BEYOND THE CLOUDS (Completed)

Chapter 55

It had been two days and Shehnaaz had yet not spoken to him.

She thought, Sidharth must already be mindfucked with the situation at hand.

30 casualties, the local media touting him as an arsonist, the Indian media predicting a downfall of the jubilee and digging out reports of every minor incident that may have happened across all the 28 facilities of the Jubilee chain, it was total chaos.

Every news channel you flicked, his face could be seen. And in one such pics from Cairo that had gone viral, broke her heart further.

There were Faint creases of worry on his forehead. The sharp features on his face now looked worn out and pulled. It was unbearable to see him broken.

Rana was there with him, and she knew he would make sure no harm will come his way but she wanted to be there too, to hold his hand and tell him that whatever had transpired between them was all gone, finished. Now all that remained was their love, for each other.

She wanted to call him, talk to him, atleast hear his voice if not a video call, but she quelled down the urge to pick up the phone. His words from the previous night were still haunting her. He had sounded so disturbed. And she had been the reason. Talking to him at this time, will only mean doubling up his agony. So she just resorted to her timely phonecalls with Rana, asking about his well being and social media and news channels to gather whatever update she could of him.

*

Sidharth was trying to keep his calm amidst the anarchy. Off late whenever he had felt this way, he had resorted to his only source of peace and that was Shehnaaz.

But even that support gone now, he felt alone and wounded. Like the world was out to get to him and the only option was to fight back, fight until the last ounce of energy he had. His heart had sank deep into the pit of his stomach when he saw the facility burning into flames.

A short circuit in the laundry section had caused the fire breakout and due to the clothing items it had spread wildly eventually engulfing a major section of the hotel into flames.

And along with the hotel it had taken the lives of 30 people. All staff.

Ofcourse Jubilee would compensate for their family’s loss, but was that enough?

Being seated at the helm of this expansive chain, Sidharth felt deeply saddened that 30 of his employees were wiped out, in a flash. Some of them had been there from the very beginning. And if all this wasn’t enough, the Egyptian media was blatantly calling it an arson.

They accused him of planning this fire to claim a hefty insurance to recover the losses of Cairo Jubilee.

Sidharth wouldn’t ever do that.

True, Cairo Jubilee wasn’t making profits and found it difficult to break even as well for the past two fiscal years, but it was still his property.

One of the first ten facilities that Badepapa had set up in his time. He wouldn’t even think of committing such a heinous crime.

But his woes didn’t end there.

Now even the news houses back home were after his life, he had come across a feature on a channel that was breaking open all the big small cases that had caused in the past in all of their facilities around the world.

Even though his PR machine was already at work, but these were the times, when his rivals too ensured that a permanent scar is etched on the Jubilee name.

The Jubilee stocks were taking a nosedive, tanking atleast 500 points a day. He was feeling as if his head was being crunched under a heavy boulder.