It had been two weeks since the curtains had fallen on Ragini's drama, at least in front of her parents. Ragini had been quiet. She hadn't tried to pull any more stunts with them, but Sanskar had still warned Swara to be cautious and not blindly trust Ragini. Ragini could rear her head anything. Swara was heeding to his warning.

That night of confession had also changed the relationship between them. It had managed to break the barriers, that she had so desperately hoped to be gone. But as their closeness increased, Sanskar was even more protective of her, carefully controlling what they were letting the world believe vis-à-vis what their relationship really was. In effect, there were two Sanskars that came into being, one that existed inside their room, with her, and one that existed outside it, for the world, unchanged from who he was before this. She loved him in both his avatars and understood his need for it.

They had all been sitting down together for the usual family dinner, when Uttara had asked Sanskar "Bhai you look distracted today, is everything okay?" Swara hadn't seen him being distracted and was taken off guard by Uttara's question.

"Sanskar, what is wrong?" his Mom had jumped in concerned

"Nothing Mom. Nothing to worry" he had replied.

"It isn't anything related to the contract loss, is it?" Bade Papa had commented casually

"What contract loss?" now even Ram Prasad had been worried

"It wasn't a big contract, Dad. Everything is just fine"

"That is not what I heard. Word around the market is that it was an initial ten crore order with added three-year contract of 75 crores worth guaranteed business each year. I also heard that you have taken quite a bit of loan on the back of this contract" Durga Prasad added

"It wont be the end of the world Bade Papa. I am confident, we will be fine in a very short while" Sanskar added confidently "I am thankful for your concern though" he added

"Always. And I am sure you will be fine" Bade Papa added before asking every one to get back to dinner.

Swara had been on tenterhooks on hearing this. Why had Sanskar not told her he was under so much stress. She had been waiting for them to get back to their room, so that she could ask him, but he had received a call from Kunal and was busy with him for a while. Once the call ended, he drowned himself in his files. Swara was left glancing at him and playing with her dupatta, waiting for a chance to question him.

Sanskar saw his wife's antics as he was scanning through the file. He smiled looking at her. Raising an eyebrow, still trying to pretend to be focused on his file he asked "What is bothering you, Swara?"

"Sanskar, are you facing trouble in the business?" she asked quite concerned "Bade Papa..."

"Swara, do you remember when we were countering Ragini?" he asked closing his file. "When we let her have a smaller win?" she nodded "Well there are times when your enemy hurts you fatally and you put a brave front to not let them see how much they have really hurt you"

"Is that what you were doing?" she asked worried

"That is what I was pretending to do" seeing her confusion he explained further "Sometimes, your enemy only scratches you and you have to let them think they have fatally wounded you. Do you remember the small win that we spoke about just now?" Swara nodded

"If I had tried to pretend to Durga..." he stopped seeing her head snap at him. She had been forcing him to call Durga Prasad, Bade Papa, saying that current scenario should not change how Sanskar addressed him "Bade Papa, that he had given me that fatal wound, when in fact it was a scratch, he would have seen through it, unlike Ragini"

"That is what you pretended that it you were actually putting up a brave front to cover up a big issue?" she asked understanding things now "What really happened in that case?"

"To put it simply, I guess Bade Papa had put up a distant contact of his, on a task to waylay me. The contact was to come to me posing as a client, carry out small successful transactions and then bring in a big contract that I could not resist. He would then cancel the contract last minute, leaving me with a lot of inventory in hand, no buyers and no liquidity to keep the business afloat"

"How did you avoid this?"

"I do a through due diligence of my clients. I had found the connection long back. I knew he would pull out of the contract, that I why I had already arranged for contracts in the back-end to cover all of the inventory"

"And the bank loan?"

"That was some thing that was always planned. It is for the expansion of the company. Since the timing was the same, Bade Papa assumed it was to provide for this contract. Happy?" he asked with a smile before returning to his file

"There is something else I want to know, that I have wanted to know for a long time" seeing him wait for her to ask him, she added "Why did you come to get me at the hospital?"

"You know I never had any real problems with your" he paused to look at her for a second before continuing "marriage to Laksh, though I may have tried to irk you. I didn't want a third person to destroy anyone's wedding" He didn't need to explain why he felt that, she knew and understood.

"Why did you agree to help me with my plan and marry me?"

"Honestly?" he asked with a smile, seeing her nod, he added "I wanted to torture Bade Papa a bit. You were after all once the would-be-bride of his son. I was sure he would be distracted trying to make sense of my plan in doing that, for days. Laksh wasn't too happy about it either."

"What!" she said throwing a pillow at him that he deftly caught "Tell me the truth!"

"That is the truth!"

"The whole truth Sanskar" she said, readying another pillow to throw at him.

"Alright! Alright!" he said smiling before seriously adding "You were so driven to achieve your goal, you were ready to make any sacrifice, go through any troubles make in happen. In a strange way, I saw a bit of myself in you in that instance. And while I am being honest" he added with a twinkle in his eye "you were woefully unprepared to face Ragini on your own with your plans. I knew you were stubborn enough not to back out from your mission. I felt like I was sending a sheep into a wolf's lair, alone"

"You called me a sheep!"

"No, I was calling Ragini a wolf!" he replied with a chuckle

Swara walked over to the sofa where he was sitting. She took the file from his hand and put it aside, before taking his arm and wrapping it around her shoulder and leaning her head on his shoulder. "There is one more thing bothering me"

"You have a lot of things bothering you today" he teased, receiving a light slap on his chest "Oww" he added dramatically

"Sanskar, you know when I was to marry Laksh?" Swara asked, getting Sanskar's raised eyebrow in response "Why did Bade Papa not reject the alliance when I am Bengali too?"

Giving her a quick kiss on her forehead, he reasoned "I think it was for two reasons. First, that you aren't a full Bengali. You were daughter of a well regarded Marwari family and in that sense it was easy for them to pass you off as Marwari bahu instead"

Swara nodded "And what is the second reason?"

He sighed, trying to find the best way to put it forward "In my case, I was the one who was being groomed to be the heir to the business. Any deviation from the accepted was seen as impairing the reputation of both the family and the business. In your case....." he trailed off

"It was Laksh" she said understanding "there weren't as many expectations they had from him"

Sanskar nodded "And you had impressed them with your focus on family. I am sure it had something to do with that too" Swara relaxed in his arms enjoying his proximity, before Sanskar added "You know there was a small moment when I had suspected Bade Papa of doing it to you as well" seeing Swara look at him questioningly, explained "when you were being drugged"

"That was all Ragini" Swara said sadly

"Swara, Ragini might have executed it. She may not be innocent, but do you really think she would have easy access to the drugs that she fed you?" Sanskar asked looking at her

"What are you saying Sanskar? That Bade Papa....?" She trailed off

"No, not him. As I said before, I did doubt him only for just a short while. This is not his style. He may play some sly games, as do I, but he would have made it clear that he was the enemy at least once he did it. There are some rules to the game that he follows, and this is one of them. I didn't see him declare anything to either Laksh or to you. And I was not in the picture at that time for him to do this to attack me. On top of that, he would never do anything that would damage his or the family's reputation in the public. Anything he planned would have occurred in private sanctum with only the family to see it"

"Then who? May be someone external, outside the family?"

"May be. But what would they gain from maligning your image or preventing you from marrying Laksh?" Sanskar asked, finally adding "Don't worry about it. I will find out the truth, I promise" as he kissed her forehead again

"Okay! enough of these bad thoughts" she said trying to distract both of them from these games that were going all around them

"Oh! What kind of thoughts are you interested in then?" he asked mischievously planting gentle kisses on her face

"Wouldn't you like to know" she teased

"Actually I would" he said leaning in to capture her lips. A sound outside their room, distracted him and had him rushing off to see who it was

"What happened?" Swara asked after he returned

"I thought I heard something. May be someone was there" he pondered almost to himself

"Who? Bade Papa?" Swara asked

"Sorry to disappoint you. He may be a lot of things but he is not a peeping Tom"

"Hmm...It cannot be Ragini. She hurt her ankle really badly as she walked upstairs. She is in no state to walk, let alone disappear as you went looking outside immediately" Swara reasoned

"Mom?" Swara wondered widening her eyes

"Scared of the mom-in-law?" Sanskar added mischievously.

"She thinks I am corrupting her son"

"Oh! If only she knew how right she was!" Sanskar said before pulling her in for a kiss.

Durga Prasad had been scanning through a few files when Annapurna walked in looking pleased "I think everything is finally turning out well" seeing her husband looking at her with a confused expression, she added "I think things are finally settling down with Laksh-Ragini and Sanskar-Swara. Both Laksh and Sanskar too seemed to have calmed down a bit. I think everything is going to be fine soon"

Durga Prasad nodded at her, before she went of to bed. His wife only saw what she wanted to see. She only saw the calm Laksh that was present around the family. She didn't see the undercurrent that was brewing inside him, ready to explode. She only saw the Sanskar interacting with her and most of the family warmly. She did not see the Sanskar who was plotting against the family, the business and her own husband.

For now, it was better that she remained unaware. It would be a fierce battle, one that would involve bloodbath. She didn't need to build anxiety over it, until she found out about it in the end. This way she would be less of a distraction for him in the battle as well.

So far he had hit his enemy through his soldiers, staying on the sidelines. And they had failed to make much of a mark. He wasn't blind to not see through Sanskar's ruse. Now was the time for him to slowly make his way into the battle field and hit his enemy straight on, with big blow, debilitating him.

A few rooms away, Ram had been lost in thought. His wife Sujata had as usual been on about some gossip and her usual complaints of her Bengali daughter-in-law.

"I am sure she is doing some thing to my son!" Sujata said, worry clearly etching her face. She looked at her husband realizing he was lost in his own thoughts and hadn't probably listened to anything she said.

"What are you thinking about?" She called out, shaking him from his thoughts "You don't have any time for me these days" she huffed turning around in the bed going off to sleep.

Usually, he would have tried to appease his wife and calm down her fake anger, but today, he had a lot going on in his mind. His wife, as always, was embroiled in petty matters. She couldn't see what he could. His brother and his son were lining up for a battle. One his blood and the other his flesh and blood. He didn't want either to lose, but that wouldn't be. He was left there on the sidelines as two people close to him took out swords and used them on each other. He was left helpless to intervene and unable to stop what was to come. He would be left picking up the pieces, weeping for the one who lost and unable to forgive the one who won. He would lose at both ends. 

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