Manik's POV:

I stood there, helpless, as Harshad's men herded Alia's car away, despite her best efforts to evade them. She was trying to steer her car away but the 4 cars around her had boxed her in. Dhruv and I followed at a distance, trying to be discrete and succeeding. They took them to the Harshad mansion, an ostentatious monstrosity of a house that screamed excess and bad taste.

I knew what I had to do to save them; Harshad wanted me, not Alia and Nandu, and I would make sure that they didn't suffer because of my bad judgement. Dhruv parked the car in front of the house and I got out.

"Go back to the chateau, Dhruv, and be ready for my call. Make sure you have our boys ready for a good fight, and that all the weapons are fully loaded," I said, taking out my own gun, and hiding it in my shoe. It was custom-made and was small, accurate, and made of carbon fiber so it wouldn't make the weapon detectors go off. It cost me a fortune, but it was worth it.

"I can't let you go in there alone, boss. They'll shred!" Dhruv replied, his eyes wide.

"Don't worry about that. If you want to see Alia, then do as I tell you, or else both of us will be spending the rest of our miserable lives alone, without the people we love." I said absentmindedly as I pushed a glass and ceramic knife into the sock on my other foot.

"Uhm, did you just say 'the people we love?' boss? Oh my God! You're in love with Nandini!" he said, incredulously.

I tried to cover up the slip up instantly. "Don't be ridiculous, Dhruv. Alia is the only family I have left. I was just referring to her."

"Uhuh. Sure, why not? Whatever you say, boss" he said, sarcastically. I gave him a sour look and walked over to the house. I pressed the buzzer and waited for the armed guard to open the door.

"Tell Mr. Harshad that Manik Malhotra is here to see him," I said. The guard spoke into an earpiece and opened the gate with a push of the right button.

I walked past him and through the main doors into the house. I was greeted by a greasy looking guy with long blonde hair and a tattoo on the side of his face. He patted me down, looking for my well-hidden weapons. He used the metal detector as well, but found nothing. Then he led me to the office where Harshad was sitting in an ornate armchair, snorting coke through his bulbous nose, leaving a white smudge on it's tip. As I got closer, I saw that his pupils were dilated, and his hands were shaking from the drugs he had consumed. This was one of the many things I hated about my profession; the drug abuse and the money we made from people's addiction and desperation. He looked up at me and gave a crazed smile that would have proved he was high even if I hadn't seen the line of coke on his large desk.

"Ah! Manik, my man! Nice to see you so early," he said, showing me his cosmetically whitened teeth. "I didn't think you'd come back so easily."

I took in a deep breath to calm myself. "I believe you have something that belongs to me. I came to take it back."

"Oh yes, those pretty little things my men found wandering around my street?" he laughed. "Don't worry about them, il mio amico...They'll get used to surviving without the luxuries you provided them with while they're living in the basement with the rats."

He was trying to goad me into a fight so he'd have a reason to kill me, but I wasn't going to fall for his tricks. Nandu's and my sister's lives were at stake here. "It's me you want, Harshad, not them. You can let them go and I'll resume working for you then. I'll even go do that job in Cuba that you wanted me to do, as long as my sister and her friend go free."

He took a cigar out of a box on his desk and lit it, and I could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he processed what I said. The only way he could eliminate me as a threat was if I started working for him, because he knew he couldn't kill me without making alot of enemies. I had made many 'friends' in this business, and all of them would put their lives on the line for me as their fierce sense of loyalty dictated.

"Fine. Jamie, take Manik here to see his sister and that other girl, and then you can let them go. And give Manik one of them stamped guns we just got," he said, his attention back to his drugs and cigar. I  followed the dirtbag called James. I had the displeasure of working with this man once before, when I was about to quit Harshad's employment, and recognized him as a sadistic, spineless, coward of a man who had nothing better to do with his life.

He unlocked the door to the basement, and I saw Alia and Nandu huddled together in a corner on the cold, dirty floor. I bent down as if to tie my shoe and took out my gun and knife. I sliced his throat swiftly with one slash of the blade, and watched his body crumple to the floor.

I pressed the speed dial on my phone and told Dhruv to come get Alia and Nandu. I looked at the two girls, one with a shocked expression on her face (Nandini) and the other with a relieved one. "Come on, guys. We have to get out of here!" I whispered, motioning to them to come over to the door. Nandini was the first to react and pulled Alia along with her, and I was relieved to see they were unharmed. "Stay behind me, okay?"

Nandini gave me a look as if to say 'Thank you' and nodded. I smiled at her tentatively, and walked out the door, loading the magazine into my gun. We went up the stairs and I called up Dhruv again.

"Almost there, boss," he said, and I could hear the loading of mags in the Uzis, AK-47's and Glocks. My men were coming in fully prepared to fight an army if need be. Good.

"Make sure you don't kill Harshad. He's mine," I whispered bitterly and hung up. I turned to the girls and said, "When Dhruv comes, go with him to the car and do as he says. I'll be back once I'm done here."

"You're going after Harshad alone?" Nandini asked, her voice cracking from stress.

"Not exactly. The rest of the guys will take care of the guards and I'll just have to do him in. It wouldn't be that hard considering he's been snorting coke all day by the looks of things," I said, trying to put her mind at ease. She nodded but still looked anxious as she chewed on her bottom lip nervously. I looked back in front of me before I got even more distracted, and counted the guys I could see from my vantage point. There were two by the main door, and about four sitting at a poker table in the corner while another three were smoking near the pool-house. I couldn't take them all out and get Nandu and Alia out safely at the same time, so I waited for Dhruv to barge in through the door. I didn't have to wait long. It took all of three minutes for my guys to come in, take out the guards as well as the guys near the pool. I got rid of the poker-playing dudes, and handed over Nandu and Alia to Dhruv.

I walked into Harshad's office, not looking back at the worried face of the woman who had reminded me about the humanity I had forgotten about a long time ago. I walked into the office, seeing a frazzled Harshad clutching a gun in his hand as he stared at me with wide eyes. I walked over to him, pointing my gun at his balding skull.

"You killed my parents and you turned me into a monster. Now you're going to pay for that, Harshad. You're going to rot in hell for the rest of eternity. I'll see you there in a few years," I said, but just as I was about to pull the trigger, his drug addled brain somehow triggered his fight-or-flight response. Unfortunately, he picked fight, and before I could get out of the way, the bullet from his gun flew into the left side of my abdomen. I ignored the blood seeping out and shot him at point-blank range. Two in the head, one in the chest. Old school style.

My head was starting to spin from the blood loss as I made my way out to the car. Dhruv had already taken the girls back to the chateau, but the rest of my men were there. He helped me into the car and we drove back to the house, all the while talking about how much easier our life would be now that Harshad was history.

Nandini POV:

I couldn't sit still. I kept on pacing around the living room that I had only seen once before in the dark. Manik was fighting mobsters, and in spite of the fact that he was one himself, I couldn't help but wear a hole in the carpet with my worrying. Alia tried calming me down, telling me that Manik had done this tonnes of times before and he'd come out unscathed. It wasn't that i didn't believe her, it was just that I had an unexplainable feeling in the pit of my stomach that made me anxious.

Alia was back after taking a quick shower, and was sitting on the sofa staring out into nothingness as she tried to avoid Dhruv's eyes on her. If he had laser vision, he would have made a hole through a dozen people standing in the same line.

"Oh enough already!" I said, exasperated with their inability to express their feelings. "Dhruv, Alia loves you, and from what I can tell, you love her too...so for the love of God, tell eachother before it's too late!"

Both of them stared at me in shock, trying to make sense of what I had just said. I rolled my eyes at them and flopped down on the sofa, ignoring the lovestruck looks on their faces as they now stared at eachother. I counted down from ten, and as soon as I reached one, they started talking at once. I left them to resolve their feelings in peace as I went out to the steps and sat on them, waiting for Manik to come.

I had been surprised when he came to rescue us. I thought it would take a while, but he was there within a few minutes of our being taken into the basement. I was trying to comfort Alia since she was quite shaken up after our encounter with Harshad. He had taunted her about her parents' death and it took all my self-restraint to keep from punching that guy in the face. The other blonde guy had also threatened us with some pretty nasty thing, all of which I tried my best to forget.

The sound of gravel crunching under tires pulled me out of my thoughts, and I looked up to see a Cadillac Escalade pull up. Manik got out of it, supported by a gangly kid who looked barely older than sixteen. There was blood all over his shirt and he was clutching his side, his face pale as a ghost.

He lurched forward when he saw me and I ran to him, supporting his other side. "What happened?" I asked stupidly.

"I made mistake number one; I underestimated my opponent," he said, smiling slightly.

"Shouldn't you go to a hospital? Bullet wounds aren't exactly superficial."

"I can't really walk into a hospital with a bullet wound, Nandu. The docs have to report them to the authorities, and I don't want your good old friend Aryaman Khurana dropping by to visit right now."

"How did you... find out?" I stuttered.

His mouth mashed into a hard line. "I read your letter."

"Oh. Well that's not nice, you know. You aren't supposed to read other people's letters."

He chuckled. "Don't worry, I don't have the energy to be angry right now."

Alia gasped when she saw Manik and led us to a room nearby. Maddy, as the boy had introduced himself, and I lay Manik down on the bed as Alia brought a bowl filled with water and a towel.

"I'll do it," I said, taking the stuff from her and cleaning Manik's wound. "Alia, do you have any morphine?"

She nodded, handing me a syringe and a vial. I injected the liquid into a vein in Manik's arm, after tapping the syringe to make sure there weren't any air bubbles in it.

"Don't kill me, Nandini," Manik said, jokingly, his brain fuzzy with the morphine circulating with his blood.

"Don't worry, Manik, I've had lots of experience treating my father's and Arya's injuries. I swear, those two are the most stubborn people alive. The only way I can take them to the hospital is if I knock them unconscious." I disinfected the area around the wound with iodine and took out the bullet using a pair of sterilized forceps. Manik was barely conscious as I stitched and bandaged the wound, allowing me to do my work in peace. I was about to ask Alia for a blanket for Manik, but she was long gone along with Maddy. I didn't want to leave Manik alone in case he needed more painkillers or felt unwell, so I searched the cupboards for a blanket. I rummaged around until I found an old patchwork quilt, and spread it over Manik's still form. I checked his pulse, blood pressure and temperature with the things Alia had left. Everything seemed normal so I settled into a chair by his said, and let the exhaustion of the past few hours take over. I was asleep within a few seconds, and was grateful that my nap was free of nightmares.

To be continued.....

Next update after 100+votes strictly😂😂😂