Dare to Hope | Heir & Heiress #2 | ✓

♚ 2.36 Turn the Tides ♚

Posted: June 5th, 2019

♚ Aarush ♚

2.36 Turn the Tides

After changing into a traditional wear for the coronation ceremony, I step out of the washroom into a room where I find Eva waiting for me seated on the bed. As soon as she hears the door open, her head lifts and she stands up to cross the distance between us. At once, her arms wrap around my neck in a hug.

Returning the hug, I tease, "Eva, you just got married. You should be on your honeymoon."

"Shut up," she mumbles before parting.

I assure her placing my hand over her head as if she were younger than me though she is older by a year and half. "I'm fine, Eva. No need to worry."

Pulling back, she counters in an argument, "How can I not, Aarush? You just announced yourself to these people! It's not going to be long before word gets out - if it hasn't already."

Though she is frantic and her concerns are legitimate, I place my hands on her shoulders and nudge her to walk back towards the bed. Having her sit, I kneel in front of her and speak calmly, "I know what I am doing, E."

She scoffs before I can continue, "Do you? What you did was rash and impulsive. That is not you at all. You calculate each step you take hundreds of times. You always think ten steps ahead. Tell me, did you do that this time? No. The second you saw someone about to hurt Jhanvi, all you saw was red."

At her words, I recall the moment when I was standing in front of Jhanvi with my eyes fixated on the gash on Jhanvi's forehead. Eva isn't wrong. Announcing myself was impulsive in a way. A cold wave had passed over me seeing Jhanvi hurt because these people were still the same. Almost a decade and nothing has changed. They still resort to violence, kidnapping, murder... as if there is no rule book for them and they answer to no one.

And that is where they needed to be a taught a lesson. They were going to have to think ten times now before each step of theirs because unlike their false freedom where they thought there is none superior to them after my faked death, they are wrong.

Blinking out of my thoughts, I express. "What would you have had me do instead? I would have been damned if I stood by and watch history repeat."

"Arnav uncle and Aarav would have handled the crowd."

I smile up at her brief show of naiveite, "Eva, I know you've grown up seeing their influence and as much as I respect the two, they couldn't have stopped it from escalating. They may be the best when it comes to business, but they don't have experience in handling such a crowd. These people already had Jhanvi kidnapped. Do you think they would have stopped at anything less than murder to keep this coronation from happening?"

Even if she may not want to accept it, she does know the reality. She mumbles with her head hanging low, "No." I have told her about her past.

She knows exactly what these people are radically capable of. They have killed before. What was to stop them from doing so again? Last time, I was not around and I could not stop it before it happened. This time, I was not going to let history repeat itself.

Lifting her eyes, she questions taking my hand in hers, "But what about you in all of this? Sure, you saved Jhanvi but what about your life now? It hangs in the balance."

"What's new?"

She chastises for my small attempt at inappropriate joke by swatting my hand. "I'm serious, Aarush. Evading and staying in the shadows was one thing but now you are out in the open. It's basically an open invitation for them to return and finish the job they failed at all those years ago."