Part 57 It was Akash

I saw all of them laughing at the effect of Nitrous Oxide. I appreciated Mithra for the idea. I wondered why didn't she choose any other way to stop them from catching her. She could have applied other harmful ways to stop them. Then I understood, if she had used other ways, she might have gotten trapped in it. It might backfire on her too if she had made a simple mistake. It would not be a wise decision to attack all of us at a time. If one of us had escaped from her attack, she could have not escaped from us as easily as she just did.

I saw all of them coming out of the laughing gas effect one by one, slowly.

"Where is she?" Shashi shouted.

Akash rushed out searching for Mithra. Khushi and Payal were tense. Taking his mobile, Shashi called the commissioner.

"Commissioner sir, Shashi Gupta Speaking... Mithra Gupta escaped from the Palace stealing all the diamond jewelry from the Palace" he lied. He should have done that to make the action fast I suppose.

"....."

"Of course, she is my wife. I got married to her after my wife's demise. Just now I got to know she is the one who killed my wife and made it up like a normal death. She escaped applying nitrous oxide on us"

"....."

"Haan, laughing gas... I will come to the police station to give a written complaint about her. Please stop her from leaving Delhi and find her..."

"......"

"Yeah, thank you"

Shashi Gupta disconnected the call furiously.

At the same time, Akash came in while talking on the phone.

"Search for her. She should not escape. I'm filing a murder case on her" he said furiously and disconnected the call wearily.

Akash should have called some other higher authority of the police unaware of Shashi's step, I suppose. Maybe, he would have thought Shashi would not take any QUICK action on this matter. Of course, I too thought the same because I thought Shashi would need some time to manage himself. After all, the shock he faced was not a simple one. It was a lifetime shock for him but, to my surprise, he composed himself and took action, instead of sitting in grief.

"Arnav she escaped... she is a dangerous woman. I don't know what she is planning. She will do anything because she has money." Khushi said nervously

"Dad, block her account. Get the stay order in court that she has no rights in our properties" Akash said.

Without thinking of anything, Shashi took his phone and passed the order to his lawyer.

He disconnected the call and said,

"Our Lawyer will do that right away"

"I called the Assistant Commissioner and asked him to arrest her," Akash said.

"Uncle also called the commissioner and asked him to arrest Mithra," I said and Akash was stunned. He nodded his head coming to the composure.

Shashi sat on the couch all disappointed.

"I never knew she was a Venom-filled woman. I don't know how I trusted her blindly. I don't know why Garima didn't warn me about her. If she had done that I might have been cautious in her matter at least" Shashi said helplessly.

I didn't think he was wrong. Garima Aunty should have alerted him about Mithra when she doubted her. If she had done that Shashi uncle might have avoided minimum damages at least. Maybe, she would have felt insulted to have such a cruel sister. Or, maybe, she would not have definitely thought Mithra would go to that extent to kill her. Poor woman, she left her life in the process of saving her sister's respect. I supposed.

Shashi continued blabbering.

"Still I can't believe a woman killed her own sister to get the lavishing life from her.Everything she said was believable, did was believable...! Her words were so reliable. Her acting seemed not likeacting. She showered love and care on my children. When Khushi showed hatred towards her, I thought she didn't come out of the grief of her mother's demise because she was fourteen years old at that time. I thought any mature child would be like that"

"He is right Arnav. I too never suspected her. I can't believe a woman could act for so many years to cheat us. It was only Khushi, who never trusted her" Akash regretted.

"Didn't you ever think why Khushi doesn't like her?" I asked Akash.

"She made up stories and showed me arrogant in their eyes. So, they always thought I was unnecessarily creating scenes," said Khushi furiously.

"We did not know she cornered Khushi only because she didn't accept her as her mother. I hate myself for being a fool" Shashi said.

"No use of thinking about something that was already over uncle..."

"No Arnav... if we don't think about it, we can't be firm about what has to be done next. She should be arrested. She should not roam around freely. We don't know what she is up to.She must be furious with us, especially with you. She will try to attack you" Shashi said and I sensed fear in his tone.

"She can do nothing, uncle..."

"No Arnav, we can't be careless. We should not underestimate her. I bought all your company shares and raised your company profit in a day but within a day again she bought all the shares from me...!" Akash said helplessly.

I and Khushi spared a glance. Was that Aaksh who bought our company shares? We thought it was Mithra who intentionally raised our company share value to show she could do anything but it was Aaksh who did that. Unaware of the truth, Khushi bought the shares in my name. That made Aaksh think that Mithra bought the shares again. It seemed we all were in a misunderstanding.

"Whaaaat? Was that you who bought the AR company share that day?" Khushi asked unbelievably.

"Yes, Khushi. When I got to know she was playing with your life using Arnav's business and his father as pawns, I decided to end her game. So I bought all your company shares that were in outsider's hands. But the same day, she bought all the shares again"

"No Akash, it was not Mitra who got the shares but Khushi," I said.

"Khushi? What do you mean, Arnav?" There was an excitement on his face.

"Yes, Khushi wanted to make our business stable. Khushi knew our business was the only trump card for Mithra to play with. So, she bought the shares. We didn't know it was you who raised our share value that day. We thought Mithra was showing her power to get us under her control."

"After knowing my sister's problem, how could I let her struggle, Arnav? That's why I thought to break the source of Mithra's game. I was a useless brother who didn't understand my sister's struggle. I don't want to be the same anymore..." Akash said.

I felt proud of my sister's husband. I saw the same in Khushi's face.

"What are you guys talking about? Do you know all of this, Akash?" Shashi asked.

"Yes, Dad... I got to know about it on the same day Arnav surrendered his car key"

"But how? Why didn't you tell me about it?"

"When I went to drop them in the mini palace, I got a chance to know about it. Arvind uncle came to the mini palace and shouted at Arnav for not taking Mithra seriously. He said, Mrs. Gupta would destroy their business if Arnav let Khushi cook. Arvind uncle shouted at Arnav unaware of my presence in the Mini Palace. That's how I got to know about it COINCIDENTALLY" Akash said.

Khushi controlled her smile looking at me like,COINCIDENTALLY? Like really?

I faced a tough time not to smile. Only I know how much I planned to bring my father to the Mini Palace, only to make him shout at me. So that Akash would get to know everything about Mithra through someone instead of me and I succeeded. When I did that, I didn't know that one incident would bring so many changes in Akash. I just wanted to do it to begin Mithra's downfall.

In all this, there was one man who spoke nothing. He was delighted like hell I suppose... Rahim. I saw a joyful gesture on his face. At last, Mithra was out of the palace. Shashi and Aaksh got to know her true face. He would have been waiting for this day in his life. I knew that.

Everyone looked at him when he said,

"I'm leaving"

I saw helplessness on their faces. Akash reached him in a few long steps and clutched his hands.

"Can't you be with us, at least now?"

"Akash baba, I'm not that old Rahim..." he smiled which stunned even me as I didn't expect that from him.

"I know you are not that old Rahim...! Whatever happened with you would have changed you..."

Cutting Akash,

"I didn't mean it... I'm not that OLD Rahim but OLD Rahim. I mean I became OLD. I could not work like before..."

That made us delighted.

"I didn't ask you to be here as a servant. You are like a brother of my mother. You treated us like your kids. In those rights only I asked you to be with us" Akash said emotionally. That made Rahim emotional.

"Though WE were not with you we are always looking after you in some way... I and Bose never missed doing that" Rahim said.

Hearing Bose's name, Shashi looked at him jerking. He gulped down hard.

"May I meet Bose uncle?" Akash asked.

"Haan, Rahim Kaka, I too want to meet Bose uncle" Khushi said.

Rahim looked at Shashi expecting him to say something and he did.

"I think Bose will not meet you until I'm here. He must be angry with me. He was not wrong. He should be angry with me for not trusting him... for insulting him. He will never forgive me for what I did"

That was when we heard,

"Who said?"

We saw Bose standing.

"Yes, I'm angry with you for whatever you did. That's why I want to forgive you. So that, I could scold you, shout at you, and beat you for all your blunders..." Bose said with a plain expression.

To be continued...