Disguised Darling|✓

Episode 2

“Ready, Chutki?”

Like the start of their every mission, Mishti hears her brother’s voice asking through the transmitter to which she nods. 

“Ok, target approaching in five seconds.” Mihir states and Mishti stands there as ready as ever, this time all alone. Their last con in the neighbouring city had caused quite a ruckus due to which her brother couldn’t participate with her in this one, neither could she get into the get up of a blind person.

But that’s ok, Mishti is more than capable of crying through their last mission alone.

Last. Or atleast that's what they have been told.

“Focus, Mishti!” her brother’s voice alerts her, and her gaze immediately falls on the car that is approaching her; the speed of it, however, is slower than usual which is both a good and a bad thing for her. Good that she won’t get hurt in actuality and bad that maybe she won’t get hurt at all. It will be difficult to pretend.

Readying herself anyways, she takes up her position, checking the fake blood in her hands one last time, as well as her safety pads, her eyes flitting from her knees to the car, however as soon as she does that, in her view comes in the sight of the man behind the wheel.

It's not the driver dressed in white.

It usually isn't because they don't go for that big of the targets, but this is a Rolls Royce she is talking about, and this definitely demands a driver. But instead, it is, what looks like the owner, who is driving the car.

But that's not the fact that takes her breath away, leaving her staggering on her feet.

It's that man. Their target.

Mishti can’t believe her eyes, because not in a hundred years could she think of seeing him this way again. The same man that she had sat in the cab with and had dropped home; the man whom she had treaded with him into his room and had petted his hair until he had stopped his crying; the same man who had caught her lying in the very first time, and the one whose broken heart she had shattered even more.

Mishti is seeing that man after four  agonising and excruciating years that she had spent thinking of the same night, again and again, unable to throw out any crumbs of the memory, be it the man's tear-stained cheeks or his disbelieving chuckle.

Though now the said man is right in front of her, and she's planning to con him, to guilt-trip him into hitting a person, probably paining his already pained heart. Because something that she got to know from that small encounter all those years ago is the fact that he is not one of those men who would throw the cash on her face or would ignore her fake tears. He's probably one of those who would take her to the hospital and pay for her bills.

Mishti doesn't want to lie to him again.

And so she doesn’t.

Call it an impulsive decision but Mishti doesn’t do it. She walks back to the footpath until the car has all the space to pass through. Her brother’s voice echoes in her ears as a background noise, reprimanding her.

“What are you doing, Chutki. Go and stand in front of the car.”

But she can’t hear anything because the car is passing in front of her eyes, and he is sitting inside. Mishti doesn’t know if he’s just as heartbroken or not, she hopes it's the latter, but she suddenly wants to go and ask him, to talk to him for a few minutes, even seconds would do.

But she can’t do any of that right now, not with her brother marching across the street with a frown on his face, who is followed by the rest of the members, concern shadowing their features.