Ragini had sunk down on the floor in Swara and Sanskar's room. She had been crying hard. Swara was sitting on the bed, her hands clasping the edge of the bed till her knuckles turned white, looking away from Ragini. Sanskar sat on the sofa, his feet resting on the coffee table in front of him, his expression firm, but unyielding.

"You cannot do this to me" Ragini kept on repeating

"Oh can I not?" Sanskar asked in a hard tone "Your sister might be willing to take all the hits you throw her way, but I am not your sister. When you took a shot at me, did you really think I would spare you?"

"But Laksh..." Ragini pleaded

"Was your weakness and I decided to raise the stake; truly make this game, that you are so keen to play with me, even more interesting. I took out your weakness, for good" He added calmly, unaffected by Ragini's tears

"You are lying. You wont do that. He is your brother"

"Wouldn't I? Did my cousin forget to tell you about the incident?" He asked with a smirk "It is sad that you wont have a chance to ask him. I would have liked for him to have told you this before you decided to challenge me. You would have had at lest some warning about who you are facing"

"Please, tell me where he is" Ragini pleaded again

"I did tell you. He is dead" He replied in a matter of fact manner "But then again, you should have realized some thing had happened to him when you searched for him everywhere and couldn't find him. You wouldn't have come running to us asking about him, if it was otherwise"

"If anything happens to him, I will not spare you" Ragini screamed, almost attacking him, but he quite easily caught her wrist and pushed her away

"You seem to be keen to repeat the same mistake that landed you here. And you do realize that whatever had to happen to him, already has. There is nothing more that can happen to him now that he is dead"

"Tell me where he is, please" Ragini had been going back and forth between threating Sanskar and pleading with him for the past twenty minutes.

"Ragini, stop repeating yourself. I am getting bored. And you don't have the courage to do anything" he said in almost a mocking tone.

Overwhelmed by her grief, anger, added to his mocking tone, Ragini had snapped "You think I don't have the courage! Did you forget I was the one who drugged Swara. I was the one who left her walk into the Ganges for my love. I was the one who hid Maa to force you to marry Swara. Did you forget all that? You too had to bend down to my wishes once. I have done everything I did for Laksh and if you are the one who hurt him, I wont think twice before killing you and avenging my love, either"

"Do you think your petty actions and even pettier threats scare me?" Sanskar had asked, getting up for the first time

"Sanskar, please" Swara had stepped in at this time, her eyes were tearing up looking at her sister's plight.

"Fine. I will do a favor for you Ragini. I will ask my men to get what is left of Laksh over here so that you can see him once before they dispose him off"

"No. I don't believe you"

He ignored her and made a call "Hall of the Maheshwari Mansion, in five minutes" he told the other person before cutting the line "You can see it for yourself in about five minutes"

Ragini rushed down stairs, with Swara following her after glancing at Sanskar once. Sanskar followed them in a leisurely place. Ragini kept looking at the entrance, still crying hard as she glanced from Swara to Sanskar from time to time, hoping against hope it was their trick. They were sitting on the sofa together, looking at her. Seeing them in that state, had increased her fears. She had known that Sanskar was ruthless, but she had counted on her sister to stop such a tragedy from happening.

When she heard footsteps approaching, she had almost cracked. But then a glance over had made her realize that it was her Baba, Maa and Dadi. She rushed to them, pleading them for help, trying to tell them what Sanskar and Swara had done to her husband while the rest of the family was away for an event, unreachable.

She had been in for a shock when Dadi slapped her for her previous actions and Baba had almost cut of all relations with her, favoring instead to ask for forgiveness from her sister and also her mother - for faltering in trusting her despite their five years of marriage. Instead of worrying about Laksh, they had been worried about how to face Maheshwari family with her truth. Swara, after allowing Sanskar to kill her Laksh, had gone on to tell them that it would remain just between the six of them, no one else needed to know.

Ragini was almost on the verge of a complete collapse, when Sanskar admitted that this was all a ploy to get her to accept the truth. Laksh was to be back home in ten minutes, and that she should clean up her appearance if she didn't want Laksh to find out. She had been confused, but Laksh being alive was the only thing ringing in her ears and she wanted to see him once.

Gadodia family felt it best to leave before Laksh arrived. Swara and Sanskar went with them to see them off.

"Thanks for trusting me enough to continue the video call. I know it wouldn't have been easily for you to see me behave harshly with your daughter" Sanskar had told them

"You are right, it wasn't easy. I was on the verge of switching it off many times. I still don't know why I agreed, but I am thankful now that I did" Baba told them

"I thought I was helping one granddaughter correct and bring the other one on the right path" Dadi said in a subdued tone "I never realized that I had placed the wrong granddaughter in both those roles"

"Shona, we know why you did all this. You got into a fake marriage and then Ragini forced the two of you to get married for real" Shomi said. Swara glanced at Sanskar for a second as she heard this "But now that it is all over, I think you should come back home"

Of all the things Swara had expected, this wasn't it.

"Swara, your Maa is right. You have achieved what you came here for, come with us to your home now" her Baba too had added

"Maa, Sanskar and I, we are really mar" Swara tried to explain

"Maa, it will be weird if Swara leaves all of a sudden. My family does not know the truth and we don't want to tell them about Ragini. We will figure out some way to cite issues and then get a divorce so that she can be free of this. Just give us some time" Sanskar answered

Swara was surprised and a more than a little disappointed by his response

"But..." Shomi seemed concerned

"Don't worry Maa. Swara will be completely safe. There will be no questions raised on her reputation during the stay. I can assure you that" Sanskar explained. They nodded reluctantly at this before leaving the house.

Swara and Sanskar returned to find Ragini waiting for them

"Where is he? You said he would be here"

"He will be. But before that, I word of advice" Sanskar added "Do not try to cross either your sister or me again. Stop all these stunts now. If you don't, I will not think twice before showing the proof to Laksh" he warned

Laksh walked in just then, sweating apparently from a boxing practice, one that he had ventured into after a bad encounter with Sanskar. He looked at all of them suspiciously as he walked in. Ragini was too thrilled to see him and rushed over to greet him, surprising him quite a bit since he hadn't been away that long. Sanskar left them there and made his way back to his room, Swara following him behind.

"Why did you say that?" she asked him as soon as they were inside

"Say what?"

"About the divorce" she said tearing up a bit

"You knew that was going to always happen in the end, Swara" he tried to reason, his expression closed.

"What if I don't want it?" she asked defiantly

"Don't! Don't do this"

"Do what Sanskar"

"I am not blind, Swara. I have seen the difference in your behavior towards me since...since" he tried to say, but couldn't

"Since the kiss. You noticed it then. Then why are you doing this?"

"I am not doing anything different from what we always planned to do"

"Are you saying you don't have feelings for me?"

"I don't. For me this was just a deal and the deal has come to an end now"

"You are lying. I know you are"

"I am not. You are trying to see a knight in shining armor when all that there is, is an evil king who will destroy everything in his path"

"Hiding behind a false analogy doesn't suit you, Sanskar. Why are you denying what I can clearly see? Why are you trying to keep me from opening the doors to your heart?"

"Swara, there is nothing to be found by trying to open the doors to my heart. Stop deluding yourself. All you will end up doing in opening the floodgates that will drown you in pain" he said moving away from her towards the other side of the room

"May be I want to drown. Have you thought about that!" she asked walking behind him

"Are you even listening to yourself, Swara?"

"What are you afraid of?" she said as she tried to hold his hand "that I will drown in your pain" a strange thought struck her, one that she verbalized softly "or that I will actually save you, keep you afloat and bring you ashore"

He stilled for a second, before pulling himself away and walking towards the door, ready to leave the room

"Where are you going?" she asked

"To the guest room. It is best that I sleep there going forward" he took a few steps to leave, but her words stopped him

"Trying to put some physical distance between us? Are you trying to protect me or trying to protect yourself?" she asked

"I don't need protection, but in case you haven't realized, the last woman who tried to get close to me, wound up getting killed. I have promised your parents that you would remain safe here"

"You can try to increase physical distance between us, Sanskar, but you wont be able to hide the feelings that show through on your face and in your eyes, anymore than I can. The more distance you try to create, the more intense will those feelings be"

She took a step closer to him, seeing him standing still

"What is going to happen then, Sanskar, when this enemy of yours realizes what you feel for me, what I feel for you and also realizes that you aren't close to me to protect me"

Sanskar had closed his eyes shut and curled his fingers into a tight fist, as she moved close to him. She gently took his fist in her hand, brought it to her lips and gently kissed his knuckles.

"Don't you see, I am safest when I am close to you?" she asked, as she caressed his cheek. He opened his eyes to look at her. She stood on the tip of her toes as she added "because you would never let anything happen to me" while looking into his eyes. She brushed her lips against his before gently kissing him.

He let out a breath even as his hands came to rest on her waist before pulling her closer into himself and returning her kiss. Swara wound her hands around his neck. This kiss was different from the last one, this was gentler, it had a different depth of feelings. He nuzzled her nose as he broke the kiss before pulling her into a tight embrace.