Vodka on the rocks

Part - 9

Flashback, One month back

"But this is amazing! Couldn't have been a better situation than this! I'll hit two birds with one stone. Lovely!"

Raghav and Pallavi glared at Vedant Pillai or more like at the business end of the barrel of his revolver, with an eerily familiar expression. It had been two minutes since the lights had come back up and Abhishekh has revealed his true identity much to Pallavi's bewilderment and Raghav's wrath. 

"Ved. Put the gun down and I will try to reduce the barrage of sentences which will inevitably fall on you once the police reach."

Raghav spat while the latter just burst out laughing. 

"Oh Raghav Raghav Raghav... my dearly beloved brother. When will you understand that you have lost this move. Accept it and die peacefully and I might consider being easy on the girl."

Pallavi contorted her face in disgust as Raghav seemed to fly into a surprising rage. In a move which whipped both her and Ved, he had kicked the gun away from the latter's hold and had him by the neck the next moment. 

An equally swift kick to his stomach and a perfectly placed elbow hit on his back, finishing with an almost artistic right hook, the self proclaimed gangster had flattened his former associate and friend turned bitter enemy on the ground... blood spilling from his mouth.

It was violent and smooth and morbidly beautiful. 

Pallavi felt a shudder go down her spine. In her quest for revenge and drive to win the challenge of thirty days she had somewhere forgotten who Raghav Rao actually is, or rather what he is capable of. The man was as ruthlessly sharp as an almost inhuman mercenary and packed a punch like a black cat commando. 

He was the personification of everything Pallavi was logically supposed to feel terrified of, had she been a prudent and pragmatic girl. 

But he only managed to bring a weird mix of emotions in her... the terror was there alright but the fascination one undoubtably feels towards such magnetic aura had long overpowered it. 

"You have done an elementary error in judgement my dearly beloved estranged friend. You have mistaken my lack of interest in you as mercy. I do not waste my time going behind petty thugs like you, you do not warrant my time or my attention. Warna tum jaisa lions ko circus mein nachana bohot acchi tareeke se aatan hain mereko. Arthamaiynda?"

Ved spat the glob of blood on the floor and grinned at him maniacally with blood stained teeth.

"Petty thug huh? So what if I tell you that this petty thug can get fulfil your deepest darkest desire Raghav Rao."

Raghav looked at him bored and started dialling for the police, the gun he had snatched from the latter pointed unwaveringly at Ved's messed up face. 

"Don't believe me?"

"No one can give me what I want Vedant."

Raghav said monotonously while Pallavi tried her level best to keep her entire focus on the maniac in front and not get lost in the mystery behind her so called boss's empty voice. 

"I can give you what you want my friend."

"I can give you Krishna Rao."

Five words had never sounded so hauntingly deafening to Raghav Rao before. His swiftly typing fingers stopped in its track, the call never connecting and the gun pointed at Ved's broken nose trembled just so much. He stared at his former associate searching for a hint of dubiousness but found none.