2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

The security guard who beheld the key to the CCTV room, nodded in a no.

12,000

Manik placed another pink crispy note on the stool before throwing a sharp look at the middle aged bald man who still was in denial. I stood behind Manik biting the inner walls of my cheeks not comprehending the drama going on. Bribing is a crime. Papa would've been so disappointed had he known what his learned daughter was up to.

Taking another note out of his pricey wallet, Manik added it to the bunch of notes and snapped his head up at the man who shook his head curling his lower lip.

Manik sighed.

"Sir, this is wrong. Why not humbly request him, yeah?" I whispered near him.

Ignoring my suggestion, he rolled his eyes for the hundredth time that night and raised his brows at the man who rejected his proposal all over again. Manik understandably nodded putting back the notes he was about to pull out and folding his wallet tucked that inside his back pocket. My eyes kept moving to and fro between the guard and the time bomb aka Manik Malhotra.

Manik took a step ahead and the smug smile on that man's face fell flat as the former rested his palm on the guard's shoulder, coolly. Honestly, I wasn't worried about a scene being created there because Manik Malhotra would never do that but I was worried about that man. Truly.

Manik rested his other palm on the guard's other shoulder and smiled "One more time that neck says a no and all these offered money will be put into medicinal usage, take it from me." The man gulped and I widened my eyes.

The way he threatened wasn't cruel or scary or shit like that but that daunting tension built around screamed how much he actually meant every fucking word. It was soft yet rigid, focussed yet commanding. Manik smiled at the man again dusting the invisible dust off the man's shoulders and stepped back.

The man took a step back and rubbed fingers on his throat because he might've lost his voice in apprehension, couldn't blame him though. In fact, I felt deeply sorry because one, we were wrong and two, the wrong way in which we're doing the wrong. Not relying on his ditching voice, the man bunched the money from the stool and inserted in his chest pocket and nodded at us.

"You're very kind." Manik smiled at him and I shook my head at Manik.

The man walked ahead of us unlocking the record room whilst I stood there crushing pebbles under my heels grabbing Manik's attention.

"Do I have to bribe you too now?" He huffed standing beside me.

"It's..it's wrong." I muttered. Honestly, I lied. I was skeptic about searching into the records fearing to see something that I'd regret forever.

"God, you should come with some instruction manual" Rolling his eyes at me, he stepped towards the room dipping both of his hands inside his pockets.

❃

The room was tiny and unlike I imagined wasn't stuffed with mini cameras like those in high end places. There were few controlling devices and desktop computer kept on the table and the light of the room was feeble to feebler.

The security guard selected the recording of our desired time and was about to hit the play button when suddenly Manik snapped his head towards him.

"Get out." He looked sharply at the guard.

"Wh-me?" The man stuttered.

"Yes. You." Manik pointed his long index finger at him and directed towards the door.

The man gave me a nervous smile and after wiping the sweat off his mouth, slowly moved towards the door and exited.

I sighed rubbing the back of my neck because of the growing tension in my body.

"But I still think this isn't of any good to us." I spoke.

I was sitting on a chair before the monitor and Manik's body was hovering over my shoulder bending before the monitor resting his head around the arm of the chair barely wrapping me, close enough to make me feel his body hit. The same one that was over me on the bonnet of the car. I shook my head freeing those thoughts as I saw his irritated eyes.

"Are you really testing my patience here?" He scoffed.

"No... that's not what I meant. I-I mean there's no CCTV inside my room." I corrected.

"You do not belong to that status even." My eyes met his at his rude remark and instantly I looked away.

This man was officially outside my understanding capacity. One time he was wanting to kiss me and the next time he showed me my place. What was with him?

"These fucking cameras must cover the entrance passage or the corridor to your flat so that we can see who visited you when you were gone." He spoke quickly and I nodded nervously.

"Y-yeah that makes sense." I moistened my lips and he smirked proudly, his fingers reaching the enter button on the keyboard and I could feel my heart race inside my chest. Manik resumed the record and it showed all the list of people of had a movement by that floor and he needfully kept fast forwarding.

I scratched my chin with my fingers sometimes rubbing my upper and lower lips simply out of tension, sometimes curling the ring on my ear and sometimes pinching the skin of my throat. Nothing helped the ever escalating palpitations.

Time to time from the monitor I kept looking towards Manik, who was engrossed into whatever was being played before our eyes and couldn't help but notice the attentive pout formed on his lips. I could say he was worried the slightest bit too. In that same room, before the same monitor, two pairs of eyes on the same footage yet different prayers in hearts. He was the one who would pray Maddy to show up nowhere on the footage and there was I desperately wishing the thief to be him. And it was time only who could tell whose prayers were going to be answered. We kept watching but none was really fruitful until Manik growing his eyes larger paused the footage.

"Fuck" he cursed and I looked back at the screen.

It was within a fraction of seconds that I could feel my heart sink low and stomach drop as Manik played the footage again setting the speed slow.

"No...." I grabbed the screen with both my hands and brought it closer to me and Manik looked down at me worriedly.

"No.... No.. this..." I looked back at Manik who was already worriedly staring at my reaction "this can't be."

I sighed pulling the monitor closer and my sigh converted into a sharp suction of breath as I felt invisible warm hands of God slapping my cheeks.

Randhir....

He was walking up the stairs to my flat even though he knew I wasn't home. I shook my head for some more time staying in the state of denial not realising when my eyes already had started watering. I.. I trusted him. And sometimes trust means more than loving someone. Randhir couldn't do that to me. Not he at least out of all the people. He was my shoulder to lean on. He.. he just.

I directly pressed the button at the side of the monitor shutting the system all of a sudden and Manik twitched his lips. I didn't care, okay?

Abruptly, I stood up pushing the revolving chair back and Manik straightened himself with his eyes never leaving my face for a nanosecond. My lips quivered and I nervously kept biting them and tucking already tucked hair behind my ear, overdoing it. His worry seemed to be turning anguish. He kept staring at me not spending any of his words or rude gestures while the time I spent with Randhir kept playing inside my head like a movie.

Parting his lips he tried saying something but I didn't think for a second even before pushing Manik aside and running the hell out of there towards my flat. The guard sitting patiently outside on the stool stood up watching me run but nothing seemed okay to me. None could heal the burning pain inside. Nothing. Randhir was unique. How could he? He was a man of principles and what about all those times where I tasted every damn thing as honesty from him....I knew I could trust him with my life and damn I did even. He was the best I've met. He couldn't betray me and I needed someone to come and confess that to me.

Pushing ajar the door to my living room, I sat on the floor having my back slide against the wall. Drawing my knees closer to my chest, I held my forehead in my palm and cried like a child who just lost her faith in fairytale myths.

This is real world, Murthy. Don't let yourself fall for someone's fake image. It's not always what you see. Imagination... serves the soul but in reality its sidetracked.

I cried more thinking of Manik's words. I was so stupid to trust anyone with all I had. I wiped my cheek with the back of my palm which within seconds was again flowing. I wanted to scream and scream but someone soon entered my room in the dark and from the silhouette of the tall frame, I exactly knew who he was.

I sobbed harder clutching my knees tight until they pained when felt the same body heat resting beside me. Unlike me, Manik stretched his legs ahead resting one on the other with his back resting on the same wall as I and his eyes fixed at his polished brown boots. He tried sighing mildly but it made no difference in a deafening silent room full of sobs of a girl who just lost her faith in someone she thought precious.

In the darkness even I could say Manik's intense eyes were only on me watching me shed tears. I was turning into pieces. I didn't know why did it hurt me that much but it did. Badly. And that was the moment I finally realised Randhir had hurt me more than Manik did.

He stayed calm yet there were plead and desperation in the way he kept staring at me. He actually might have not understood why a girl would cry over a guy so much. He wanted to know what Randhir was to me, what bond did we two share. Why the hell did it hurt me so bad.

"Did he...get you to sleep with him?" He asked and I kept sobbing.

My voice was turning all hoarse from the constant crying and throat felt dry but I couldn't care. He looked around a little in the darkness at nothing specific and then at my brokenness.

"....love?" He questioned and my whimpering converted into squalling. A loud sudden cry came out of my mouth as I rested my forehead on my knees. Manik's face flushed.

I didn't know what was about that question. But I just needed to believe that Randhir wasn't the one ditching me whilst promising to have my back. All of the time I spent with him in my hours of need were screaming to believe everything false but that video of two seconds was like hundreds of needles pricking my eyes.

"Som-sometimes trust is the most intim-ate thing." I whimpered as my body was shaking and Manik gulped.

Picking up a bottle of water from the nearby table, he offered it to me, none of us caring to turn the light on. I shook my head.

Opening the cap, he advanced the bottle and I still nodded in that stubborn no. Weirdly, for the first time Manik's presence around wasn't sufficient as I needed to have Randhir then telling me that Nandini, I didn't betray you. I can never.

Seeing my not intaking the water he offered, he carefully moved the mouth of the bottle towards my lips and I thrashed the bottle away letting the mineral water flow freely on the floor. Seconds later, it had hit me who I was rejecting and being scared as I looked up, I found him calmly staring at me with those eyes that spoke depth. Only I wasn't ready to read.

"I'm s-sorry." I lowered my wailing.

"It's okay." He whispered "Can I..do anything to make you feel good?"

I looked towards him and his breathing got unsteady.

"Can you...pl-please please tell me it was not him? That he'd never do this to-to me?" The pair of eyes that was locked with mine broke the hostage and touched the floor below and sighed. I bit my lower lip hardly squeezing my eyes smudging the crisp of the mascara ruining my face.

Sometime later, I was devoid of that warmth beside me and I realised he stood up to leave silently. I didn't want him to leave me. I wanted him to say something.

With that unimpressive sounds of his boots, he walked towards the door and turned back whilst I held my gaze at him through my clouded vision.

"I'm never good with words like you are. But... I can something out of personal experience. Randhir.... is a huge pain in the ass but he-he doesn't seem to be an imposter." Those were his final words before he placed a handkerchief on the little table before the couch and his long finger touched the switchboard pressing the switch to the fan on and left sparing a last look at me.

I looked up at the blades of the ceiling fan and wondered would it be able to cut the pain inside or would stop like every other thing. Throwing my head back at the wall, I cried more but nothing more seemed enough. The night wasn't supposed to end like this....not by snatching something from me who I could depend upon.

❃

It had been fifty four hours that Randhir chose to stay out of touch and the more he chose the more suspicious thoughts ran inside slicing everything split in two halves. I still remained in the hope that from somewhere he'd just appear with his happy face and tell me it meant nothing, that... he had been out with some work. But he didn't. It might sound sick but instead I was the one trying to call him all this time but he chose not to receive. Was everything all about it only? The proof? Why.... My head used to hurt whenever I was thinking about the same.

I didn't attend office in these hours until now when I got tired of my thoughts and decided to engage my mind and interact with people. I rested my handbag on my office desk and threw my head back on the revolving chair when suddenly a peon entered carrying a huge bouquet in his hands. A bouquet of tulips which only Navya and Randhir knew to be my favourite. My heart jumped inside at the light ray of hope thinking if that would've come from Randhir and soon it was placed on the table before. What if he was unable to call me and chose to send a sorry bouquet instead? I wasted no time pulling out the card which read..

Hope these flowers find you well

Flipping the card in between my fingers, I found no clue about the sender. Running my fingers softly on the flowers popping their heads up from the bunch, I smiled weakly adoring them until suddenly my eyes fell on the man standing by the door leaning back at the wall with a small smile at corner of his lips. I stood up immediately with a jerk and forgot to speak.

"S-sir?" Did that mean he sent me those bunch of beauties? "D-did you? You didn't, right?"

Why would he!

And why the hell was my stress level growing only?

"Did they make the lady feel better?" He asked looking at my fingers on the petals and then at me. I smiled hiding my weakness from all these hours of constant crying. I stood where I was before looking at the table while he walked inside. He did?

"I-it was really thoughtful of you but you didn't have to." I murmured and he pushed his hair back from his forehead.

"It's nothing because all I have to do is order Abhimanyu to do things for me." He shrugged and focussed on the bags under my eyes.

"Have you not been sleeping well?" He asked and I looked up at him. "Or... eating at all? You look pale and thinner in a day or two only." His eyes travelled down my entire body, not in any lustrous way.

"I did." I lied. And it was silent all again.

Neither he moved out of the room nor I could think of speaking anything. Fucking weird.

"I'll channelise the list of potential media partners till the noon and I...."

He took the file away from my grip and placed it on the table. I gulped.

"Would you like to go on a dinner with me? A proper one?" He asked in a deep passionate tone.