𓆩𓆪

Seher had been forewarned of an unexpected emergency and was instructed to keep the house door unlocked and take Adira into one of the bedrooms.

That was no big deal. The toddler had been deeply engrossed in undressing her dolls and getting them ready for a kitty party, it would take little to no effort to scoop the child into her arms and disembark her on her fairy bed.

Afraid of leaving the main door unattended for an unknown period of time, Seher had not complied till the last minute. Not until she heard their car enter the driveway.

She unbolted the top lock – ever since Adira became tall enough to reach the bottom latch, she resorted to this safety measure – and swung the door open, scampering to Adira who on hearing the vehicle had excitedly plopped up on the windowsill, peeled a curtain open and caught a glimpse of her favourite people in the world. In a roundabout way, Adira raced to the ajar door before Seher could catch up with her.

Her tiny feet took a cautious step down on cold concrete and a curious baby voice called out as she supported herself on a brick wall, "Mumma?" Mukti froze.

"Adira, go to your room. Now!"

The little girl, who was expecting to be warmly welcomed, was instead alarmed by the sight of her Maama horribly hurt and hanging on the two other big boys. A bright flash of blood from her Maama's arm dripped down on the road he was being carried from. Within milliseconds, her tiny lips wobbled and by then it was too late for anyone to do damage control.

With a loud wail, she hurried towards Manik, only to be swooped into Mukti's arms and ushered in. No amount of kicking or screaming could get her out of that hold, but she badly wanted to be there with him. She did not want her Maama to go up to God. A warm motherly hand came over the girl's head and with soft strokes, Mukti soothed her.   

"Get that bottle of a-l-c-o-h-o-l from the bottom cabinet in the kitchen, and then leave!" Mukti roughly commanded to the caretaker who could not obey the simplest request made to her all while Dhruv and Cabir pioneered Manik into the house.

Alia hurried in to fetch the first aid kit, placed it on the dining table and unboxed it to run through its contents. Not wanting to upset Mukti more, Seher quickly contributed to the medical department, pulled out a pure bottle of vodka and sat it beside Alia, but Manik's bleeding trail freaked her out and in a restless attempt to erase the traces, she brought paper towels and some cleaning solution to wipe the floors clean.

On one of the dining chairs, Manik hissed as he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled off his sleeve. Had it been a different occasion, Alia would have found her attention naturally diverting to the curves on his biceps and the dips on his shoulder blades: both marks of vigorous exercise to keep shape.

Unveiling the wound in its complete glory, it was clear that layers of flesh had been shaved off, and Alia nearly gagged as she saw the exposed area. She doused a cotton ball in vodka and waited a moment in silence, giving Manik a bit of time to prepare for what was about to come.

He grabbed the huge glass bottle and chugged a huge gulp of the raw spirit, gasping for breath from the searing burn that lined his guts. A fist tightened as he moved his bicep closer to her, willing to take whatever pain that came with it as an unnatural murmur emerged. And before he could realise it, he had made a small involuntary prayer to Nandini's Aiyappa.

When the cotton ball came down, the stinging sensation nearly burned him alive but even in that moment of utter weakness, a wave of incomprehensible strength flooded him.     

Out of the bedroom which Mukti escaped into with her daughter, Adira waddled and clung to Manik's legs as she horribly cried, softening the mother whose heart ached at those yelps.

Understanding the inculpable emotions of the child, Manik formed a fist. "Mic testing, over. This is Mr. Munchy Man paging the entire state of Maharashtra..." The imaginary microphone caught her attention, and the wails turned into silent sobs as she carefully listened. "...we are in urgent need of buckets!"

Tiny hands swiped her tears. "Buckets?!" She asked innocently, her bright and wide eyes reminding him of someone.

He shrugged the dangerous thought away, noticing a pattern in recollecting that vegetarian foodie in times where his existence was gravely questionable. Having narrowly escaped death merely a few minutes ago, Manik was not in a position to clearly process exactly what was happening, but he knew he had invited deep trouble by initiating contact with their enemies. And albeit temporarily, the gnaw on his body had sought her memories for some mild comfort. That was about it, there was no need to delve further into the 'why' behind his actions.

His open wound was thoroughly swabbed and cleaned, and Alia brought out a thick cream to coat the wound. 

Manik remained distracted, "Arrey, don't you know our little baby's tears are capable of causing saltwater floods? We must do damage control, stat! Requesting backup, over!" He grinned, putting a gentle arm around her little frame.

The baby grumbled, "I'm not crying!"

Cabir found the whole scenario adorable. "Is that so? Because the Adira I know would be playing with her dolls and doubling their long hair with ribbons if she was happy."

"I am happy!" Adira snapped and hurried away to get her dolls and prove them wrong, but little did she know that as soon as she went back to her toys, she plopped on the floor and entirely forgot about her bleeding uncle. In the flick of a moment.

How lucky the toddler was in her marvellous ability to forget her worries instantaneously, Cabir pondered. Why were adults not blessed with that ability?

On the chair, Manik was thinking the same thing. Using the realisation, he affirmed himself that he had done the right thing by washing Nandini's hands off his blood and sweat. He was already on Harshad's radar and after the shootout at the firework factory, Mr. Malhotra too had a wicked eye on him and his whereabouts. Had he not done what he did, he would never be forgiven by her Aiyappa for tainting his divine child, and dragging her through the dangers of his life. 

Letting her go was a smaller price to pay.

Certain that her daughter was out of ears reach, Mukti sat on another chair beside Manik, firmly slamming a fist down. "You still haven't explained yourself, why the hell did you insist on going alone? Chalo, maan bhi liya that it was absolutely necessary to go by yourself; you could have at least geared up for the worst?! You literally walked into a lion's den and offered it your neck! Do you have any idea what could've happened if we –?" Dhruv's hand clutched her fist gently, and she stopped talking further.

"I'm really sorry." Manik confessed, looking at the table. Mukti rolled her eyes at the word 'sorry'. Sorry would not bring his life back if he died in the fight! "I did not anticipate things to blow up like this," Manik said. 

There was no way Manik went there without a plan, but by how shaken he was when the troop rescued him, Cabir thought there was more to the story than they knew. "Tu toh unka SD waapis dene hi wala tha na?" He asked, voicing the question that had been zooming in his mind through the car ride home. "They wanted it, you went there to give it, then what led to all this bloodshed?"

"I... wanted a fair price for the item. You know the extent of efforts we put in and the sacrifices that were made in order to retrieve it." Manik turned to his friend, putting up a small frown. "Main aise hi thodi na surrender karne wala tha."

Dhruv nodded to give Manik the impression that he understood, even though he was not following. "I'm sure you wouldn't have quoted a price they could not pay up! They rule over at least half of Mumbai's underworld! How much did you ask?"

Alia sniggered at the comment, "You think they would be ethical with their ways? They're the Malhotras, our rivals for a reason! Nasty is their middle-name! You perhaps wanted to play fair and negotiate fairly because it's always worked with the Professor, but they're not us, Manik." She asked him to hold a cotton ball while she scrounged the kit for some gauze. "Now they have the item without holding their end of the deal! Those scoundrels..."

"We should tell the Professor about this. He would know what to do," Cabir suggested, and Manik nodded, adjusting his bicep as the mesh cloth came around it several times and was tightened in place.

His flesh was deeply exposed. While for the time-being, the dressing should do, but a doctor needed to tend to it soon. It was quite likely that Manik would need stitches and the thought frightened her. Putting all the items back, Alia took the box back to one of the bedrooms forgetting the gauze bundle that rolled off the table and fell to the floor. Dhruv picked it up, and followed her.

"You left this behind,"

She spun on her foot impatiently. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Dhruv furrowed his brows. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You of all people know him best, Dhruv. He sees nothing and no one when it comes to protecting his people from danger, and his sense of obligation is so skewed that he wouldn't think twice before giving up his life to save someone he cares for."

"That's... true."

"Do you maybe think there's more to it than we know?"

Dhruv was confident on otherwise.

"Could there be things on that card that we're not aware of? Information that potentially incriminates us." Alia asked suspiciously, and noticing Dhruv's changing expressions that bordered on offense, she corrected herself. "That would explain his crazy obsession in wanting it like his life depended on it."

"He was willing to part with it for a good price. The Manik I know would never do that if it would put us in trouble. It just doesn't make sense."

"There is a way to find out." She implored, and then steadily eyed him, "If you're up for it."

𓆩𓆪

Manik slumped on the couch with a hand pressing his temples. He had consumed two doses of painkillers since he returned but the dull ache around his arm was growing in intensity. So much so that Adira had joyfully made him an audience to her amazing drawings of everyone in the house and he could barely focus on those stick figures.

Mindlessly, he pulled out his personal phone from his pocket and searched up on Google for the number to reach the Indian Army. It took him a minute in that dazed state to realise that it wasn't as straight-forward as contacting a civilian directly. Not even the sheer power of being part of the underworld could fare in his favour when it came to touching the legal security bubble she was sheltered by.

That thought was absolutely devastating in his current state.

Reluctantly, he re-downloaded the app on which they first initiated contact. A seventh sense tingled that she would not be reachable via those means anymore either, but he wanted to try anyways. He went to his 'blocked' list and unblocked her only to find her user not available.

What the hell?! Did she also block him? Or did she just delete the app?

Followed by a crate of supplies was Cabir, and he unloaded some weapons and armour from the crates into the tall safe-box in the centre of the house behind the couch Manik was seated on. 

Manik still had her number saved and blocked too in his contacts list. Drafting a message was usually no problem for him, but for that particular woman, he did not know what to say. It was him taking countless minutes to justify to himself what the irrational part of his brain wanted out of a conversation with her.

Why the hell was he itching to speak to her? Didn't he only a couple of hours ago agree that it was in both of their best interests that he abandoned her? What was it again: oh, right, Harshad... Harshad was indeed dangerous and if he knew of any affiliation she had with the mafia, that would be life-threatening to her.

Then again, why was Nawab having to cower in fear against Harshad? Harshad, that petty dog; was Nawab alone not sufficient to deal with him? Did his stupid tricks warrant a tragic end to what were three of the best weeks in Manik's life?

Manik's headache worsened and he threw his head back on the couch headrest. Cabir scrutinised at him as he stashed away the ammo safely. One of his hands came around Manik's shoulder. "Tu theek hai? Doctor ko bulaaye?" Almost instantly, Manik restlessly locked his phone as a reflex.

"I'm... okay."

Cabir eyed him suspiciously. "Waise mujhe ek baat puchni thi..." Pressing a growing smirk, he moved to the left and kept some distance away from Manik in case a shoe or something worse came flinging his way. "I've heard about people going crazy in love and all and doing stupid shit, but giving up one's life for a stupid card... that's a whole other level of pagalpan."

Fuck, not this again.

Disinterestedly, Manik craned his neck and blinked at his friend. "What do you mean?"

His friend shrugged, "Mujhe bas itna kehna tha ki... agar doctor ek baar check kardenge toh at least pata chal jaayega yeh koi pyaar-vyaar wali bimaari ke wajah se toh nahi hai," Manik uneasily shifted at the mention of 'pyaar', fixated on the floor with a rigid gaze and then blinked it away, as the look that reached his friend was of plain annoyance. 

"Wow Cabir, I didn't know inhaling gunpowder for short periods of time gets you high also! Next time se yaad rakhunga, accha hai na, saste mein mil bhi jaayega. Gaanja jaise mehngi cheez kyoon phookna?" He proudly proclaimed and Cabir smirked, making himself comfortable on the furthest end of the same couch. Just for self-preservation purposes. Not having received the kind of reaction Manik was expecting, he resignedly uttered, "You sound ridiculous, okay? Don't you know me or what?" and closed his eyes.

The man looked visibly drained. Cabir felt a pull in his chest, and on basic humanitarian grounds decided not to probe further. "Alright then, if you say so. Main samosa chaat khaane jaa raha hoon, tujhe kuch chahiye? Alia ke liye ek samosa laa raha hoon, and Adira has specifically put in a request for two mango lollipops so I can't return home until I find that too!" He rambled on, but Manik did not respond to any of it. They needed to talk about it at some point, but maybe not now. Maybe after Manik was off his painkillers, if Cabir was spared to live that long.

Once Cabir was out of sight, Manik impatiently unlocked his phone again and searched for the next best place he associated with her: 'Aiyappa temples in Ahmedabad'. There was a very slim chance that she could have been spotted by one of the thousands of visitors that came every single day to pray in those temples, but he looked through it anyways. Google Maps had a variety of options to choose from. He went to each temple's main website to scan the area and pass her vibe check.

The intensive search narrowed him down to three prime temples. Now all that was left to do was deeply stalk various pages on the sites, pick some regulars from the lot and find a way to get their contact details.     

That was heaps of work for him to do. And what if, after all that searching, he still could not find a single source who could convey his message to her? What if he broke her faith in herself so much that she completely ditched her belief in her favourite God?

Why the fuck was his heart palpitating at that thought of destroying her? He impulsively stomped in his spot.

"God, she's driving me fucking crazy!" He muttered under his breath, tossing his phone across the couch.

It stayed there merely ten seconds before Manik painfully stretched and grabbed the device, beginning the woman-hunt.

𓆩𓆪

"Are you asleep?" Manik asked, peeking into the dark room from where he heard incessant babbles. A soft baby gasp echoed in the room having learned that she was no longer alone. "Shh..." He hissed, closing the door behind him.

Falling into darkness barring a sliver of moonlight by the baby's feet.

It was okay, he merely needed to cover a handful of steps before he would reach Adira.

The girl sat up in her fairy bed, her fuzzy blanket bunching around her little waist. "What are you doing here?" She whispered, waving a hand in the moonlight. Hearing her voice brought some tranquil even in the darkness.

He continued walking up to her. "I came to ask you if you could put me to sleep."

Adira eagerly hopped off the mattress, bundling her blanket under one tiny arm and letting the rest of it sweep the floor as she walked. She squeezed her hand in the air as she walked until it caught some fingers. Guiding the six-foot tall grown man out of the room and into his was a small girl a third his height, if not less. He laid down on his bed and allowed himself to be tucked in by her. Scampering up to his bed, she put a small palm on his vested chest, gently patting while humming a rhythm... just like how adults put her to sleep.

The tender affection she showed him took him back several years in time.

"Can I tell you something?" He mumbled quickly, masking that hollowness.

"Bolo," She said, taking the form of an authoritative adult as if the roles had reversed ever since she became his caretaker.

"Sometimes, I think you're my mother reborn." Just as he said it, he found a tear running down the side of his face. Losing a loving parent would always remain a gaping part of his life.

"What is reborn?"

"Being born again." He said, stroking her wavy hair tenderly.

Adira lovingly put a cheek on his stomach as she continued patting, "How can that be? Don't people who go up to God stay with him?"

"Some do, in fact, many do. But sometimes, God sends some of his angels back down to help other people who are hurting. Some chosen ones."

"Is it paining, Maama?" She sat up, shuffling to the side where a bright white plaster was tied around his upper arm. "You know, Seher says sleeping makes everything okay. When I am sad, if I go to sleep I wake up happy."

"Hmm... that sounds like a great idea. Maybe I should try that more often." He giggled, and her pats slowed down. What a miracle it was, that only moments ago, that tiny mouth refused to shut up in the confines of her own room! "Did Cabir Maama get you your mango lollipops?"

"Yeah but Mumma only let me have one," She showed a single finger to him, and resumed her patting while sulking.

Manik smiled. "Ah yes, sugar is not good for babies. Tooth fairies don't like that."

"Tooth fairies?" She gleamed. Did she look just like the fairy on her bed? Maybe the tooth fairy would see Adira's bed and become best friends with Adira.

"Yeah, when babies lose their teeth na, if they tell their family and then keep the tooth safely under their pillow before they sleep, the tooth fairy visits them and exchanges it for a gift." He observed how the various thoughts crossing her little mind reflected on her face, and marvelled at her innocence. "But for that, babies should not have too much sugar, because sugar makes teeth wobbly. That's why I never got any gifts from the tooth fairy, because I used to eat lots of candy."

"I don't want any candy anymore." She promised, fake-vomiting at the mention of anything sweet. "Do you think the tooth fairy will still come? I want to show her my bed."

"I have no doubt about it." He said with a grin, pulling the child further up his chest and covering her with the fuzzy blanket bunched to his side. Within seconds, the little one drifted off to sleep in his arms, her baby breaths soothing him in the silent room.

He had indeed made the right decision in bringing her to his room.

Taking the phone from under his pillow, he winced almost forgetting the injury. He shifted arms to sift through a multitude of searches on which he had spent most of the evening trying to find a clue that would lead him to her. Accidentally having tapped on something, the page with a list of temples reloaded and on the screen flashed a latest news item posted less than an hour ago by Pandit Trilok Chaurasia, a famous musician who gave up certain worldly pleasures to devote his life to the Almighty.

An hour ago. What were the chances that the article was perfectly timed in its appearance on his searches?

He skim-read the article that suggested a young distressed woman was found uncontrollably crying while reciting all the prayers and devotional pieces that were being sung in the temple, only stopping when the temple was closing for the night. The piece was about her and contained her picture: Nandini Murthy was typed in bold. A part of his heart broke as he read that; he silently squeezed his eyes shut and let another tear fall.

Not only that, but she had also volunteered some of her time in serving the main meal that was being distributed to all the devotees and the underprivileged that lived around the temple. The gesture would have been heart-warming to read about in different circumstances, especially when another person detailed the encounter for him; Manik was instead deeply regretting opening the article in the first place. It was true he wanted to reach out to her, to speak to her, to hear her voice but not like this.

To say he was merely unprepared for the information would be an understatement.

He did not want to know about her like this.  

Powering through the shattering sensation that seemed microscopic in magnitude when compared to her grief, he scrolled down. Apparently some staff who were touched by her efforts and empathy eagerly wanted a caring hand like hers to help out with cooking the meal, but Nandini had politely conveyed her emotional state was not conducive, and that making a meal with that sort of energy consuming her would translate into the food that should be pure and untainted, especially when reaching the audience it is intended to reach – that self-awareness moved Pandit deeply.

In the pit of his stomach, Manik felt a stir: an uncontrollable urge to throw up.      

The highlight of the article was that Pandit had been astounded to see such remarkable knowledge on the subject from someone so young... amidst Kaliyuga where evil was at its strongest... and felt hopeful that the cultural heritage of Hinduism would continue to pass down to future generations if people like Nandini Murthy were handpicked and honed to spread more awareness around the country and world.

That feeling... It had to stop.

𓆩𓆪

I hope it's not too confusing?

Please do point out if any part seems vague or confusing, sometimes I don't pick up on how a reader would find certain content so your feedback is super valuable :")

As I said in earlier updates, you will get MaNan and lots of them in the story :") [after all they are exactly why I started writing this book <3] but this is mainly an action and suspense story where love will be a core factor so you will definitely get POVs outside of MaNan too that will contribute to how the story takes shape, but in saying that, MaNan will not be compromised [they are our leads after all] :")

Please don't forget to vote and comment your thoughts :P Do share the story with your friends if you enjoy it!

Lots and lots of love to those supporters who have stuck with me for this long <3 Beyond grateful to have you on-board :")