Radhika's POV

 I threatened him," Don't come any closer! I will cut myself!" I said as I placed the blade firmly against my left wrist.

"Look...Radhika...don't..be...stupid!" He said in a frightened tone as he tried to calm me down but I will not have any of it. Not anymore!

"You want to marry again?! Fine! But I won't live to suffer another humiliation!" My voice came out in sobs as I wept inconsolably.

"I don't want to marry again, I told him that and I really don't know why he brought it up again." He tried to explain me desperately but all I could think was how he made it clear to me that he will have as many women as he wants on the day of our wedding.

You are nothing to me!

You are just my wife for namesake!

I married you to avenge my mother and  to give you one hell of a life!

I can have as many women as I want!

He is faking it, he has been faking it all along, all the care, the sweetness, every damn thing! He wanted to lure me in his trap and break my heart and crush my soul! He wanted me to feel something for him and then he had planned to make me witness him marry someone else! He is such a despicable human being, I can't believe I even felt something for this man!

"No! You are lying! You want another wife, don't you?! You are done with me  so now you want someone new!"

I can't believe I was so stupid to fall for this. No wonder he always is successful in making a fool out of me! But now nothing can hurt me anymore because I am going to end this once and for all. I will just die and end this suffering forever!

He tried to come closer to me but I backed off,"Don't be stupid, Radhika. Give me that blade!"

He thinks he can still order me around after what he did today! He has the audacity to call me stupid when now is the time when I have finally seen him for who he truly is. A cheater, a manipulater, a monster, a low life!

" I SAID GIVE ME THE FUCKING BLADE!" My whole body shook violently at his screeching tone and the next minute the blade was forcefully pulled out of my grasp before I could do anything.

The next thing I know was that I was pushed back to the wall behind me and he throttled me! I struggled to get free as I couldn't breathe at all. I felt like a fish out of water as he kept tightening his grip on my neck

"If I wanted someone new, do you really think I need to marry to fuck someone?! Answer me!" He barked.

I shook my head to answer as I could not speak with him choking me!

I was completely out of breathe and I feared for my life but just then he set me free miraculously.

I gasped for breathe as I tried to calm my pounding heart in the my chest.  I leaned against the wall for support as I tried to inhale as much air as I could, he scared was an understatement, he made me feel how it feels to die in that few minutes when he was strangling me!

I was so frightened to even look at him. I slowly peaked at him and I was petrified by the way his whole body was shaking in pure, unadulterated fury! He was so mad at me that he could hardly look at me.

"You are so fucking stupid! I can't believe I am standing here talking to you!" He was pacing back and forth.

"You will not marry again?!" I asked in a small voice.

That was a wrong move because it only infuriated him more as he raised his hand and I covered my face to to save myself from the blow. He would have broken my jaw had he slapped me!

" I will give you one tight slap if you dare to ask me this question one more time!" He warned.

He looked at me with pure rage,"You think ending your life is so easy?! Just one cut and all your problems will be over!"

"If you had even gone through even quarter inch of what I went through, you will thank your stars. Anyone tells you anything and you fall in that charade eager to believe that person! How quickly do you assume the worst about me! Did I tell you, I want to marry again?!" He asked me as he held me by my shoulders tightly.

It's true he never said he wanted to marry again!

I kept quiet because I didn't know what to say.

"Did I?!" He asked again  in a harsher tone.

I shook my head but he gripped my jaw painfully.

"Words, Radhika." He demanded.

"No you didn't." I meowed.

"Then how could you assume things on your own?! I am your husband or Mark is your husband for you to believe him." He squeezed my jaw and it hurt so much by the way his nails were bragging inside my skin.

"I..just...thought...you..." I lowered my gaze as I felt embarrassed by the way I behaved without confronting him.

Oh my God! What would have happened had he not come on the right time?!

He looked me in the eye,"You are my wife and you will be my only wife!"

I am not satisfied by the words because words don't mean anything unless they are promises made and given to keep forever.

I took his hand in mine and placed it on my head,"Promise me!"

I want his promise so there will be no threat to my existence or the child that I may give birth to.

"I promise you." His voice held sincerity so I believed him.

Just then I felt something on my hair, I brought his hand in the front to see what was it that was dampening my scalp. My eyes dilated in fear and horror after seeing the blood on his hand. His whole hand was covered in blood and he had not flinched even a bit! He must have got a cut when he had snatched the blade from me and I resisted.

"You are hurt..."

"Its just a small cut. Forget it." He withdrew his hand from hand.

It wasn't a small cut at all. His palm had a big, ugly slash in the middle with a stream of blood oozing out of his hand.

"No!" I chastised him.

I dragged him to the washroom and made him hold his hand under the water," You must get a tetanus shot tommorrow to avoid infection."

With an eye roll, he looked at me as if I had grown a horn on my head," I am not a kid, Radhika so stop treating me like one."

"You got cut by a blade and you might get an infection." I tailed behind him as he turned off the water and wiped his hand with a towel. He was acting as if nothing happened, as if he felt no pain even when the cut was so deep!

"If you would not have pulled that stunt then nothing of this sort would have happened." He said as he turned to look at me.

I looked at him, teareyed and he shook his head in ire," Stop! Stop right there! Don't start crying now."

"I am sorry..." I said because I dreaded what his next step will be because I thought I had irritated him more than he could take for the day.

"Its okay don't think about it. Its a not a big cut any which ways, I have been through worst." He smiled at me taking me by shock, when he wiped my tears with his other hand," Don't worry it won't kill...."

Yeah! Die and leave me alone at the mercy of your godfather who hates me from the bottom of his heart if he had any! I can't even think what Mark will do to me if there is no Arjun to stand between him and me.

I kept my hand on his lips," Don't talk about death so lightly! I don't like it!"

Life is not exactly roses right now but it could get worst with his death. And to be very honest, I don't want him to die in fact I can never wish death on anyone because after seeing my mom lifeless and cold, I am haunted by the thought of death! We are married no matter the circumstances but we do have a bond even if it's one-sided, even if he doesn't believe in vows that we took in front of the holy fire but I do believe in them.

I don't love him of course because he has done nothing to earn that place in my heart in fact he has done the opposite. I married him at gunpoint and he took me by force in the bed but who else do I have if not him?! My so called father is in jail and my brother will not take me back because I am impure now according to him. I lost my honor the day I shared a bed with Arjun, I lost myself the day he took away my virtue. I can't go back and I can't escape this life either because he won't let me go.

"Why are you scared of death?! It's bound to happen one day." He talked casually as if he wasn't just talking about death!

Scared no I am petrified of death and the ruin it brings upon the people left behind who grieve over the dead. I lost my mom at a very young age and from that day, I have prayed on my knees every day to every God to bless my father and my brother with a long life so that they never leave me alone.

"My mother died when I was six and I kept asking my brother when will she come back, he told me no one comes back from death...."

He cuts me off,"Death is the truth of life, Radhika. One must not run away from that truth specially in world like ours. Death is the ultimate truth and its inevitable." His voice cold and devoid of any feeling.

I don't know was there anything humane inside Arjun, it's like he didn't feel anything, no pain, no fear, no weakness, nothing!

My mom's pale face flashed before my eyes and her words to me echoed in my ears as he talked about death so callously.

"I don't want to hear it! Keep quiet, don't talk about it please don't talk about it..."

Radhika, be good, always be good, my baby. I love you and always will.

I cried as I covered my face, remembering the only person who was truly good, untouched of any vices and who loved me with every fibre in her body. With my mother, I lost the good, the pure, the humane aspect of life because my father and brother were anything but good!

He pulled me to his chest and hugged me,"I am sorry I won't talk about it again. Stop crying."

"I have to do your dressing." I parted from him and got up to get the first aid box.

I sucked in my tears remembering my mother's words to be good, to always be good and I realized that good was inside me and I need not try to find in others. If I am good then one day I will be rewarded for my good deeds and what these people do with their lives is their own business. I know I can't ask Arjun to mend his ways because once you are a son born into a mafia family, your destiny is predecided and you have to fulfill it. I am not stupid to not know this because I have seen my brother struggle to live upto the expectations of my father. I was not neglected but my father had given me a free pass to choose my field of interest but no venturing outside the territory where we cannot protect you.

I sat down beside him with the first aid box in my head and pulled out the muslin cloth from it. I wrapped the muslin cloth around his hand carefully and he had not even winced or screamed when I touched it with my fingers to apply antibiotic cream on it. Its as if he did not feel anything at all, he was staring at me with a peculiar interest.

"Thank you. Now aren't you going to do the duty of a wife?!" He said as soon as I was done bandaging his wound.

"What duty are you talking about?!" I asked him because I think I just did what was expected of me.

He hovered on top of me and lowered me on the bed,"I rather show you." 

All comes down to sex for him! He is such a sex maniac that he treats sex as important as breathing!

He held my chin up and locked his gaze with mine" I don't ever want you to do what you do today. Your life is mine! From head to toe you only belong me. Even the breath you take is mine!"

And you are not mine! You are just being nice to me to get me to give you what you want.

To be continued.....