Affair Of The Heart

Chapter - 26

Author's POV
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The moment car stopped infront of Viviana mall, Shubman hurriedly get out of it, Abhishek also followed.

Both of them frowned when they saw a huge crowd outside of mall.

"Why it is so crowded here?" Abhishek let out in confusion.

Suddenly they heard someone shouting for their attention. They looked in that direction and saw Mayank with rishabh, probably mayank called him there.

Shubman quickly made his way towards them before bombarding mayank with question.

"How's this happened? Weren't you with him? Then how? How could you lost him, just like that? Tell me! Tell me dammit!!" Shubman couldn't help but shout

Mayank was already blaming himself and after hearing Shubman's words he felt even more guilty.

Abhishek stare at mayank, who is looking badly shaken and patted Shubman's shoulder as if telling him to control his anger.

"Calm down Shubman.."

To be honest, Shubman is more scared than angry.

But right now he can't let his emotions take control of his mind, so he closed his eyes while clenching his fist to stay calm.

"Mayank can you tell us, what exactly happened here?" Abhishek asked calmly looking at the sobbing boy.

"I..."

Because of crying too much he was having difficulty in speaking, rishabh caressed his back and encourage him to speak.

Mayank took a deep breath and started,

"We..we were looking around in gift section, Everything was okay then suddenly fire alarm ringed in mall and all the people start panicking, running here and there in extreme panic.

Huge crowd of people start rushing towards exit, we were also running but suddenly someone pushed me from behind, making me stumble badly and when i turn to look for ishan, he was nowhere in sight...I lost him in that stampede...i'm sorry...i'm really sorry..."

Mayank was crying by the end, Abhishek sighed before pulling the boy to his chest. He patted his head to give him some comfort as mayank continue sobbing while mumbling sorrys.

"It was not your fault, i'm sorry for shouting at you just now..." Shubman said slowly with distressed sigh.

He then fall silent for a while before frowning, something isn't right with this whole series of event.

"If the fire alarm ringed, that means there was a fire in the mall then why no one has called the fire department yet? Unless..." Shubman's frown deepened as he trailed his words.

Abhishek immediately understood and exclaimed in shock,

"Unless it was a false alarm?! To cause the distraction?"

Shubman's face darkened in a second. Because if that's the case then it means someone had planned this in advance.

And right now there is only one person who is trying to harm ishan.

"If that's the case then, we need to check CCTV footage...maybe we can get something from there..." Shubman said

He was about to rush inside the mall but Rishabh stopped him.

"I knew you would need this...here! I had already taken the copy of today's CCTV footage from the mall manager...."

Having said that, Rishabh handed him the hard disk, containing footage.