His Knife Her Chest

Chapter 10 |The raw truth|

It was Akash and Payal's wedding when NK had discovered the hidden security cameras in the room beside the kitchen while setting up the fairy lights, decorating the neglected room. He had learnt from Payal that this was where it all had happened, here was when they all had misunderstood her yet again.

Reassuring her that everything would be fine, he made his way out of the room to the front gate of Shantivan. He demanded the guards to provide him with all the security footage from the whole house. Once he was done transferring all the footage to his USB, he swiftly prodded his way inside again. He had a lot of searching to do.

~~**~~

Payal was relieved after getting the text from her sister, she had safely reached. It was Khushi's birthday in two days. She would be turning 19. Such a tender yet dangerous age. The age where most people partied, enjoyed life, worked, but her sister on the other hand was stuck in a pathetic contract marriage from when she was 18 years old. That beast called Arnav had tainted her cute little childlike sister who was just 18 then.

But she was elated with the decision her sister had taken. At least now she could rebuild the life she'd once lost. It was better done late than never. She wanted to go and surprise her but that would really be a challenge seeing the circumstances she was stuck in at the moment. She either had to come up with a good plan to leave the house for one day or just not go at all. ARGHH she groaned inwardly! She'd think about this later.

~~**~~

Arnav couldn't think well. He was delirious. He had by now called her at least thousand times, yet he received no answer in return. Aman couldn't trace or locate her location.

Was she ok? Was she safe? Fear settled in his heart thinking about her being in trouble or facing another inconvenience. He had to let the police know. He had to find her. Having no other choice he decided to contact the higher authorities.

~~**~~

NK had found it. The heart wrenching truth that would prove her innocence. If not enough, he was now more disgusted by his so called 'Jiju'. The words, his brutal grip on her. He was disgusting absolutely disgusting! It hurt him seeing Khushi's condition. She was so helpless, nobody listened to her but he was very proud of Payal for standing up for her sister. It was time, time to show them the real truth.

He bluntly ordered everybody around the house to gather in the living room as he desperately wanted to show them something crucial. Everybody was present. Anjali, Shyam and Arnav too. He plugged his laptop to the television and paired it with the HDMI1 cable so that everybody could see the footage display more clearly on the wider device than on the laptop. Then he attached the USB to the laptop and played the clip.

There it was, the much much awaited truth. Everybody watched sympathetically with their mouths wide open. They saw it all, from Shyam coming to the kitchen harassing her, mishandling her, saying shit, confessing his love for her multiple times, turning the situation completely against her, to Khushi trying hard to get away from his clutches, from his brutal hold on her, trying to put some sense in his dreadful mind until Anjali came and misconceived the whole sole truth once again.

Arnav helplessly and very sympathetically saw how his sister bad mouthed her, how she used such foul words to describe her, how she misunderstood, how she threw derogatory words at her like he had once. The clip finally came to an end when they all disappeared from the frame.

Silence, pin drop silence rung through their ears like loud drums. They had nothing to say, the raw and bare truth was in-front of them. All eyes shifted towards Shyam who was quietly sitting in the corner, color lost on his, he was gasping for air.