Dedicated to M Veena for being the one who connected the dots in  Chapter 2, wrote it out in a comment and being a sweetheart, deleted it, so that I could continue to maintain the pretense of suspense.

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Betrayal, real or perceived, is a great inducement. As is regret; when it is genuine and heartfelt. So is remorse, even if it is late. It was what all the Gadodia women learnt that day.

Sharmishta watched Swara stride out of the house; she had seen that reckless determination on her daughter's face and knew that nothing good would come out of it. She waited in the corridor, outside Swara's bedroom, as though hoping that Swara would change her mind and come back. When more than five minutes passed, she knew that Swara would not return without finishing off what she intended, so she stepped into Swara's room, where Shekhar still sat on the bed. He was flipping the pages of album, though she knew that he was not seeing any of the photographs.

"I would have congratulated you, if only I was not party to what is happening today."

Shekhar looked up at Sharmishta, confusion writ on his face and she continued, "So far we have only ignored Ragini, today we have destroyed Swara."

Shekhar flicked a page in annoyance, "You were always dramatic, nothing will happen to Swara. You do not even know where she has gone but you make it sound as though I have sent her to her ruin."

Sharmishta walked inside and sat beside her husband, "We have known each other for about forty years; I know you as well as you know me. So do not pretend you do not understand what I am saying. And yes, before you say anything else, I agree I have always been a party to what you have done, or rather felt. Most of our lives have been dictated by your fear and envy.

Fear of your mother who has been dead and gone for more than twenty years and envy of Ram Maheshwari who has been dead for what, almost ten years? What have we gained, Shekhar? Nothing, though we have lost so much. We have been so consumed by fear and anxiety that we ignored Ragini because your mother was angry with her being born a girl. Even that could be overlooked if we made up for our lapse when your mother died. But we never did, did we? 

And about Ram, the envy you have for him, that is also what your mother planted in you and that also did not die with her. But then, does he deserve your envy? That poor man never really had anything good going for him, all you see is the success he achieved in business but then, he worked for it. Apart from that apparent success, what did he really have? Sujata died when Sanskaar was born but we had each other. He brought up his son all alone, our children had both of us and their grandparents. He died thinking his son died, we are still alive and healthy, with two wonderful daughters who love us. You might disagree that Ragini loves us, but she does, for that is the only reason she still stays with us, whereas nobody even seems to know what happened to Sanskaar, he has just disappeared. But then we were always too wrapped up with Swara to bother about Ragini.

Do not get me wrong, I agree that because of Swara's condition she did need more attention but that does not excuse our treatment of Ragini. And whom are we trying to fool? For all the while that Swara battled her illness, we spent that time crying, worrying and not sleeping. She could be your princess but it was Ragini who was her true support. Swara thinks you are her rock, the one who is always there for her while the reality is that Ragini is the one who is there for her. And today, your lie is going to destroy that truth."

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Ragini sat on the low sofa, staring at the sleeping child in her arms; she knew that there was a lot to talk about but she did not want to say anything, afraid that she might again say things in a burst of sadness and anger, which she would regret later. However, she did hope one of the others would say something, but it appeared that nobody was willing to start talking, and the silence surrounded them, till finally Niharika decided to wake up and let out a whimper. As Meghna took her daughter from Ragini, who seemed to be quite reluctant to let the baby go, she spoke to her mother, "Come Maa, I will put Neha to sleep and help you make dinner, they will work up an appetite and it will be a little like the old times."

At the door, she turned back and ordered, "You will talk, all of you, to each other and not at the same time. Eight years is a long time for friends to go without talking."

Ragini stared at Megna's retreating back and commented, "She still has not changed much, bossy as ever, I..."

"You would have thought that her being married would give us some relief, instead her bossiness has only increased, partly because Sid worships the ground she walks on and you sort of disappeared."

She spun back at Sanskaar at his words and turned pale, "I am so..."

"Not again, I am sorry this time, I meant that because you were not here and Sid enjoys it now, so she takes it out all on me and Laksh, more on me, I cannot run away—"

He held up his hands, stalling what Ragini had to say, "—please, I am what I am, and I agree it will take you time to get around to accepting what has happened to me, so I promise, no more lame jokes."

He winced, "that was not intentional. Why do you not start asking, I promise to give answers, all of us will?

Ragini looked at them in turn, before asking the question that her plagued from the minute she had read the press release, "Why SNLRS, or rather, why now?"

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"You guessed that Ragini was a part of SNLRS when Swara blurted out the names that day, right? And you have been waiting for something like this, from that minute. Why Shekhar? Why is your envy of Ram so much greater than your love for Swara? Why should your irrational disgust of her friends matter more than what Ragini likes?"

Shekhar stared at his wife, in all the years he had known her, she had never spoken out, and he had considered her silence as acquiescence and had also been grateful that she had not resented him for his overbearing mother. Tonight when she spoke, he heard her but could not say anything, neither agree nor object, there was too much truth in those words. Her voice was soft but her words were sharp barbs and he felt a faint stirring of shame. But then he could argue with himself that this time he had not been left with much choice.

Sharmishta laid her hand on his knee, as though to comfort and confront him at the same time, "I am not going to either judge you or berate you. I do not have any right to do so, not when I should have spoken out years ago. But I cannot stay silent anymore so I want to tell you what I think. You have spent all your life hating Ram, hating him so much that you have almost played into their hands. Think hard, Shekhar, think about it. The newspaper is the only thing you own, and despite it being a successful paper, it really is not so great that somebody wants to take it away from you for business reasons. That means that it would be a personal motive and we know that Sanjay Sengupta carries grudges, even minor ones and is not the type to forgive anyone who slights him. And you have sent Swara to meet his son."

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"Senguptas? How are they involved in all of this? And why do we need to fight them?"

Sanskaar answered, "A long story, some tiny facts and a lot of speculation but then it does add up, sort of. And because Sanjay Sengupta deserves it, remember that story from Father Brown stories, where the Father asks 'Where does a wise man hide a leaf?' "

Ragini was perplexed at his question but replied, "in a forest."

"Right, remember the next 'If there were no forest, he would make a forest. And if he wished to hide a dead leaf, he would make a dead forest. And if a man had to hide a dead body, he would make a field of dead bodies to hide it in.' But let me answer your first question, why SNLRS and why now.

When that accident happened, it caused death and destruction. I agree that nothing will bring back dad or Nikita and I can never get better than this. But the cracks in our friendship can be mended and I want SNLRS back on track. It was not only our dream, Ragini, it was my father's wish too. And now, more than ever, it is important that SNLRS be revived. There will not be another Maheshwari to run the Maheshwari Group, but then the name is not as important as the survival of the group and its employees; and instead of changing the name or starting a new company I decided to use the one which already exists.

But then there can no SNLRS without all of us, Nikita's death should not have stopped us then; it had to be revived for its revival would mean that Nikita is still alive with all of us, that we have not forgotten her. And I need us to be together when I claim retribution."

"Revenge?"

"Yes, revenge for irresponsibility and impunity. The accident was indeed only an accident, but what happened later was not."

Ragini wanted to ask more but was interrupted when Anu Maa walked in with mugs of steaming hot coffee and unable to resist the strong familiar aroma, Ragini blurted out, "Coffee, I so missed this."

That earned her a slight whack on her head and Anu Maa complained, "I hoped you would have missed me, but then you were always the direct one, straight to the point."

Feeling sheepish, Ragini started to apologise, when Anu Maa stopped her, "Enough, you think you pushed them away with those words, but all three of them are as bad as you for staying pushed away. All of us knew your temper and also knew that you said those in grief, but not one them made a move to talk to you after that day. So no more saying sorry and wasting any further time, am I clear?"

Her words and the coffee calmed Ragini into silence even as she wondered what Sanskaar had meant by wanting retribution.

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The coffee house was familiar and not too crowded, so it had not been difficult for Swara to find out where Sahil was sitting, despite him having his back to the entrance. She did not hesitate in her stride as she walked across the length of the café to the nook where he was sitting in; it was a corner and she would have considered it a cosy one if she had been meeting anyone else. She did not say a word when he stood up as she came up to the table and quietly slid into the seat opposite his, the one that faced the entrance. He waited till she sat down before sitting back in his seat and when Swara just nodded at his question, he ordered for both of them.

Swara sat with the steaming mug of hot café latte, wondering how her life had flipped so quickly that she was sitting with Sahil and drinking coffee. She had been stunned when she had seen that photograph and realised that her sister was a part of SNLRS. It had hurt that while she had been honest with what she had found out, even sharing her suspicions as to who that 'R' could be, her di, the one who was her idol and inspiration had chosen to keep quiet. It was being lied to that tore her, she could not accept that her sister had kept something so important from her and had pretended to be ignorant about SNLRS. As she burned in anger and a numbing sense of betrayal, she hardly paid much attention to what exactly her father was saying.

She heard him ask if she could meet Sahil, along with the transcripts of the interview and she, with her impulsive streak on an all time high, had agreed. Quite enthusiastically, she recalled, for even now she felt a wild euphoria at the thought of giving it back to her di, her law abiding, and rule following sister, who would be furious at Swara breaking the ethical code of journalism. She could hear Ragini in her head, 'remember the rules and the ethics, if you do not follow them you are creating gossip not reporting news; if the article is not true and ethical, you are not telling the truth you are writing a baseless story.'

Swara bristled inwardly; high words from someone who had kept such an important thing from her and she had been made the fool. She was sure that all the friends were now together, laughing at her, at her clothes, her interview skills, her stupidity at not being able to piece it all together...

She looked up at the unexpected silence which was when she realised the Sahil had stopped talking and that she has spilled quite a bit of her coffee, only on the table and not on her hands, so she had not even noticed it.

"I am not sure what you have been told to make you agree, but then this is not the time to be having second thoughts. Could you give me the file?"

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Ragini read the summary; the file was detailed and contained a lot of papers which showed meticulous research but then it would take a lot of time to go through all of them, time which they did not have now. She looked in askance at them and Sanskaar answered, "I will cover the important points and we can get the details later.

It all started when Ms Prashanti stepped in for the regular nurse, for my physiotherapy sessions. It was around three years after the accident and that day I was in a terrible mood, not interesting in any sessions, especially with a substitute female nurse. Meghna understood my mood, though the fact that Ms Prashanti was volubly relieved surprised us, that and the fact the she had a fabulous manicure and perfect nails. Meghna's observation, not mine but it stuck and I was intrigued. The next time Vidya Maasi came over, I mentioned about her and learnt that there were a whole list of complaints against Ms Prashanti, how is she is unprofessional, spends more time on personal grooming and whenever she gets a chance, is out with her boyfriend. I was surprised at why Maasi kept abreast of Ms Prashanti, who was not with the hospital that Maasi worked in. That was when she let out the truth."

Ragini could not stop the confusion from showing and Laksh spoke up, "She is the one who gave the wrong news to Ram uncle about Sanskaar's condition and it was on hearing that that Ram uncle had a heart attack."

"Did you slit her throat?" anger made her voice sharp.

Siddharth laughed, "See, a girl after my own heart. That is what I suggested, Sanskaar appeared to be willing but then the law man out here decided to be the voice of reason."

Sanskaar smiled, this was the banter he missed; they all missed and he hoped that it was not too late to mend their friendship. Laksh glowered, "Even if I were a criminal lawyer, there is no way I could get any of you off for murder, especially one that involved slitting throats. So we had to go about it in civilised way, not behave like blood thirsty barbarians."

"Sounds interesting, a civilised way to destroy. Next we will be talking about a polite way to plunder."

"No wonder you are the journalist, you have a way with words," chuckled Siddharth, the laughter sounding warm and thawing the distances marked by time, "but we could not do anything much, rather Sanskaar did all the work or got it done. We were not too sure about it but then did not object, for"—

—"it kept me occupied. Anyway I wanted to find out if she was such an incompetent nurse why she was not thrown out. The answer was simple and not very surprising; she had a safety net, in the form of Dr Abhay Gupta."

When Sanskaar paused, Laksh pointed to the divider with a red tag, "That is the second set in the file; he is a good doctor, has a clean reputation, but then his finances are a little too good for the work he does. He supposedly carries out private consultations, but then the records were not easy to obtain though a routine surveillance revealed that Ms Prashanti is a regular there, ostensibly to assist during the consultancy, but we can guess the real purpose. Anyway, we finally managed to learn that he earns a constant amount, on a monthly basis, which he accounts for as income from the consultancy. The amount is not insignificant either.

The third is the hospital where they were treated; it was an old one, administered by a Trust. Two years later and just after it was taken over by The Mitra foundation," Laksh noted the momentary flash of surprise on her face and he answered, "No, no connection to Udayan Mitra, just a coincidence that the surname is the same. Anyway, two years later, the hospital was gutted to the ground; luckily no patient was killed for the hospital had been emptied for renovations which made it easier for the brand new swanky hospital to be built in its place. What got lost were the reports and the records of the history of patients and a few of the unsuspecting staff, who got killed in the fire."

Ragini started to piece the events but did not say a word and Laksh continued, "The next set is that of the police reports filed regarding the accident. While Sanskaar's case is documented in fair detail, there is not much about the other car, just that the driver was in his mid-forties and was drunk. Nothing surprising or suspicious but we wanted to find out about the driver and discovered that he was Kunal's father."

Ragini did not know who Kunal was but did not interrupt, she knew that these apparent unconnected and disassociate events would tie up to one single irrefutable conclusion. So she decided to hear them out and ask questions later.

Siddharth took up the narration, "Kunal's father was a teetotaller, and everyone we asked, from his family to the neighbours, said the same thing, he had never ever touched a drink in all his life. And that was disturbing; for there was a fine recorded against the vehicle as the driver had failed the breath analyser test at a checkpoint a couple of kilometres ahead of the accident site. So we tried to find out about the car he was driving."

There was a few seconds of silence and Sanskaar dropped the final piece, "the car belonged to Sanjay Sengupta."

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Sahil let out a sigh of relief when he finished photographing the pages in the file, his father would be pleased, he was not sure why his father wanted the interview transcripts but then his father was perpetually interested in the Gadodias and the Maheshwaris. At one point he had been worried as to whether Swara would give him the file, despite coming to meet him, it was visible that she was reluctant to hand it over and that would not do, his father was not an easy man in his best moods and he was frightening in his temper outbursts. And Swara refusing to share the file would surely have his father fly into one his notorious rages.

It was then that in a rare burst of inspiration he had suggested, "Well, if it makes it easy for you, why not leave the file here and visit the washroom for five minutes or so? In that time I can simply take the photographs of the pages. That should ease it out for you, for you would not have to give me the file and I would also get what I want."

The relief that flooded through him when she agreed was immense and he had not wasted any time. Uncaring whether he would be seen or not, he reached across, pulled the file towards him and started clicking the photos, finishing it off just when Swara came back. He smiled, one that did make him look handsome and handed her the file, "Check it out and confirm that all the papers are there."

Swara did not have the energy to refuse him, it would extend the conversation and she did not want to hear him anymore, so she did as he asked. When she nodded her head in confirmation, he smiled, "So you have to agree, I am no thief."

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"He is a lying coward and a murderer," pronounced Sanskaar at the same time that Ragini pieced together a part of the picture for she spoke, "Sahil was the one driving the car and they let Kunal's father take the rap."

Siddharth nodded, "So we plan to take away what he loves the most."

She turned to Laksh, "And you agree with them, no advice to simply file a case and obtain legal recourse?"

"Firstly we do not have much proof, secondly the Law of Limitation kicks in and that closes all doors on  a legal recourse and thirdly, this would be a better payback."

She was silent only for a few seconds, "So what we do next?"

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Swara stayed in that cafe, long after Sahil had gone, trying to come to terms with what she had done. The cafe was her favourite haunt, and now it felt tainted because she had met Sahil and let him take a copy of the transcripts. Even though she could not understand why anyone would be interested in reading them, least of all Sahil, it gnawed at her. As did the resentment at her sister. She did know how long she would have stayed there, if Kabir had not come for her. He had not said anything aside from letting her know that her mother had called him when she had not answered any of their calls and insisted that he get her home. Despite the embarrassment that followed when she recalled their conversation earlier in the day,Swara had no fight left in her,  and she had come home with him only to find that Ragini was still not back.

She had waited the whole night for her sister to be back and the morning found Swara even more miserable, for now she had to contend with a guilty conscience too. It worsened she came out of the washroom to see that her mother was waiting for her. Sharmishta gave her an envelope to read, it had a note taped to it, Thank you, I thought you might find it interesting ~Sahil

Swara did not want to open the cover and see what was inside, she felt bile rising and she knew it would not be anything good, but then her mother was waiting for her to read it. Sharmishta was seated in the chair beside the dresser and looked at her, her unwavering and silent gaze only unsettled Swara more, "Maa, I will read it later..."

"No, Swara, what is done is done, you cannot change it. Read it out and then we will decide what to do."

Swara fiddled with the flap, "Di is home?"

"No, but then I am not worried about her. I am worried for you. And I think it is better we get over with what is in that cover. And no, I do not know what is in it."

Swara looked at  her mother; that was the place her sister would sit when Swara would parade her dresses, always encouraging with enthusiasm or gently dissuading her conservative choices. She felt a tumult of conflicting emotions as she remembered her sister and tore the flap open. It had a newspaper and a single page; she pulled them out and started to read the paper. 

It took her one minute to grasp what was written, one minute to understand what she had done, one minute for the realisation to hit her; fourteen hours ago, she had thought betrayal was disguised as the laughter of her sister in an eighteen old photograph, now she knew that betrayal was the face in the mirror.

And done, not too happy about it, but hoping that it is not too bad either, though this update should let you know who the father and son duo in the first chapter were.  And I pray that I have not lost out on the continuity. Do let me know how you found it and what do you guess would happen next? Hint - it is titled 'Sweet Talk' but there would not be anything sweet in it. 

To my two lovely readers who felt that 4400 words is short (you know who you are), this is even shorter at 4230 words but then I could not say more for this chapter.

love,
Nyna