ONE LAST TIME (Discontinued)

CHAPTER 7

Author's note: This chapter is dedicated to my friend who had her birthday a few days back and this is a birthday gift! I know I'm late as usual for this but I hope she enjoys it!

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"Hello Dad," Manik's greeting rung in the room and was followed by pin drop silence coated thickly with astonishment, horror and fear. Nobody dared to speak, as the atmosphere strained and everyone stared at either Mr.Malhotra or Manik for the answers to their rising questions.

Sara could almost feel the chord of tension stretching like a taut rubber band and she knew it won't be long before it snapped. And judging by the look of complete defiance and arrogant determination on Manik's face, it was coming soon.

She tore her eyes away from him and observed the faces of the other people in the room who had initially looked aghast and horrified but now bore the look of dumbstruck fear and absolute shock. They all stared at Manik, their faces pale and shaken, as if they had just been confronted with a ghost, which could be considered valid from their side of the story and the thought made Sara chuckle even in this tense room in which a single matchstick was enough to start a raging inferno.

She glanced upwards at Manik once again to see that his unmoving and unflinching defiant gaze was focused on only one man at the end of the long conference table. The one man that was at the center of the turbulent storm right now.

She followed his line of sight and her eyes were met with Mr. Ranjeet Malhotra for only the second time in her life. The last time she had seen that man, was that fateful night two months ago when he had arrived at her mansion with his son and a dead body.

She didn't know him much at all but apparently he knew her mother. How, why and when was a shady business that Sara didn't even want to think about. That aside, the only thing she knew about him was from newspapers and magazines which chronicled the achievements and exploits of this extremely powerful and dangerously wealthy man of India. And to add to that info, she remembered what Manik had said about him in the elevator today.

All that combined, it gave Mr. Malhotra an extremely intimidating, shrewd, enigmatic, dominant and commanding aura and looking at him in person, Sara had the proof that her assumptions weren't far-fetched. Unlike his contemporaries and colleagues who looked perturbed and highly disturbed, Mr. Malhotra had the look of deadly calm. Wearing a three-piece suit with shiny cuff links that Sara could swear were diamante, he leaned back in his chair, unruffled and unshaken, fingers clasped in front of his chin, and the look of same defiance and determination in his gaze that mirrored his son's.

It looked as if he had almost expected Manik to pull a stunt like this and as the second's ticked, Sara felt frosty in her veins as his cold and haughty eyes bore into Manik's.

"Leave." He spoke making a dismissive gesture with his hands towards the other suited men and women, his voice dripping with a command and authority that had Sara scared and in awe.

"But Sir-" A man, it was safe to call him foolish, protested and she watched as Mr.Malhotra turned to him with a look of icy fury.

"I said leave." He layered his voice with enough menace and immediately everyone in the room scrambled to collect their things in haste.