Twist in Time

Untangling the past

"My family has never been close Akshara..." he whispered staring into the fire, the storm of the past flashing before his eyes as he spoke the next few words. "I grew up in a house where there was lots of tension... everyone wants to be rich until you realise how you see the worst of humanity..."

Akshara looked at him with her doe eyes, her eyes closing in pain for him. She rubbed her hand gently against the stubble of his cheek, trying to calm him down.

He had grown up so lonely.

He hardly had any close friends.

All Akshara wanted to do was envelope him in her love. Her docman. Her bestfriend.

But she waited patiently, for the rest to unravel.

Abhimanyu sighed.

"Ma had kept me out of the shadows of family politics for as long as she was here.. she kept me safe and guarded me, reminding me of the importance of remaining humble," Abhimanyu whispered, his mind flashing back to his memories of his dear mother.

Akshara gulped as her own memories ran through her mind of when Abhimanyu would visit with Manjari. "Choti ma..." she whispered uttering the words causing Abhimanyu's own heart to pang at the recognition of what she used to call her mother when they were younger, tears welled in her eyes as she looked at Abhimanyu in pain.

He gave her a bittersweet smile as he continued.

"Ma got into a lot of fights with all family members... Papa was the head of Birla Enterprises at the time and we were seeing rapid growth and success. Overnight we were doubling profits and everyone wanted a part of the prize." he said, sighing disgustingly. "But Ma was set... she wanted to make sure we gave back... and so as you probably know... some of our profits started going back to John and Rosie's"

"This ruffled many feathers in our family... but as a child, I still thought it was all good... I thought some disagreements were normal... Ma really protected me... I didn't know how dirty things were" he said clenching his jaw.

"The raid that was organised... was organised by a family member" Abhimanyu confirmed closing his eyes in anger as Akshara clenched her own jaw in anger. "It was a plan to shut down John and Rosie's... so the profits could be redistributed to the family members... a greed for more wealth... more and more wealth," he said disgustedly again.

"I have known this truth my whole entire life.... but I never knew who was responsible for the raid... or how the fire happened... until -" his voice began to shake again as Akshara rubbed his hands, somewhere knowing what the next part of the story held from what Rosie had told her, "- until my old butler, Ramu Kaku visited the other day..."

"Choti Ma found the raid papers..." Akshara whispered completing his sentence before he could utter the words and Abhimanyu looked at her, how did she know? 

Akshara looked up at him and noted the confusion in his eyes.

"Because Rosie told me... she was bringing them to Rosie on the day of - of the fir-" Akshara's breathing went up, she found it hard to even utter the word fire.

Abhimanyu pulled her closer to him, "the day of the incident" he finished for her.

Akshara nodded.

"Choti Ma was going to report it..." Akshara uttered, tears visible in her eyes, "she had come to give the papers to Rosie and John so that they could report it, with all the evidence... she was trying to protect us... going against her own family to save us"

Tears slipped down her eyes.

Abhimanyu closed his eyes shut as he pulled a sobbing Akshara into a hug, both of them needing the closeness of each other.