Shadowed Desires

Chapter 40

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Next morning...
Dev was awake but now tied to the chair with ropes while Kritika and Atharv stood right in front of him. Dev tried his best to free himself from the shackles while Kritika and Atharv just watched, almost enjoying his struggle.

Dev said, "Tum chahte kya ho mujhse?"
("What do you want from me?")
Kritika said, "Sach."
("The truth.")
Dev replied, "Jo sach tha wo tum jaan chuki ho."
("You already know the truth.")
Kritika replied, "Okay, so you want me to go for plan B."
She showed him a tablet with previews from different rooms of his home. She said, "Aapke ghar ke har room mein time bombs fitted hai aur mere har click par waha explosion hoga to pehle kisko sacrifice karenge aap, apni maa ko, wife ko ya apne bete ko."
("Every room in your house has time bombs fitted, and with every click of mine, there will be an explosion. So who will you sacrifice first—your mother, your wife, or your son?")

Dev said, "Kya proof hai tumhare pas?"
("What proof do you have?")
She zoomed in on a corner and said, "Wires dikh rahe hai aur timer chalega yaha. Jitni bar sach bolne ke liye mana karoge tab tab waha aapko ek reason milega apne ghar mein maatam rakhne ka."
("You can see the wires and the timer here. Every time you refuse to tell the truth, you’ll have one more reason to mourn in your house.")

Dev gulped and said, "I made my biggest mistake while trusting you."
Kritika said, "Even my mother made the same by trusting you. But at the end of the day, it's karma."
Dev said, "Okay, I will tell you the truth but please don't click those buttons."

Dev said, "Your mom was not even a good political leader. But she was also the best lover. She left her everything for me within days just for being with me. She belonged to the family that provided her wings to fly but they never accepted our marriage and neither did my parents. But she was ready to face all the hurdles with me. My family was orthodox but she believed in never giving up on her dreams. After a year, she conceived you. We both were enchanted with the news and then you were born. Everything was going well, but day by day it turned out complex for her to manage political life along with your responsibility. My mother never showed interest in taking care of you, because she never accepted Meera and the next reason was that you were a girl. But this thought never bothered me nor my mother. But looking at the innocence on your face, Meera one day realised that she can't fail herself as a mother for serving the people and that day she took a silent retirement from everything and handed over everything to me. But the spark of our relationship was long gone, we were more focused on parenting you rather than strengthening our relationship and day by day the situation got worse. She was so engrossed with you that our relationship turned weak. One day, she decided to make a surprise visit and found me with a girl in my cabin in a compromising position. She was heartbroken and I felt bad too but it was too late. I returned home after her as soon as possible but she had already packed your stuff along with hers."

Kritika said, "Just tell me what you did to her or you will not be left with a reason to ever return to your home because I will erase the existence of every single member there."
("Bas batao ki tumne unke saath kya kiya, warna tumhare ghar ka ek bhi insaan bacha nahi rahega, main sabko mita dungi.")

Dev said, "We went downstairs and she started threatening me that she would expose the truth to everyone and would retain her position back in the party and leave my house. Till then I was so greedy for the power I was enjoying. I gave her a choice that if she decided to leave then I would kill you. For a moment she refused to believe me but after a while she was convinced. She requested me to let both of you leave. But I made forth a condition that she had to write a letter and that was the letter all of you saw which stated that she was cheating on me while she never did it. She was happy that I would let her go now. Then she grabbed a glass of water from the table and drank it. She said, 'Now you will let me go right?' But the next moment, she felt dizzy and realised that I had mixed poison in it. I knew that even if she went, she would definitely tell everyone that I was cheating on her and I would lose everything, and I never wanted that in my dreams."