Flashback, One month back

"But this is amazing! Couldn't have been a better situation than this! I'll hit two birds with one stone. Lovely!"

Raghav and Pallavi glared at Vedant Pillai or more like at the business end of the barrel of his revolver, with an eerily familiar expression. It had been two minutes since the lights had come back up and Abhishekh has revealed his true identity much to Pallavi's bewilderment and Raghav's wrath. 

"Ved. Put the gun down and I will try to reduce the barrage of sentences which will inevitably fall on you once the police reach."

Raghav spat while the latter just burst out laughing. 

"Oh Raghav Raghav Raghav... my dearly beloved brother. When will you understand that you have lost this move. Accept it and die peacefully and I might consider being easy on the girl."

Pallavi contorted her face in disgust as Raghav seemed to fly into a surprising rage. In a move which whipped both her and Ved, he had kicked the gun away from the latter's hold and had him by the neck the next moment. 

An equally swift kick to his stomach and a perfectly placed elbow hit on his back, finishing with an almost artistic right hook, the self proclaimed gangster had flattened his former associate and friend turned bitter enemy on the ground... blood spilling from his mouth.

It was violent and smooth and morbidly beautiful. 

Pallavi felt a shudder go down her spine. In her quest for revenge and drive to win the challenge of thirty days she had somewhere forgotten who Raghav Rao actually is, or rather what he is capable of. The man was as ruthlessly sharp as an almost inhuman mercenary and packed a punch like a black cat commando. 

He was the personification of everything Pallavi was logically supposed to feel terrified of, had she been a prudent and pragmatic girl. 

But he only managed to bring a weird mix of emotions in her... the terror was there alright but the fascination one undoubtably feels towards such magnetic aura had long overpowered it. 

"You have done an elementary error in judgement my dearly beloved estranged friend. You have mistaken my lack of interest in you as mercy. I do not waste my time going behind petty thugs like you, you do not warrant my time or my attention. Warna tum jaisa lions ko circus mein nachana bohot acchi tareeke se aatan hain mereko. Arthamaiynda?"

Ved spat the glob of blood on the floor and grinned at him maniacally with blood stained teeth.

"Petty thug huh? So what if I tell you that this petty thug can get fulfil your deepest darkest desire Raghav Rao."

Raghav looked at him bored and started dialling for the police, the gun he had snatched from the latter pointed unwaveringly at Ved's messed up face. 

"Don't believe me?"

"No one can give me what I want Vedant."

Raghav said monotonously while Pallavi tried her level best to keep her entire focus on the maniac in front and not get lost in the mystery behind her so called boss's empty voice. 

"I can give you what you want my friend."

"I can give you Krishna Rao."

Five words had never sounded so hauntingly deafening to Raghav Rao before. His swiftly typing fingers stopped in its track, the call never connecting and the gun pointed at Ved's broken nose trembled just so much. He stared at his former associate searching for a hint of dubiousness but found none. 

Vedant Pillai was dead serious. 

He retracted the gun back and swallowed down what could have been a massive anxiety attack and gave him a cool look. 

'Calm down Raghav... calm calm calm... calm.. calm.... calm..........calm...........calm.....'

"You have sixty seconds before I paint the opposite wall with the insides of your head."

He growled lowly and suddenly realised that they weren't alone in the hall. He glanced sideways and almost got taken aback at the sight. 

"Pallavi, are you... alright?"

Pallavi Deshmukh's face had turned an alarming shade of white. It was as if she had seen a ghost. Her usually warm marble gaze had become frighteningly void and her lips had thinned till it look like an angry scar on her beautiful face. 

But nothing could have prepared Raghav for what she whispered next to a suspiciously unsurprised Ved. 

"How do you know that monster? And in which hole is he hiding?"

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Rao Mansion, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, 2:45 am

"Yes. I am a hundred percent sure, it was his men. I got that good for nothing Reddy spill his guts at the party. He must have come to know by now that we know about him.... yes. No. Do not involve the NIA just yet. We need confirmation before we bring in the intelligence agencies in this... this is my personal vendetta.. they will want to play this safe. I am fine. No I do not need extra security.."

Raghav saw his wife glare at him from the side as he finished his call with the ACP. When he kept the mobile down he could see all the residents of the room glaring at him piercingly and he sighed in exhaustion. 

"Why did you refuse extra protection? What kind of an egotistical masochistic behaviour is this?"

Jaya spat trying to hide her panicked concern behind a wall of anger. Though Keerti and Pallavi decided to remain quiet Raghav could gauge that they were thinking around the same lines. He looked at Farhad who looked like he would rather the ground swallow him up than face him. 

"Extra Police protection will bring the media's attention which will force the situation to come out to the light which will be detrimental for all of us. Besides the men behind this are a few leagues above the local police. It will be of no particular use."

"Why don't you let the police who are used to hunting criminals decide that Anna."

Keerti said looking increasingly annoyed. 

Raghav shook his head indicating that the conversation was over and gestured at Farhad, a non verbal cue which only he understood. 

"Anyways, its too late now. I would request both of you to stay the night now. It will be easier for my men to protect you if we all stay at the same place."

Jaya sighed and acquiesced much to the other three's wordless relief. 

"Amma, please go take rest. It's way too late, your health is fragile as it is...."

Pallavi assured her mother in law who seemed to look at her son for a minute longer than what she usually graces him with and turned to trudge back to the guest room. 

"Make sure you take some rest too beta.. it has been quite a tiring day for you as well."

Jaya said softly and left. Keerti seemed to fidget around the room a bit, looking strangely nervous for some reason before finally coming towards Raghav who was seated at the bed, leaning against the pillows in a semi comfortable position making sure there is no pressure on the wound on his chest. 

"Nēnu bāgānē unnānu chelli. I am fine."

Raghav said softly spying the blotted tears in his sister's dark eyes. Keerti had an innate habit of trying to appear far more composed than she usually felt. Maybe it was a necessary evil for someone who has been forced to grow up too soon and in traumatic circumstances. Raghav had always been agonized over the fact that his younger sister hadn't been able to retain her childish innocence. He had not been able to shield Keerti from the cruelties of the world at large.

"I think sometimes you forget that even though you are quite formidable, you aren't exactly immortal. You are also a human being with normal physiological vulnerabilities. Dayacēsi Anna, please.. stop getting shot. This is not good for my mental health."

Keerti's voice strained to break at the end even though there was a hint of teasing in her tone. Pallavi smiled at Raghav's tired grin and felt happy seeing the Rao siblings behave like a normal brother-sister duo might. 

"If it has escaped your notice, I do not like being shot anymore than any normal person might. They caught be unaware, or else, there would have been a different kind of bloodshed. Don't worry, go an sleep."

Keerti rolled her eyes and in a move which surprised both Raghav and Pallavi swiftly bent and planted a kiss on her brother's forehead and was out of the room before he could blink. 

"Well, this wasn't a complete waste then.."

Raghav said quietly only to fan his wife's fury again. Pallavi glared at him and started roaming around the room, muttering angrily under her breath while pulling out her meticulously put together outfit in pieces. The hair clips went flying on the dresser where she dropped her diamond studs. 

The heels were kicked off to some non descriptive corner of the room and she was now struggling to unzip her dress angrily. 

"Kāya harāmī manus aahe! What the hell does he think of himself! I swear! The day I get him in front of me, I will cut him into so many pieces that it would not even fit in a sparrow's beak. Bloody bastard!"

Raghav's eyebrows touched his hairline as he struggled to not laugh at seeing his wife's almost crimson face as she jumped around the room, tugging wrathfully at the poor chain of her black dress. 

"Pallavi, sweetheart. Calm down. Everything is fair in love and war darling. And this was definitely an act of war. We had been playing the hide and seek game of cat and mouse for too long now, this was an open invitation to the battlefield. The one I fully intend to take."

Pallavi sighed fatigued and gave up trying to undress and dropped on the bed beside her husband, her black hair spilling everywhere as she pinched the bridge of her nose. It was long before Raghav realised that she was trying to hold back tears. 

He placed his large palm softly on her delicate shoulder, aggrieved at her violent reaction. 

"Emaindi priya? What happened dear?"

Pallavi sniffled once and got up slowly, only to crawl towards her perplexed husband and gently hug him around the torso, her head on his bandaged chest and her slender frame fitted neatly in his lap, her bare feet legs dangling off one side of the bed as her dress rustled around them. 

"Pallavi..."

Raghav wrapped his long arms warmly around her waist and back and looked down at her raven head resting against his sternum worriedly. 

"What if the bullet had hit you instead of grazing past you?"

"I would have required a surgery and some doctor would have seen a hike in his bank balance."

"Raghav! It's not funny."

"I know. But try to make it funny. It always helps."

Pallavi peeked at him from where she was buried inside him. 

"Will it always be like this?"

"Like what darling?"

Raghav said wiping the tears sliding down the corners of her eyes. 

"Fighting and getting hurt? Blood and bones? Tears and pain?"

She saw her husband's molten charcoal eyes softening ever so slightly and felt all kinds of foolish. What kind of a naïve question was that anyways?

"This is war sweetheart... by the time we are done, all that it left will probably only be our collective ashes in an urn. I cannot guarantee that we'll win."

Pallavi's breath hitched. 

"But even if we win. What will be the cost?"

Raghav was looking through the single glass partition, the silver moonlight filtering in the room had painted both of them in a dazzling white amidst the surrounding inky darkness of the night. Pallavi felt him kiss her head gently as if preparing her for the pain which will sting her at his answer. 

And God it stung. 

The truth. 

"May be... everything."

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A/N;- Hehehe, sorry for the delay. Hopefully the next update will be sooner.