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She gulped, unable to voice her thoughts. But he understood anyway. Her worry was real. Aaryan and he had struggled with that same dreadful thought of what would happen to Avi, until they’d escaped. Vihaan would never forget the lascivious, sadistic look on that man’s face who’d cut Avi.
“He didn’t hurt her that way,” Vihaan said. “That man sliced her skin in tiny cuts right from the base of her neck, down one shoulder to her hand, and they made us watch. It was to teach us a lesson not to run. But there was so much blood. After that, they locked us in the basement of our home without any food or water. Avi was bleeding profusely and we didn’t know what to do. Hours passed, or were they minutes, we had no clue. But one of his men came inside finally with some dressing for Avi. Aaryan and I helped her as much as we could, but she needed medical aid and it was too late. She has scars, so many of them.”
“Dev watched…” Vihaan choked out, as the images from the past hit his brain. “That bastard simply watched when his father’s crony ripped through Avi’s skin and he didn’t say a word. How could he do that? He was our friend and he did this to us. We thought he loved her. It destroyed her, Tiya. She’s never been the same since.”
A tear slipped down his cheek and Vihaan shoved it away. Tiya wrapped her arms around him, holding him close.
“God! I’m so sorry Vihaan. I’m truly sorry.”
He held her arms. “They held us in that basement for days with barely any food or water. Till date, I don’t know why they didn’t kill us immediately. Why did he keep us alive like that? We don’t have an answer to that yet.”
“How did you all escape?”
“One night, two days later I think, two men came to tie us up. But Aaryan and I were planning. They didn’t know that my mom, at one time, used the basement as a pantry. There were a few old biscuits there, some water too. We’d quietly fed ourselves, gaining strength, waiting for a chance. They thought we’d be weak. What they didn’t realize was our determination to survive, our resolve to come out of that situation and live, and our wrath. Aaryan and I took them on. We fought them tooth and nail. I was so angry with them, with Dev, with the world that I even choked one of the men till he couldn’t move. Aaryan had to drag me from him. I don’t know whether that man lived or died. We just took Avi and fled. That night, there weren’t many guards around the property and we couldn’t understand why. We escaped into the forest. And minutes later we heard a blast and our entire home went up in flames.”
He shuddered in her arms and she held him to her.
“We watched our house, our whole life, burn down. That’s when we figured why the men had come to tie us up, and why there were no guards around. We didn’t know whether anyone saw us escape or not. We didn’t want to take the chance of anyone learning we’d run away. We didn’t know who to trust. If Pritam Luthra had so ruthlessly killed my parents and burned our house, presumably with us in it, then how easy it would’ve been for him to have a hold on the law enforcement too. He had been friends with all my parents’ friends. We were too scared to trust anyone in Shimla. We refused to trust anyone else when the people we trusted the most had betrayed us. So, we took the forest path. It bordered a highway and we hitch-hiked our way to Mumbai. It took us days to get there from Shimla…but we wanted to be as far as possible from the men who’d ruined our lives.”
She let out a shaken breath. “So brave… You all were so brave.”
“We had no option but to be brave and soldier on. We had to look after ourselves. And Avi… She wept and wept for the first few days, and after that she just stopped. She’s never shed another tear over him again. Till date, she refuses to utter his name. It’s been so hard, Tiya. Our whole life, we’ve had to maintain a low profile so that no one recognizes us. We could have changed our identities, but we didn’t. While we accepted living in seclusion, we couldn’t accept changing our names. They are what connect us to our parents.”
She nodded. “What happened in Mumbai? How did you survive?”
“Aaryan worked at a construction site while I worked in a nightclub, and Avi waited tables in a low-key café. We were barely surviving, merely existing. Our combined money allowed us only to rent a one room apartment in a meager dwelling. Every night, Aaryan and I wondered how we’d get by. We hadn’t even completed our education. And then, one night, we came home to find Avi sick. That’s when we learned she was pregnant and our world, whatever little we’d rebuilt of it, crashed all over again.”
Tiya tightened her arms around him.
“Some nights later, I was walking home from the bar and a car stopped at the signal.” Vihaan remembered that day like it had just happened yesterday. “The window lowered and I saw a man hand over some money to a poor beggar. It was Rajiv Mehra. You see, he’d been in the same school as us in Dehradun, and Dev and he had gotten into a fight this one time—I don’t even remember for what. Rajiv had been good friends with Aaryan and me, but somehow, he’d never gotten on with Dev. After that fight, he’d asked us to choose between Dev and him, and we’d chosen Dev. Post that, we’d lost touch with him. He came from an affluent family in Mumbai, and it struck me that he could be our only hope. He was the only person we knew who had a grudge against Dev Luthra and we had no options left.”
Tiya shifted to sit beside him on the chair, but she held his hands.
“Aaryan and I found out where his house was and one day, we stood in front of his car as it was exiting his gate. He was shocked to see us. He thought we’d died. The whole world believed we were dead. Rajiv had all the reasons to hate us because we’d stupidly stopped being his friend when we were younger. But he brushed it all aside. He was more than delighted to see that we’d lived. We told him everything. He used his sources to learn that the police were indeed a part of Pritam Luthra’s machinations—no wonder he’d been able to pull of a crime of that scale—and several of our family friends were in business with him. Thank God, we didn’t go to any of them or to the police. I thank God every day that we decided to run away and leave everything behind.”
Vihaan ran a trembling hand through his hair. The events of the past managed to shake him till date. Tiya sat next to him, watching him, waiting for him to continue and so he did.
“Rajiv got us out from India. He helped us get new passports and sent us via one of his ships to Dubai. We reached here and he put us in a home, got clothes for us and got Avi the best medical aid she could get.”
Vihaan continued. “Rajiv supported our education, and wanted to do so much more, but we wanted to learn to live by ourselves. So, Aaryan started working at a construction site again, learning the ropes of the business from ground up, while studying it. I started bartending atClub Poseidonand studied business. And Avi, she learned Arabic, finished her arts degree while handling a baby and became a translator. She’s learned photography now and works as photographer for many elite weddings.”
“No wonderKeyStoneis into construction and restaurants. You all are so clever!” Tiya gushed. “I’m surprised I’ve never run into Avi though, since she and I are in the same business.”
“She doesn’t accept Indian weddings at all, for fear of someone recognizing her or of him being there.”
“And you learned everything about restaurants fromClub Poseidon,” she cleverly deduced.
He smiled. “Yes. That place is special. I don’t go there very often, but that night, I just wanted to take you there.”
He still didn’t quite understand why he’d been so keen to take her there. It was just that he’d wanted to share a small slice of his previous life with her.
“I’m glad you took me there,” Tiya said. “I’m glad I met your friends too.”
“Rajiv has been a great friend. He invested inKeyStone, put us on our feet until we could pay him back. We owe our lives to him, Tiya. While Aaryan understands construction and I understand restaurants, we could hardly grow more for fear of being discovered if we came into the limelight. And then Shaurya came along and became family to us. He began handling the finance, the investments and the legal aspect of the business until Myra took over our legal team. He’s brought us to where we are today.”
“God! You all are so brilliant.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m so proud listening to the life you all have made for yourselves. Had you not fought, you could have died in Shimla. But you chose to live and flourish, and that is just beyond courageous.”
He clasped her cheek. “You are too kind, baby.”
