Mahika tried to hold onto the walls while being dragged down. She was terrified seeing the long hallways turning dark as they passed by. She was thrown into a grey room and she tried to push them away but was smashed back onto a wall, with her back aching with pain. 

A bulb swung lightly as soon as the door closed. 

The creaked open slowly, and Lakshmi came in with a serene face with her eyes lowered. she looked quiet and humble petite young lady. But in this room, it added a touch of horror and fear in Mahika. 

The door shut isolating the room from the rest of the world.

Arjun stood outside the room and he couldn't hear anything, but he felt a different emotion. he couldn't describe it. he felt that she was different, too different from before as if she had changed and would never turn back..... nor would stay with him.

Soon the door opened and Arjun snapped out, Lakshmi looked at Arjun and then looked back at the woman crouching in a corner while clawing her hair out. Blood oozed out of her scalp as she kept on scratching it with her bloodied fingers. Mahika looked up and soon blood-curdling screams could be heard through the cold cellar which soon turned into whimpers and died down. Arjun, who was standing behind his wife looked at her keenly before looking at Mahika.

" tell me.
Who is it? " lakshmi asked while looking at Arjun. Mahika was still in a trance before she snapped out of her daze and stared at Lakshmi before she started screaming. She suddenly started spewing out blood. Her eyes widened as she looked at the person behind Lakshmi. 

From the corner of her eye, Lakshmi saw Arjun and Mahika, the former was as calm as a lake and the latter already on the brink of death while looking behind her.

" dead " Vardhan announced before he took a step back and moved Mahika's body out.

Lakshmi stood in the same spot for a minute with her eyes eerily lowered, before she turned around and left the place without turning back. She got what she wanted......

As soon as she entered the guest room, she saw Noor on her little bed and Fei'er near the window, gazing at the sunset in a daze with his eyes still wet but unwilling to let down those tears. 

" go hill," Fei'er said. Lakshmi stopped for a second and sat down on the chair beside the window while looking at those last rays of the sun forming a golden hue before dying down, letting the world sink into darkness.

" let's go home," she said as she helped him get down. Noor looked at her mom and then at her friend whom she had been worried about. She quickly crawled down her bed and then held the other hand of the little boy. Trying her best to support her little friend.

Lakshmi took the kids and went down the stairs. She left straight without even gazing sideways at the other members at home. Arjun followed behind her quietly.

They reached home in the middle of the night. Lakshmi let Fei'er and Noor eat curd rice, before putting them to sleep. She looked at the rest of the small empty beds before closing the door.

She stripped down and washed herself with cold water. can it wash away everything?

After standing numbly and gazing at the stars above, she wrapped a towel, entered her bedroom and slept in her bed with water still dripping down from her body and her eyes...
The coldness seemed to penetrate her bones......
Her body became too heavy for her.....

The door creaked open and Arjun saw Lakshmi lying on her bed with only sheets covering her. She opened her eyes slowly and looked at him with her dull eyes.

Arjun got under the sheets while facing her, and stared at her as the cold wind blew the curtain from the window, with only a dim light flickering from the lamp.

His memories flew back to the time when he saw her in that small room that she decorated while they were newly married... How she had slept so peacefully curling up like a cocoon...
Maybe she would never sleep so peacefully anymore..........

" you could have told me
You didn't have to endanger your life" Arjun said referring to the blast incident as he moved closer to her.

The musky scent assaulted her nose while she looked at him calmly. Her reflection could be seen in those black orbs, those pits weren't shallow....

"Leave everything behind, we have children now and they need us both dear...." Arjun said again as he hugged her into his arms without waiting for her reply. Even though those words sounded as if he was genuinely concerned for the children, he was slowly manipulating her mind into accepting their presence together while she was at her weakest point. 

....Because he knew that she was right now very fragile, fragile and mouldable...

Lakshmi didn't say anything as she silently accepted his embrace. The embrace filled with thorns piercing into her heart, making it hard to breathe...

Because only she knows.
Only she knows that he was the one behind everything...

"When did you suspect me being a part of serpents? " Lakshmi asked with her head lowered in his embrace.

Arjun looked at his wife and didn't answer as he hugged her more tightly.
His gaze turned sharp as he looked at the wall behind her.
He expected her to find it out.....
But not soon...
All the loose ends had been tied up...
Is she probing him? But all the traces that lead back to him have been erased......

Lakshmi closed her eyes while her body went numb......
Xiao was a double agent. Working in serpents for eagles... All the incidents made sense. Finding out children, pretending as a beggar......what not...

The data she collected a few months back when she went on a mission with Antonio and others after the firing incident where Arjun got shot... It all makes sense...
Because that file was about Xiao.
She didn't believe it then, but she did keep a tab on Xiao's every movement. She thought that every mafia had a spy within them, though it was highly impossible to penetrate the core information... She thought that Xiao was just keeping a tab on the serpents......
'Or did she keep a tab on serpents while keeping a tab on me? But all of this brings my mind back to the question - when did he find out that I was in there? Before Xiao came in or after she joined us?'

But,
Everything was futile as she never believed that information on Xiao and thought that maybe someone had planted this false data to lead them astray.... ah.... Such a dumb heart I've got..... still looking for someone to trust...

But now
Everything started falling back into place...

If she, the one closest to Antonio and Xiao found it now...... then it meant that Alejandro had been keeping a tab on them and observing every step of theirs... He would rather kill 100 innocents than let a single rat out of the bag. Alejandro never let me know not because I was close with Antonio and Xiao but because he didn't want Xiao to doubt me.

Alejandro killed them...
To warn her and the others...

Lakshmi looked at the man before her...  Still pretending to be innocent while masking that horrendous face beneath it...

" why does it have to be like this? " she asked feeling hollow and tired. Don't know if she asked herself or the person holding on to her...

Seeing her gazing blankly, Arjun pecked her lips a couple of times before hugging her more tightly.

Lakshmi felt as if she was engulfed by darkness, as if a snake was coiling onto her body slowly and tightly, making it hard for her to move and breathe...
She wanted to get out of this, but she couldn't...

She couldn't even dare to imagine how many members of the eagles had infiltrated their base...

Now that she started thinking about it...
The members who were close to her started dying in one or the other way.

Lakshmi lifted her head and stared at the man again. She gritted her teeth in anger. Why should it be like this?
Only because of this one man, her life has turned out to be like this.....

Lakshmi put her hand slowly underneath the pillow cover and felt the wooden handle of the knife. She swung the knife swiftly towards Arjun.

Arjun felt his wife moving her hand out of his embrace and saw how swiftly she pulled out the knife, he held on to her wrist and stared at her face. Slowly, a smile crept up on his face which looked more creepier than ever. His gaze turned even more crazier than ever....

Arjun twisted Lakshmi's wrist and a sound of crackling could be heard as Lakshmi tried to free her body from his stronghold. She couldn't move the rest of her limbs either.

The knife fell off her hand onto the floor by the bedside. She simmered in rage as she flung her whole body forward and bit on his shoulder while toppling him over. Her teeth sank deeper as his blood pooled in her mouth from his shoulder. Bitter too bitter, everything is too bitter, she didn't want this, not anymore...

It was as if she turned into a rabid dog and tried to bite off a chunk of his flesh so that she wouldn't feel bitter anymore. She wanted to do anything and everything that could make him feel pain. She wants to see it on his face...

Arjun gripped her hair and yanked her head back. He looked at the woman beneath him, whose eyes turned red with anger with veins bulging around her neck, while his blood trailed down her mouth to the side of her ear and another trailed down her neck.

"How does it taste? " his soothing voice came out in low whispers near her ears while admiring those pale lips tainted with his blood on them... He looked at her bruised wrist still in his tight grip..... ah...I guess I have displaced her delicate wrist... He thought and intimately attached his lips to the bruised wrist.

Lakshmi spit blood on his face as she stared at him. Arjun slowly wiped his face with one hand while holding both of her hands in his other. Another smile crept on his face as he stared at her.

His rough hand traced around the edges of her face and then to her nose and lips. As if he was trying to paint her in his mind...
It would have been romantic if it was any other man doing it to his own woman...

The blood on Lakshmi's face was smudged by his fingers and it looked even more ghoulish.... He took the wet towel from the bed she used previously and tied her hands to the bedpost.

Lakshmi glared at Arjun while the latter quietly got up to the cupboard and cleaned up the wound on his shoulder.

" wifey
Your love bites are too ferocious....like you...." Arjun said as he put on a bandage with a grin.

" bastard " lakshmi said and closed her eyes while trying to calm herself. she felt that this person started showing his true personality. It felt as if his soul was liberated. The more he was like this, the more she feared him...

" I love you too dear " he said while putting on a shirt and then crept under the sheets to clean her face with a wet cloth and then hugged her.

It was not known how much time had passed by, by the time Lakshmi opened her eyes, she was blinded by the light from the window. After adjusting her vision, she turned her head back and saw Arjun's head leaning on her shoulder while her back was stuck to him.

Lakshmi looked down at her bruised wrists and she twisted her wrist as a painful crack could be heard in the silent room.

She felt his arm moving on her skin. She looked down at her body.
She pushed the thin sheet away from her, lifted his hand and pushed it away from her waist.

As soon as she stood up, her eyes swept around the floor for a towel but couldn't find one. She pushed her hair back.

" Good morning to you too dear wifey" Arjun said as he looked at his wife's smooth skin, the luscious curls flowed down her back. He was ignored by his wife as she left the bed. He laid down on the bed still staring at her every movement..... from dressing up till she left the room..... how can her every single moment be so artistic and regal? He questioned himself with amusement and a tinge of obsession in those dark eyes.....

Lakshmi entered the kid's room and looked at Fei'er and Noor who were softly snoring.

She approached the wooden cots to wake them up but her steps halted as soon as she saw tears streaming down Fei'ers face in his sleep. A dull ache seeped through her heart.

She got onto the cot and slept beside Fei'er as she slowly patted his back. Fei'er in his sleep, crawled towards the warmth that radiated onto his little body. Lakshmi looked down at Fei'er as he snuggled around her waist with those little arms that couldn't even encircle her completely... She patted his back as if consoling him in his sleep...

Alphonso's words from the previous day raced through her mind...
'This is the most I could do Lakshmi. You know that the kid shouldn't be spared in such a condition. This bargain with Alejandro had cost me a fortune' Alphonso said.

Alphonso felt that the kid wasn't worth it... It was not that Alphonso was heartless but it was rather because he grew up among the worst of the people.... Who values their gains over lives...

Lakshmi slept for another half an hour before waking up the kids. Noor and Fei'er were bathed by her simultaneously in the backyard as the sun shone its brightest. Her worried thoughts could even be seen by the lil Noor. After waking up in the morning, not even once did Fei'er ask for his parents or that hill... She doesn't want him to cry nor does she want him to stay silent like this for the rest of his life.....

She quickly carried the towel-cladded munchkins inside the hall and made them wear their small clothes. Her phone rang twice before she answered the call while she served the breakfast (prepared by Arjun) in plates to the kids, not forgetting to put their small spoons.

After disconnecting the call, she served herself with Upma and chutney before sitting along with the kids. The spoon in her hand almost reached her mouth when her stomach churned and she vomited.

The sour taste almost made her mind go blank for a couple of seconds.

Arjun wearing his suit, preparing himself for the upcoming shareholders meeting while on his phone with his secretary. When he put his phone down, he heard the sounds of retching. He quickly walked out of his room to only find Lakshmi vomiting on her plate as she tried to get up while falling back weakly, trying hard to hold on to the table. 

The kids were startled by seeing Lakshmi vomiting and then being carried by Arjun into the bedroom. Noor held onto her tears as she waddled towards the bedroom.

Arjun fetched a tablet from the cabin and Lakshmi gulped some water along with it before laying back in the bed with her eyes closed. She looked as pale as a piece of paper on the bed...

It took her another half an hour before she regained her senses. As soon as she opened her eyes, there was anger, shock, and doubts filled in those orbs.