He wondered if this ocean had the power to absorb the evil. If its salt was capable enough to burn wounds and rip them apart. If these waves were powerful enough to swallow any man alive and spit its bones out.
He wondered if there were sea monsters who savored blood and enjoyed tearing limps apart, fighting to have a share of their food, or were their ships had sunk into the depth, the land below having a gravitational force that could land a body on the sharp iron objects of that ship, stabbing through the skin and then the salt water caressing it like a mother. Gentle but ready to excruciate pain screams.
He wondered what the ocean had in it to torment, to seek vengeance.
He wondered what he had in him to seek revenge.
"He is here."
Anirudh glanced beside him, watching Hyde stand facing the same ocean he had been staring at. "Where?"
"Behind you." The man lighted a cigar and blew out a cloud of smoke as Anirudh turned to his other side, facing the man he had scheduled to meet here.
"ACP Varun." Anirudh clipped his name in a formal greeting.
"Anirudh Chauhan." Varun returned the favor, glancing towards the ocean and back at him. "I heard the ocean here is never calm. I can see why."
The police were involved when Anirudh recovered the proof of conversations from Dhwani's watch. His wife may love oxidized jewelry but she had a knack for smart watches that came in handy this day. As she described, her watch had recorded the conversations she had heard hiding from those men, and the voices, may be acute, but were enough to put the assistant commissioner on Dishant's back and clear a lot of rumors that surrounded his family.
"Did you find him?" Anirudh asked the man without beating around the bush.
Dishant had absconded his home, somehow the rat knew his D-day was nearing him.
All thanks to Media who was quick to display his face all over. They had received a befitting reply from their ever-so-efficient PR head who had thunder in her words and storms in her veins she held Dhwani against her.
"In the minivan." Varun jutted his chin towards the minivan parked at a distance. "Your Italian Ken can take him out."
Hyde scowled but said nothing turning towards Anirudh who exhaled a breath gathering his patience when it was nowhere to be found.
"Let him out, Hyde," Anirudh instructed him glaring back at the ocean, challenging it to show its cards while he prepared his. "That little fucker deserves to enjoy the world he thought he could burn. Show him how much he failed."
"Sir." His acknowledgment was always the same, uptight and a promise of completion of his instructions.
"Thank you for the help, ACP." He was genuinely grateful.
Varun waved the words with smoke. "Don't. He is a pawn in this game. I can sacrifice some when I aim for the King. No?"
Anirudh nodded. "I owe you one. My offer still stands. I can get the best doctors to treat your wife, she will be out of her state in no time."
"Don't go where you aren't meant to, Chauhan." He gritted his teeth, throwing the half-burned cigar away, his ebony eyes drilled in his. "My wife is not your business and you are famous for not jumping around. Stay in this Mayanagri, the capital is not for you."
"If that is what you wish." He shrugged seeing the man building an iron wall around his beloved. "Then I shall return your favor. Anything you want."
"Don't use your money here. I am not easy to bribe." He snorted and glanced at Hyde and his man dragging a dislodged Dishant by his neck. "Use it on him. Pay whoever you can and get this case in fast-track court. I deem you do not want him to breathe longer than necessary."
He nodded with a clenched jaw. "I want to kill him this very moment."
"He shouldn't be alive." Varun declared with a smirk that meant more than this man was ready to let on. "I get transferred to Delhi in another 3 months. That is how long you have to prove him guilty. Rest assured, he will not breathe another second of life once sent to prison."
"His every breath until that day will be a reminder of the tears and blood my wife lost." His jaw clenched while he pocketed his fists to keep the beast hidden. "Still, I will be ready to pay you back in any form I can."
"If you insist." Varun chuckled patting his back. "You got yourself a deal with your unlucky stars."
This man was a mystery. An upright police officer who got transferred before he completed 6 months in a place. His family was declared dead the same night his wife closed her eyes on him.
"Chauhan," Varun called him on his way back. "Leave the man functioning. 3 months and I will personally deliver his ashes to you."
Anirudh closed his eyes hearing the struggle and shrieks of Dishant who was dragged out. He enjoyed the screams that left him as punches and kicks knocked him down. He was a struggling bitch and Hyde's trained guards abhorred resistance in their work.
Before he could see him, a staunch smell of blood, sweat, and greed made his announcement.
"Let me go! I did nothing." Dishant cried like a coward he was. "Sir...sir, I did nothing. She is lying. I did nothing. I informed you, remember? I helped her."
"You did." He quipped, not turning to watch the man who once worked in the same vicinity as him. "After you made sure my wife is ready to die, you informed me of her whereabouts so I can come and collect her."
"No! I didn't...I was not there...I swear, Sir. I wasn't there. She did it. It was her fault. She put the children's life in danger." His constant ramblings were shut off by painful grunts as another punch knocked his tied self against the sand.
Sand that he wished to make him choke on.
"And you didn't?" Anirudh snapped facing the pathetic excuse of space he had let intrude in his life for so long. "What is that you did not do, Dishant? Did you not feed your desires by mutilating those children's futures? Did you not kidnap them and remove their organs? Did you not kill tens of children in the past years? Did you not plant Ravikant and Prashant in our orphanage to abduct children for your greed? Or did you not make Ishani work with you? Or did you not kill her brutally when she was caught by Dhwani? What is it that you did not do?"
"She is lying." He screamed but earned a sharp right hook from Hyde
"Another word against my wife and I will forget that I have to leave you alive for the law to deal with you." He barred his teeth. "I am not even in a mood to ask you why, Dishant. I am not going to give you enough time, not anymore. Every second from here will only give you pain and nothing else."
"S...sir."
"Shush! Don't speak, you greedy bastard." He snapped averting his eyes away and addressing Hyde. "He did it all for money, Hyde. Make sure he gets it all but is unable to touch it. Remove his Kidney and show it to him. I am sure he knows what one looks like after all these years."
"No! you can't do this...Sir, you can't..."
"Burn his tongue and use the ocean water to extinguish the fire." He ignored the screams and begging. Letting Dishant hear the things that would be happening to him. "He said he sold their eyes. Pour acid drops in his eyes every hour but keeps it saturated so that he begs to lose his eyes but does not. Stab him at places that are easy to cover with clothes and leave him in the ocean until the salt erodes his skin. I would have preferred the animals to feed on you but lest we do not get everything we need."
"Please...no..." Dishant's words were cut off by another slap.
"Don't let him scream, Hyde. He should shiver like a fish." He leaned to his crumbled form. "I hope you will enjoy each second of what they do, just the way you enjoyed those children's pain. Now, it is time you enjoy yours."
He walked away from a shrieking Dishant who begged to be left alone. He was begging for help but he would get none. He had hired this part of the beach for the next 24 hours and made sure none would come here for the same period.
No one will come to save him. For, it was the doom he had invited upon himself.
The sun reached the horizon before he reached the hospital. The sunset brings back memories of them walking at the shore.
"Whenever I look at the sunset, I remember all the terrible things that happened to me."
She had confessed that day. How much he wishes he could change her views to this sunset?
"From today, all you will be reminded of from this sunset will be us, Petal." He glared at the setting sun and accelerated to reach her.
Entering the hospital, he made a beeline towards her room when he was stopped.
"Mr. Chauhan." The nurse panted as if running to find him. "The doctor wants to see you."
He glanced at the window and his watch, there were still 15 minutes for the sun to leave the sky. For this day to end and another night to follow.
He nodded and followed her toward the incubation room, the NICU where the little girl.
"Sir." The doctors nodded at his presence.
"I request you to keep this short and to the point, Doctor."
"Sure." The pediatrician Dr. Verma started by picking a bunch of sheets and dropping them towards Anirudh. "The reports for the child are here. Her reaction to the treatment is positive and we can bring her out of the NICU. She will be ready to move out in another 10 days."
"As for your wife," This earned his full attention. "We ran some tests on her. Her high blood pressure is of concern. Her right ventricle is weak and would not survive another shoot-up."
"What do you suggest?" Anirudh held the back of the visitor's chair to support his weak knees.
"We are pushing surgery until absolutely required. You need to keep her resting and out of stress at least until the condition normalizes. We will keep her on medications and will be monitoring her heart health. She may feel breathlessness, chest discomfort, and palpitations. We are looking at some major lifestyle changes here, Mr. Chauhan."
"I understand." He wished he could. "When can she be ready to go home?"
"A week, we suppose."
"Thank you for your efforts." He fisted and un-fisted his palm before forwarding it towards the doctors for a handshake. "I really appreciate it."
With a will to restore their life to normal, he walked towards her bed and took an eye full of her sleeping figure. He glanced at the setting sun and back at her.
"If not today, there will be a sunset someday that we will cherish together, Petal." He caressed her face and watched her protest in her sleep. He smiled at her scrunched nose. "There will be nothing you will be worrying about anymore. Not until you have me."
His fingers pushed the strands away from her face, letting him feel her presence so close to him.
The clock struck 11 at night when he felt her moving under his hold. He sat up groggily and found her wincing softly.
"Are you in pain?" He stood up and hovered over her face to make out her facial features.
"You are here." She blinked her daze. Was it a shock that he was able to see on her face?
"Would you rather I not be?" He felt offended. "What kind of husband do you think I am to not stay with his wife?"
"I thought you would be resenting me."
Her confession earned a whiplash to him.
"What?" Did he not hear her right? "What did you say?"
"Do you not resent me?" She asked in a whisper that he would have missed if not for the night and dead silence.
"Can you sit?" He asked and raised her bed. He took a place in front of her. "Now, Mrs. Chauhan. I need to know what exactly you think about me."
Dhwani's eyes jumped everywhere but him.
"Talk to me, Petal." He knew the use of that name melted her, it often did.
"You were hurt by me." She closed her eyes as if believing that would shield her.
His fingers took hold of her chin and he coerced her eyes open, holding the brown ones with his. "By your words? Yes. Not you. You can never hurt."
"You ignored me for a week." She shot her complaint.
"I felt horrible doing that." He confessed to her. "I thought not talking to you would make you realize how hurt I was but in reality, I ended up hurting you more. It is not always an eye for an eye. I am sorry I realized it too late."
"I kept calling you. You said you will be beside me whenever I need you."
"Trust me, Petal. That was the only thing I wanted to do. Be by your side but I couldn't return without bringing Uttara home." He admitted to the words he thought he would never speak to her. If she would hear, he was ready to admit his every mistake, crime, and shortcomings. "You were right when you said I was biased towards my family but I didn't realize that the family I had to favor was inclusive of Uttara. I thought I was protecting my brother but how could I take away his pain when he had lost a part of him? When Vidyut found Uttara, I realized how they complete each other. Even if I was aiming to save him, it could be done only when I saved his heart. His wife."
"You brought her home?" Dhwani asked fearing him and nothing killed his heart if not her hesitation.
"She is safe and at home." He nodded feeling disdain towards himself. "I am sorry for making you feel that you have hurt me, Dhwani. I wish I could go back in time and knock myself out before I said those words to you. I tend to lose my composure when it is you, I am not me but a man who is crazy for his wife. I am insecure when it comes to you. Each time something comes up, I feel as if you will walk away from me. That you will leave without looking back at me. I tend to do things that will hold you back, not realizing what impact it could have on you. I become pathetic when it comes to you."
"Does your promise count here?" She asked.
"Of course not. Never!" He shook his head as the thought provoked a headrush to him. "I meant every word I said. Don't doubt my love for you, petal."
"You l...love me?" She stammered.
"Do you doubt me?" He questioned cupping her nape. "Well, you can. I wouldn't put it against you. I haven't exactly acted like a man in love for you."
"But you found me." She stressed.
"I had to." He confessed. "I would have lost myself if I couldn't find you. I took a lot of time though, I wish I could find you earlier. Each second I spent looking for you in that burning building, I felt pure agony. I wasn't inside the flames but I felt them touching me. They burned me each time I failed to find you. Trust me, I am never letting you go missing again."
"And if someday I..."
"Don't." He cut her off with a glare promising repercussions. "Do not complete those words, wife. Try thinking that absurdity and I will tie you to my bed until you forget what the world outside looks like."
Her honey-dipped eye balls widened and a flush spread through her skin, knocking another meaning of his words to his head.
He chuckled.
"I didn't mean what you are thinking but now that doesn't sound like a bad idea." He teased her more to watch the color return to her face.
"You don't get to tease me." Dhwani swatted his hand away from her, averting her eyes and sneakily rubbing her cheeks to evaporate that color away from her face.
"Then what do I get to do?"
"You are here because I am hurt. You realized all this when you were losing me." She gritted her teeth holding his eyes captive as again a sheen covered them. "What if I wasn't here? Wasn't hurt and at home? Would you still come running to me?"
"Every fucking time, Petal." He claimed. "I would always prefer you at home, safe and home."
She may not believe him so easily. She shouldn't just yet.
"How do you think I wanted to see you again? Take a wild guess." He prompted "You could say anything but this. It would never be here, in a hospital bed where you lay this bruised."
This thump glided on her bandaged head.
"My world did a reverse spin when I saw you in that nursing home. I could prefer not seeing you for another minute but never in that state again." He exhaled painfully. "And, to answer to your first question. Yes. I would have come running to you. I planned to come to you the moment that jet landed. I was on my way to you when I received that horrible phone call. I never wanted to see you here. This is forever going to haunt me. You have no idea how much I cursed myself to bring this upon us."
"Not you." Her fingers closed on his, cold fingers that still shook with tremors. It wasn't a nightmare that only he lived. She shared equal parts of it if not more. "I did. I failed my responsibilities. If I had paid attention..."
"Don't go there again, Dhwani." He cut her off with a glare. "You were not at fault. You took over the place just last year while Prashant and Ravi worked there long back. Dish..." His jaw hardened at the name. "He had worked longer than you and I blindly trusted him. If someone should bear the guilt, it should be me. So, don't hold yourself responsible. It wasn't your fault."
"You didn't know."
"You didn't know too." He smiled shifting closer to her. "No one is at fault here. He is, and he is paying for it."
"I don't want to know how." Her whisper made him smile. He shifted and let her bury her face in his shoulder.
"That is why you are my person." His lips brushed against her temple.
"I want him to pay for it all. For Manna. For that little girl. Please make him pay."
"I will."
As he held her, all he could think was how he needed her around him. Close to him. He needed her in his arms at the end of each day, holding her and whispering how much she meant to him. How much he loved her.
"Happy birthday, Anirudh." She whispered in his neck making him feel all sorts of butterflies in his stomach. Why only the girls claimed proprietorship on these creatures, men felt these fuzzy feelings when they held their woman against them.
"Not been my best birthday." He laughed as she tried pushing out of his hold. He kept her captive in his arms. "But it could be one of the best years that follow."
"I...I am sorry." She pouted and refused to meet his eyes.
"Why?" He tipped her chin up. "You didn't forget my gift. I got yours before anyone's. There is nothing you should be sorry about."
"Did you see it?" Dhwani fidgeted nervously.
"I haven't had the time." He confessed with a grimace. "But I want to see it with you."
"Don't." She shook her head.
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to tell you in person." She blushed.
"And what is it?" He asked as his fingers braided her hair, lightly so they didn't disturb her.
"A letter." She licked her lips. "It has my vows to you. I thought...that we should renew our vows to each other, for that day, we didn't marry because we wanted to. We were married but never felt married. I want to feel married to you, Anirudh."
"I can't wait to hear them." He couldn't. "Tell me the first one."
"I will never keep anyone above you. Ever."
"Do you mean it, Mrs. Chauhan?"
"Yes." Her free palm fisted his shirt and he watched in amazement as she pressed her forehead against his. "It is the first one."
"Are there more to come?" He whispered cupping her face, eyes betraying falling to her lips. He is yet to feel them against him, without a barrier.
She nodded. "There are seven."
"Second is?"
"You will be the first person I will wake up to and the last one I see before I sleep. Every single day." Dhwani's lips brushed against his eyes.
"Till the eternity." He promised.
She nodded with a smile.
He pressed his lips against her head. "Tell me the third one."
"You will be the only one I will share my dreams with. I will let you in on every single unbelievable, nonsensical, and even childish dream that I shared with none. I will share them with you."
"Your dreams and your nightmares, Petal. All of them are mine to know. Mine to fight." He breathed in her scent. It calmed his soul. "Will you tell me all of them?"
"I will." She sighed in comfort.
"What is the fourth one?"
She smiled in the gentleness that he had always referred to her. "I will build a family with you. A family we will both cherish together. I will make a home for us that will be forever ours. Mine and yours."
"Don't make me wait for the next one, Petal." He urged her with impatience.
"I will never let you go. Never hide things from you, never hurt you. I will work through us. I will work for us." She placed her palm on his chest.
"And I will stand beside you. At every step. I will be with you." He could feel his heart calm under her touch. The erratic beats are soothing to match hers.
"I will make you feel wanted. I will not be afraid to tell you how I want you in my life." She exhaled shakily. "You won't be the only one wanting me. I will want you in equal ways."
"What is the seventh?"
Dhwani breathed and let him brush his thumb against her lower lip. "I will always love you, Anirudh. Till you want me to love you. I will love you more than you love me. More and more."
He watched her with his heart full. He could feel breathing a lot easier. He sighed breathing into her. "I have waited so long to hear you say this."
"I will keep repeating them until you get tired of it." Her sweet confessions made him feel lighter with each second between them.
"I will never be tired of you, my Petal." He watched her eyes flutter. "You will be the only woman my eyes would see. I may not say it enough but I am grateful for you, Dhwani, and I aim to show how much each day. I will keep reminding you how special you are to be. You make me sleep better. Your presence makes me see all of me, I make sense to myself and it is all because of you. All of me is grateful to have all of you, Petal. I am so very grateful."
"I thought I would never be able to tell you this. I wrote them thinking if you would still want me, I will tell you about them." A tear dropped past her eyes and for the first time, he didn't abhor her tears. They were for him.
"I would never not want you, Petal." He placed his lips against her forehead. "There will be no reason to not love you, and if someday I find one, I will find a million more to keep loving you."
Her other hand that has an IV attached came to rest against his cheeks while she took a deep breath. "Hold me, Anirudh."
He didn't have to be told twice. His wait had come to an end. Placing his head against hers, he felt her quivering breaths on his. Unmoving, he conveyed his gratitude towards her. He didn't know if he deserved her, but he was a selfish man who took what he wanted.
And, Dhwani was his soul. He was in love with a woman who may not have been meant for him before, but now he made sure she was what he had. He didn't believe in fate. But if he ever had to, he would believe in her.
She was his fate. His destiny.
His only love mattered.
â â â â
"Don't make those faces, Petal." He chided her forwarding the spoon to her mouth. "You are supposed to finish this before I can give you your medicines."
"I don't want medicines." She grumbled averting her face to the other side.
She had stayed in his hospital bed for a length of 5 days now. Anirudh with her at every waking second shooting her orders and commands to eat, rest, eat, and repeat.
"You will take them."
"I may love you but that nowhere means I am going to do what you keep telling me." She glared at her husband who matched hers. "I told you I want to go home. If you cannot take me, I will call Papa."
"Are you threatening me?" He dropped the spoon and she saw her first victory.
"Yes." She raised her chin defiantly. "You are getting too comfortable with doctors that is why you don't want to take me home. I am going to tell Papa how you were laughing and smiling with Dr. Chahat when I was sitting in this hospital bed right infront of you. You were ignoring me."
"Are you jealous of her?" He gaped in shock.
"Yes, I am. Any wife would be if her workaholic husband drops his office for a straight week and stays in the hospital chatting away with female doctors."
"That is the most absurd reasoning I have ever heard." Anirudh shook his head in disbelief.
"Now I am absurd?" She glared at him crossing her arms against her chest. "Of course, you only understand Dr. Chahat these days when she gives you her entire time explaining terms that are not even relevant to my health."
"Petal." He frowned but exhaled as if gathering his calm to explain a complaining toddler. "You are overthinking. I do not stay here because of Dr. Chahat or anyone else but you. I can drop the office for a year if it means I can take care of you. You know that, don't you?"
"You are lying. You never leave office."
"I am doing it now."
"Because you are getting all the female attention here."
"God" He threw his head back in frustration. "Why are you jealous? What is even there to be jealous of her? She is not even half as pretty as you."
"Excuse me?" A throat clearing interrupted him and Dhwani pursed her lips shut to hold back grinning.
"Dr. Shikha." Anirudh jumped out of his seat on her bed. His eyes narrowed at her and drifted to the other woman apologetically. "I...I am sorry. We were just...I didn't..."
"It is fine. You don't need to explain." Dr. Chahat smiled tightly.
Dhwani glared at his fumbling self. Anirudh Chauhan never fumbled with his words.
Pinching his arm, she didn't care if he winced in pain.
"Why are you nervous infront of her?" She hissed for his ears.
"What? Petal, yaar. Please." He begged in a similar fashion. "Don't act like a brat."
"What did you say?" Her eyes squinted in slits. "You called me a brat? A brat!"
Realization dawned on him as his eyes enlarged like saucers. "No. No, I didn't mean it..."
She swatted any attempts of his to touch her. "Save it."
"Petal."
"Mrs. and Mr. Chauhan?"
"Yes, Dr. Chahat." She gritted at the woman who had her eyes oscillating between her husband and her. Dhwani getting less than half of what Anirudh got of her attention. "Are you here with another piece of news? Or bad news for me? Which part of my heart is going to stop functioning now? Or worst, the whole of it is going to give up working?"
"Shut up, Dhwani." Anirudh cut her off with a glare that made her shiver. "Another word and you will pay for it."
She gulped a reply and waited for the doctor to start speaking. She better start speaking now.
"I came bearing good news." She gulped due to thick clouds of tension, anger, and awkwardness in the room. "We see an improvement in your RVH, Mrs. Chauhan. You seem to get better and your BP levels are also showing stability. You can be cleared to go home tonight."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive." Dr. Chahat's incoming smile dropped watching Dhwani glare. "Her last report is improved. We can schedule a weekly appointment to keep a diligent check. In due time, her heart health will be back to normal."
"Thank you, doctor." He was relieved. A weight lifted from his shoulder and suddenly he didn't look like a man reaching his forties soon. He smiled at Dhwani and then at the Doctor. The size reduces as it moves to the other woman.
"It is our duty." She waved it off.
Dhwani got a clearance but there was a soul who she had visited thrice a day with Anirudh. How could she go out of here without thinking about the little girl?
She feared the day she would be out of this hospital and taken to an orphanage. The social service workers had made their rounds here and kept a check on her state from time to time.
They will be taking her from here and sending her to any orphanage in the city. She didn't know if she would ever even get to know about her, lest see her every day.
"What about our little human?" Anirudh asked before she could.
She blinked back the moisture and stared at him referring to her as theirs. There was no name decided for her but she knew that would be done when she would be taken away from here. Till this time, the doctors and they have been calling her baby, Lil' one, or Manna's daughter.
"She is doing well. I will ask Dr. Verma to report to you on her progress."
"Please do."
She left the room, leaving silence as their companion.
"Anirudh..."
He cupped her nape and took her lips in his, kissing her.
Like actually kissing. His lips were on hers.
There was nothing in between, not even space, and with the intensity he held on her, she doubted if the air would shy and leave them together. Her lungs seized and her eyes fluttered close as the blur of his face made it impossible for her to look at him. Her fingers shivered and touched his hands on her face. His calloused fingers swallowed her skin and burned anywhere they moved. His lips latched her like a fish gaping at the water, sucking into its life back after a life-threatening encounter.
His mouth kept pressed to hers as if parting would kill him. His fingers roamed her face and nape, pulling her closer like a man holding on to his last breath, like a thief holding his most prized possession.
She breathed through his mouth, moving her lips against him to not stop breathing, she feared what it would be to collapse in his arms when he touched her like this for the first time, it would be so much mortifying.
Not realizing how long she breathed through him, in his hair, and holding him for life support, she did what she thought was the right thing to do. Respond to his tantalizing caresses. Licking, chewing, sucking, and biting on their connected lips.
"You will be the end of me someday, Petal." He whispered parting reluctantly. She closed her eyes bashfully seeing their entangled arms. She didn't know when he held him through his color or when he had pulled her in his lap, striding the hospital bed they had often settled on. "You drive me to the brink of insanity. When it comes to you, I may lose my brain cells, my control, my image, or anything I have built all these years and I wouldn't mind. Not even blink. Do you realize how dangerous that is?"
"I do nothing of that sort." She defended herself frowning and the man chuckled, shaking his head, and laughing before burying his head in her shoulder.
"You do what you do and I can't help falling for you all over again." He sighed.
"That's some way to tell me you love me when you keep smiling at other women," Dhwani grumbled placing her chin on his head.
"Don't." He glared at her. "Stop making situations in your head and acting jealous. I see no other woman but you. You know that better than anyone."
"You called me a brat infront of her."
"And what did you do? Spew all that bullshit about your heart."
Dhwani gulped under his burning glare.
"Talk like that about my wife again and you will see what I am capable of." He was plain right threatening her.
She pressed her lips together but winced because of the swelling he bestowed upon her. She pushed him away from her. "As if I don't know what you are capable of."
"Trust me, Petal." His burning gaze roamed her flushed face and rested more on her lips than it was publicly approved. He leaned and she sucked a breath to keep her lungs working. "You haven't seen a percent of my talents. So, no. You don't know all that is there to know about me."
"I...I know enough." She stumbled on her words and his eyes crinkled in amusement.
"Enough, not all." He claimed smugly.
She was ready to throw her pillow at his face to wipe out that smirk but the door knock saved him.
"God bless the intruder who saved your life."
Her scoff met a lively chuckle from her as he permitted the person to enter.
"Good evening, Dr. Verma." Anirudh was quick to stand beside her bed and act like the gentleman he was for the world.
"It is indeed a good evening, Mrs. and Mr. Chauhan." The elderly man smiled and jutted his chin towards the gate. "Please come in."
A nurse entered carrying a little bundle wrapped in small comforters and Dhwani sat upright.
"She...she is?" Her lips parted in bewilderment.
"She is." He announced gazing at the child with gentleness that made her fingers find Anirudh's. He was quick to hold and squeeze her hand passing silent strength towards her. "This little girl is a fighter. She surpassed all the deadlines we had set for her and roared her way out of that incubator box twice as fast as any normal infant would. She is ready to meet the world. Her world."
Dhwani palmed her face as she watched the nurse bring the child closer to them.
"Take her in your arms, Mrs. Chauhan." Dr. Verma urged her as the nurse stopped near them. Anirudh peaked at her and she felt his palm sweat. His eyes dazed with softness she had never seen before, not herself. Those small crinkles around his eyes curved with a smile touching his quivering lips.
"She...is beautiful, petal." He stammered and she could see why.
Her husband was nervous infront of another female but she could only grin brightly.
She forwarded her arms and the nurse placed the small cotton ball in her hands. She was a red fluff ball. Eyes closed, minute lips puckered and her cheeks round like rose buds.
"She is." She looked up at him, yet unable to make out his face as her vision blurred. She blinked and felt tears cascading down her cheeks. "She is so small."
"You aren't supposed to cry." His thumb wiped her face and caressed her hair before his fingers gently glided on the baby's face. "The baby would be traumatized watching you crying your eyes out."
"I am not even crying that hard." She shot him annoyed watching him chuckle. He was getting too much amusement out of her these days.
"These tears would like to differ." He shook his head and knelt to their level. His eyes took in the baby smiling like a maniac "How I wish to lock my girls away from this world?"
"What?" She blinked in surprise. "What did you say?"
"It is time she gets fed." Dr. Verma jumped and the nurse forwarded her hands to take the girl away.
Dhwani took a fugitive glance at her and snuggled the baby to her. What if she didn't get to hold her back?
"You should give her back, Petal." Anirudh coaxed her squeezing her knee and she reluctantly let the nurse take her back.
"Have...have you informed the social...workers? Are they taking her from here?"
Her question made Dr. Verma smile.
"Not yet, Mrs. Chauhan." He shot her a polite curve. "They will come but not to take her away from you."
She was confused. Her eyes traveled to Anirudh who had a secretive glint in his eyes that made her embrace herself for whatever information they were going to share.
"When you are ready to leave, she will come with you." Dr. Verma played his words like a puzzle she had a hard time figuring out.
"What...how..." She shook her head and gathered her words while her frame trembled. "What do you mean? They won't let her go with us. Manna...she is no more so she will go into the system...an orphanage."
"Petal."
She ignored his call as the thoughts hit her at once. "She will have to grow up in an orphanage. She...She will be another Dhwani"
"Dhwani!" Anirudh snapped her out of her daze. "She will not go into the system. Do you hear me?"
"But she is..."
"We are officially adopting her." He dropped cupping her face. "Manna signed her rights to her daughter to you before her death. Her mother wanted you to be her guardian if something happened to her. She left her child to you. You are her mother now. She is your daughter. Our daughter."
"Our?" She whispered biting her lower lip to stop her throat choke with the onslaught of emotions.
"Yes." He nodded with assertion. "Ours."
Her daughter.
She was their daughter.
He signed the last of the papers and passed the bunch of sheets towards her. She took hold of the sheets and glanced at the child in the nurse's arms. She will be her daughter once she signs the document.
Feeling a truckload of things, she scribbled her initials and name on the page. Making it official, his tiny human as Anirudh referred her, was their daughter officially.
Mere 4 hours after the doctor declared them fit, Anirudh had managed to bring in the lawyers and get the paperwork completed. She had seen adoption proceedings take weeks if not months but this took a few phone calls and a certificate from the family court magistrate.
While he shook hands with the social workers, lawyers, and staff witnesses who testified to Manna's statement, Dhwani greedy took hold of the child from Nurse who grinned at her impatience.
She clutched her to her chest and felt a warmth across her chest. This bundle of happiness was coming to her home. She will reside in her heart and take everything they had to offer.
A hand caressed her hair and she looked up to find Anirudh gazing at them lovingly.
"My girls." He grinned and placed a kiss on her head and then at the baby's.
"Thank you." She whispered to him and he wiped her cheeks shaking his head.
"No. Thank you." He straightened and took hold of the little bag that was dropped off with their belongings. "Our family is going crazy already. It wouldn't be a good choice to make them wait any longer."
Dhwani giggled at his scrunched face. "I am ready."
I am crying because this song hits home, not because this is the last part. Not exactly, we have an epilogue left but you see, this is where they promise a happily ever after to each other.
The next part will be a new beginning for our three couples. I promise to overwhelm you with emotions in the next one so that you will never be able to forget them.
Also, Varun Prajapati has his tale. Consider this his cameo before he takes up the stage with a bang.
He will be a part of my next series, Criminals by Heart.
Stay tuned for him and some more criminals owning angel wings that will make you pull your hair out and kiss them at the same time.