMAL FOR YOU TO ACCUSE AND DISOWN SOMEONE IN MERE SECONDS, RIGHT!"

Laksh's mouth widened as the words hit him. As he glanced towards Sanskar, he let out a breath of relief seeing Sanskar also in the same plight.

"WE ARE LOSING THE WHOLE THING WE MANAGED TO HANDLE TILL NOW AND LISTEN; I WON'T TAKE YOUR BAKWAS AT THIS MOMENT. DON'T CONSIDER ME AS THE RAGINI WHO WOULD GULP DOWN ALL YOUR RANTINGS.

I'M BEING NORMAL WITH YOU THAT DON'T MEAN THAT I HAVE CONSIDERED YOUR DEMAND OF FRIENDSHIP. AND AS ALWAYS, YOU BRING THE WORST OUT OF ME AND I'M ALREADY MESSED UP TO THE PEAK. SO, BETTER YOU WATCH YOUR WORDS!

WELL, IT'S PARTY TIME! I DON'T THINK WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING NOW! JUST CHILL & BRACE YOURSELF FOR THE UPCOMING WHICH WOULD THE WORST! KYUN, MR. LAKSH MAHESWARI?" She let out a sarcastic chuckle as the brothers continued staring her.

"Ragu, cool down. Your voice.... Your throat needs rest even now." Swara held Ragini making her sit her on the bed again, and glanced Sanskar who seemed to wait for Ragini to spill out further.

He walked over to Ragini, sat beside her followed by Laksh while Arvind also joined them. Sanskar closed his eyes for a second trying to calm down his throbbing mind and placed his hand over Ragini's making her close her eyes in distress.

"Ragz, just relax now. We can face it all together, right? Why are you burdening yourself with all these alone? And Swara, it is evident that you both are suffocating yourselves in these whole problems. Let us also help you!" Sanskar gently rubbed Ragini's hands easing her.

He continued. "We are worried Ragz. And our worry includes you; and now Swara and Arvind. Laksh was just trying to make you spill out the matter which was important at the moment. If Arvind had to come here in the disguise of a servant, the matter is even more serious than what we think. And now, I think we should try to solve it together."

"Nothing is going to help, Sanskar. Nothing!" Ragini withdrew hands to support her aching head as helplessness flashed in her voice. Swara's eyes spilled slowly; her tears making way down her cheeks.

"We are not even able to figure out where it all started. There had been many mishaps since we found about our parents. But, now, one thing can be assured that it is connected with us, the Maheswaris." Swara started slowly trying to let the brothers have an idea of the incidents.

"Why were you hiding from us, firstly?" Laksh couldn't help but ask tensed.

"I ignored some random threats assuming them to be lame; I lost Dada ji and Dadi maa." Ragini's eyes welled up instantly making her choke in between. "It stopped for a while. Later, on receiving such calls, when I tried to speak to Sanskar, Bade Papa almost drove into accident; that too twice. A lady and a man used to speak and they had all details about the happenings in our home, my phone calls, messages, in short, every movement in this house.

I was terrified beyond my sanity, Sanskar. I couldn't make any of us land in danger again. Actually, the first call I received was on Swara and Laksh's marriage; the one ended up with me. They had kidnapped her and threatened me to marry Laksh to save her. The calls were untraceable; they even figured out we tried to move through police and I was left with no choice back then."

Laksh gasped as he processed what he heard a moment ago. Could it be more worse? Yes! And he make it worse! He could just glance the sisters whose glassy eyes were showed nothing but pain. And he had equal share in that!

"I had asked you the reason even before, Ragz. You could have told me." Disappointment seemed not to leave Sanskar's voice.

Ragini lowered her head; she has disappointed him, may be for the first time. "I just didn't want to think about all those again." She closed her eyes in hurt. Somehow, those did hurt her even now, though slightly. "I just wanted to hold on to something else and Banaras helped me in that. Aru knew about this and he had expressed the various doubts; none of them did help. As far as we knew, only two were unhappy with marriage and that was we both." She pointed herself and Sanskar.

"And we did decide to let it happen. So, I just.... Then, life moved ahead and I forgot that part willingly. But I clearly remember, after about four months from our marriage, I started receiving messages, initially blank ones which I ignored. Later it turned to blank calls and I did the same. The thought of another threat didn't strike me for I was too happy here." Her eyes brightened for a moment which didn't go unnoticed by others.

"It didn't go long as another lady called me and only thing she did was to remind me of how helpless was I all along with my life not forgetting to end at the first marriage. Even now I can feel the terror I experienced, Sanskar. The one thing she repeated was not to let any other know this and for an unknown reason, I gave befitting reply to her which I shouldn't have."

"I know darling, that as usual, you won't share this with anyone. After all, you're Ragini Maheswari." The woman let out a sarcastic chuckle, her lips adorned with a smirk.

Ragini reciprocated the same chuckle, "And I know that you don't have anything in your hands to make me a pawn. Better you keep you cheap tricks with you. Don't you dare take a step towards my family! Ragini knows to both love and destroy people. So you better either clear your head or let me know what you need."

And the chuckle repeated from the other side, "Ragini... Ragini... Ragini Gadhodhia alias Ragini Sanskar Maheswari. You're still naïve and inexperienced, girl. Anyways, you won't be able to give what I will ask for! And since you have dared me not to do anything, I'm retreating. You know, families are my weakness; always! Bye... Take CARE!"

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Hey And there goes the next part. I don't know if this is upto the mark and I would know only through your comments. So please please comment your reviews.

And, I would like to say beforehand that, from next chapter you might see me messing up the story :D as I'm really scared how to handle everything. Anyways, I would like to mention my heartfelt thanks to all who have been supporting me with so much love.🥺🥺

Stay safe and Happy

Love you all

Sameera ❤️