𓆩𓆪

"How much did they pay you for me?" She asked as her face hardened in her projected frustration at him rather than her own hopeless heart for letting herself down.

Underneath her jumbled mess of raw, indistinguishable emotions, a vague question had begun to form. Why? She hadn't given it much thought; it appeared naturally, but she suppressed it in her refusal. Admitting to herself she was the biggest fool to ever exist shifted the responsibility of his actions on her, like he had some say in her life; she couldn't let that happen.

"What?!" A split second after the question left his mouth, his expressions changed from a chilling aloofness he associated with Nawab to twinged confusion. Unsure of which of his two alter-egos the jab was crafted at, he left his heart to take responsibility over the question. Finally, as the gravity of her comment settled, something akin to bone-chilling horror graced him. Was she insinuating that he was... with her for money?

He used her to his advantage. Without huge sums involved, she found it hard to believe that there was ever a chance a cold-blooded criminal like him would ever cross paths with her. That fact underlined everything else that ran through her mind, sidelining black from white. Her skin itched as she thought about all the kisses she shared with him, and the same ugly sensation travelled to her stomach.

Out of impulse, a cry exited her lips and she broke her stance, taking one hurried step backwards. "How could you do this to me?" There was no strength in her voice, no resolve to fight him – or to go against him – no. Colliding with the wall, her features tinted to a shade of white as he studied them – like an animal that had fallen into his trap.

The barrel trembled in his grip, but he seized control firmly, holding it in place with both hands. Her eyes shifted to the weapon, grief-stricken. There was no way she was leaving the house alive; he had established that.

But every action that rehashed it burned her with a fresh wound from the inside.

"All this while... when you made those elaborate stories about yourself, you had been a cold-blooded criminal living the complete opposite kind of lifestyle."

He had dissected her personality and every weakness she ever exposed, only to make use of all that information then... at a juncture where she lay helpless and traumatised. Manik had betrayed her in the worst possible way, but what hurt her most was not any of those realisations.

Seven months ago, he had given her a chance to hate him and set herself free. Was it his fault that she couldn't follow through with it?

"I can't believe I put all my faith into someone like you; how incredibly foolish am I?! Galti meri hi hai... for trusting you." As she defeatedly uttered, heavy teardrops escaped and she shut her eyes. Footsteps loomed in her vicinity, but she turned a blind eye to it all, mentally preparing herself to face the bullet with bravado.

"Mujhe andhera pasand nahi hai." He managed to grumble with an urgency that barely masked the tremors of his conscience. Nandini gasped while she opened her eyes, registering him minutely closer.

Yet, with her around, it seemed tolerable. Almost comforting. He felt pathetic. He lifted his chin and, as a result, perked his torso to exude a certain level of esteem he lacked from within.He looked her right in the eye, shooting a shiver down her spine.

"That night I took you to the park... was the first time in years I played the guitar again. And I really never wanted it to be this way..." It was taking him tremendous efforts to form cohesive sentences amidst his multiple gulps and breaths. "To make some lies believable, a lot of truths must come into play. Tum nahi samjhogi."

On one side of the fence about half an hour ago, he had looked her in the eye in a similar manner. As he had lifted his arms in the air, giving her a medium to fall, he reassured very gently: kuch nahi hone doonga.

Nandini blinked the memory that seemed to be eons ago with the present turn of events. Why her?

When he had softly asked her in the dreaded safehouse while stroking her cheek: Harshad ne tumhe kuch kiya toh nahi, his unfiltered concern had been like honey to her ears.

Tell me to stop, Nandini, he had asked as he separated from their soul-crushing kiss. He had given her a second chance... to back out. 

Seven months and sixteen days, he had confessed at her first smile since his return.

He had reclined on a dining chair with his legs extended in front of him when he blurted, almost against himself, you were never part of the plan.

She had begged for him to let her go, while in the car he had kidnapped her in. Instead of obeying, he had grabbed her close to him, her wrists in the curve of his sculpted rib-spine. I can't. What part of that is not entering your thick skull?!

I can't trust anyone else to protect those I'm responsible for.

Nandini scoffed, finding no bit of it hilarious. It was merely ironic that he was so busy in formulating and executing his plans to trap her that... he had lost track of what was ahead of him, overtaking him and now confronting him – head-on, face-to-face.

He frowned as she dropped to her knees, gathering all her belongings into her bag. "What?"

"It's strange, na... you meticulously plotted all of these lies so that you could get to me, lekin tum khud hi phass gaye. Tumhe pata hi nahi chala what your friends – Harshad, or that military chief – were up to, behind your back." His bleak fate, as a result of all the sins he had committed with her, brought her a flicker of satisfaction with it. "I feel so sorry for you. You needed to lie to a stranger to trap her into liking you and trusting you just so you could accomplish your stupid mission. All of this for what, to protect your friends, the same friends who kept you in the dark?"

"Enough Nandini," he barked but the woman before him did not even twitch as she stood up, "...now just pass the locket over."

If those blood-sucking creatures were friends, Navya and Soha must be nothing short of angels.

When a criminal was willing to go to any extents to protect his immoral friends who deserved a death sentence, wasn't protecting her innocent sisters from different mothers only the least she could do?

Forming fists at her sides, Nandini glowered back, her bag drawn closer to her body. With a new sense of purpose and selflessness, she met his eyes with a shrewd intensity he could not reciprocate.

Her words from earlier scalded him, and amidst layers and layers of his unresolved anger, a deep-rooted loneliness that had been boiling beneath the surface since the time his mother passed away came to light. Stinging his eyes.

Fate had snatched her away.

Then he found a figment of his lost inner child in Adira, but her mother had snatched her from him.

He came to Mangalore for alternative purposes, but Cabir orchestrated a change in agendas and gave him Nandini. Finally, there was something to look forward to. By spending time with the woman he felt unexplainable things for, he didn't even know when he... and now, he had royally ruined it all.

She was standing in front of him, her eyes filled with abominable hatred as she stared into his soul, transferring some of that loathing through her intense gaze. He diverted his vulnerable focus from her.

That was Nandini's nail on the coffin. "No."

"What?" His neck snapped up as his gun naturally lowered. Nandini looked him up and down as his hand descended but his tone grew ferocious. "Did you... did just say no to me?" Her bludgeoning silence, as she detachedly watched the turn of events unfold on her as if she wasn't even part of the scene, infuriated him further. "Jaanti bhi ho kisse baat kar rahi ho?"

"Main tumse nahi darti hoon, Manik, don't you already know that? The only way you'll ever get your hands on my locket is if you kill me." Her ultimatum lingered in the air like dense fog, waiting to be cleared by scorching sun rays. Knitting his eyebrows, he watched her approaching frame steadily.

"Even in that case, let me walk you through what would happen next... your car battery is disconnected, yahan se sirf ek raasta hai, aur tumhe 15 minutes drive karke jaana padega, to get to the main road. All this is only after you cross the compound. For that, you need to climb the fence."

A fleeting memory of her jumping into his arms as she effortlessly descended from that fence flashed through his mind. "That's enough," he said distastefully. It did nothing but bloom his yearning for her trust once again.

"Aur haan, Mangalore is a busy town even at night, so you would have to evade a lot of people. Upar se Soha aur Navya, they know I'm not home and –"

"I said enough!" The yell paired with the stomp of his shoe echoed in the empty chamber they were in.

"Since you really want the locket, go ahead and shoot lekin yaad rakhna... even if you kill me na, the truth will come out some day. Some day there will be someone jo tumhe samjha paayega ki tum kitne galat ho." She was at an arm's distance when she noticed his bloodshot eyes, and she stopped. "Tab tak you will remain an eternal loser!"

He grimaced at her curse.

"Kya hua, why are you hesitating? Is the gun too heavy?" She asked with mockery laced in her tone. The corner of Manik's lip twitched. He was biting down on his jaws so goddamn hard. "Why don't I help you finish –" Wrapping her fist around the barrel, she forced it up, only to be forcibly hauled by his cuffed hand. Into his body.

"Just shut up or else I will...!" His eyes painfully alternated each of her beautiful ones, captivating him even in a heated moment of rage.

"Or else what? Kya karloge tum, huh?" She slammed the fist that was against his chest, resisting him as he breathed heavily, nearing her forehead. Her breathing ceased at the faint hint of his warm breath on her skin.

Aching from the inside, Nandini looked up. His eyebrows were arched together, the crowfeet near his eyes perked as if aching from within, and his blistered lip swiftly exhaled the meagre amounts of air his lungs were clutching.

His features painfully conveyed everything his lips couldn't. The gravity of those unspoken words made the butterflies in her belly somersault. "Kuch nahi," She said on his behalf, when in fact it had meant everything and made all the difference. "We both know you can't kill me," Softly, Nandini murmured.

He pushed her away like a discarded tissue, erasing his prior action that unintentionally gave away too much.

Pointing the gun back at her, he loaded it. Nandini gulped, more fearful than she previously was, now that she had touched a nerve of conscience. A nerve of humanity. A nerve of an emotion that bound them together, even if they denied it.

"How are you so sure of that?" 

"Because..." His brutal look suggested that he was only daring her. To prove his point. That the second she opened her mouth, a bullet would drill through her heart. Too bad that Nandini Murthy was already feeling that way. "It hurts you."

"Bullshit."

Her eyes watered as his lip was pulled between his teeth, and he held it from wobbling. The dizziness was coming back to him. Taking a few deep breaths, he blinked and shifted his head from side to side. Anything to retain his consciousness. 

"It's killing you to face me like this when all this time you..." Nandini scrutinised cautiously at the man losing his balance before her, those staggered movements resembling a drunk man's, but she wasn't backing down. Mercilessly, she continued badgering, "...have wanted nothing else but to protect me. Iska matlab yahi ho sakta hai ki –" She caught a thin dark stream flowing down one nostril.

"Manik! You're bleeding." Gasping, the therapist in her took two quick steps forward at the first plead for help. His cuffed, gunned hand came up, halting her as he receded. He didn't need her sympathy. Instead, he smeared the streak over his stubbled moustache with his right one.

𓆩𓆪

Thank you for the love! Right back at you babies! <3