Till Death Do Us Part

Part 3

"Fine then. Till you tell me where my daughter is, you will stay with me, in my house as my wife, which I am sure you do not wan, considering everyone you have to answer to and your soul which hates me. Ms. Khushi Gupta, welcome back to being Mrs. Arnav Singh Raizada."

Arnav mentally lauded himself as the look of shock marred Khushi's angry features but it was soon his turn to be shocked when her features morphed into a confident smirk as her eyes twinkled with an emotion which Arnav could hardly identify with her

"I am ready, ACP Arnav Singh Raizada, but the question is, are you ready for that?" questioned Khushi, looking at him in the eye making a shiver run across his spine. Her tone was rattling while her menacing gaze was hinting towards a storm approaching him.

"What do you mean? If I am not ready, then why will ask you do it?" countered Arnav, wondering what could be running in her mind.

"As far as I know, Mr. Raizada, you have a very loving family which is proud of the personality they built in you and if you unveil the truth to them, which you have not till now, they will become what you wanted to make of me - broken souls. To know that their son played with a girl's dignity and trust, used her for a night, killed her father and when he learned that he had fathered a child, he is forcing her to stay with him would be a very hard blow for any parents, Mr. Raizada. So I think you should be more prepared than me to welcome me into your home," exclaimed Khushi, her condescending tone and mocking smirk riling Arnav further.

He knew that her words were not hollow, they had every bit of potential to turn into reality since his family had always prided on the fact that their family members respected and withheld the dignity of every human being and had dedicated their lives for uplifting the downtrodden lives.

But he could not retreat and allow the mother of his child to relish the victory over him. He was much a father as he was a son and he decided that he could not abandon the wishes of the father in him in the fear of not being a good son. He was sure that Khushi had no ground to fight against him and hence was using the emotional tactics to defeat him.

"I believe that is none of your business or concern. It is my headache to tackle my family. But you, you will come and stay with me till you reveal the whereabouts of my child," he retorted, his brown orbs revealing his turmoil clearly to her.

"Okay," she affirmed, only shocking him further.

"Okay?" he repeated, wondering if the Khushi in front of him was the one he had met in the past. Gone was the coy, demure, submissive and docile girl and she was replaced by a bold, ruthless, authoritative and daring woman who was surprising him at every step of hers.

"I have a condition though, and I think you are quite obliged to fulfill the same, Mr. Raizada, after all, you are the very cause of the problem," she added , her stony gaze melting slightly as grief took over her nonchalance.

"Condition?" he prompted, pondering over the possibilities.

"I want my mother, who is in vegetative state now, to move in along with me. I don't want to leave her in that state so if you want me to move in with you, she comes along with me," she stated, looking away from Arnav fearing if the restraint over her actions would break if she saw the culprit of her mother as she reminisced her plight.

Arnav, for the first time, witnessed the shaken soul behind her firm determination. She did not betray any visible signs of her weakness but being an investigating officer for years he could notice slight twitch of her jaw, quiver of her lips and the eversion of her eyes which screamed of her despair, which he had himself caused.

"Does she need anything in her room to maintain her treatment? Any way to alleviate her pain?" he asked, his heart desperate to repel the feelings of guilt surrounding him for the first time.

"Maybe if you have thought about it before, we would not be sitting here, Mr. Raizada. You need not worry about my mother, you already did too much for her in the past. Whatever is required for her, I will make sure she has it. You just worry about yourself and your family, not that it's the only thing you do anyways," she lashed, looking out through the window as Arnav's grip on the steering wheel tightened as frustration gripped his heart.

"So be it. Since you need to shift your mother, I will give you time till tomorrow morning. I will come in the morning before our reporting time and pick you up, or else, I will make sure that I snatch your everything," he warned, ignoring the calls of his conscience.

"You can't snatch anything of mine, Mr. Raizada, because you did not leave me with anything when you abandoned me last time and what you left behind is something you would not dare to snatch from me because it is plain pain, in its most lethal form. Don't worry, I will still come. Not because you have demanded it from me but because I want to see the desperation on your face to find the someone you love but failing; I want to see the pain on your face when your family loses belief on you. I want to see you sailing in the same boat as me and if that sadistic and cruel thought takes me to hell, so be it but I will make sure that I drag you through the same without fail," she spat, the fiery determination burning in her eyes just as the pain burned through her soul.

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