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Word Count : 4400 

Target : 120 Votes

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68 | Man & Woman

"I want a divorce."

She clasped her hands behind her back, her formal white shirt peeping out from underneath he black blazer. She had her eyes set on him, her visage blank.

His body ossified for a few seconds, as his lips slightly parted away from each other.

His arms dropped down from over his taut chest as his hands mitted into fists stiffly behind his back. He smiled ever so slightly. "Say that again." He took a step forward in her direction. "What do you want?"

"I said let's get separated." A bright ray of light coruscated over the lenses of her specs, getting refracted through it. "I want a divorce." She tilted her head. "In fact, I need a divorce. I can't live with a man who thinks he is entitled to meddle in my professional space."

He simpered, picked up the envelope from his table, tore off its seal flap, and pulled out a few printed sheets. His eyes waded through the contents of the papers, like two arrows shot from a bow. "You signed them already?" He averted his gaze from the divorce papers to her impassive self.

"I did." She nodded. "You sign them and finish all of this for once and for all too."

His jaw ticked, yet he maintained his sangfroid exterior, smiling at her. "What makes you think that there'll ever be a divorce agreement between us?"

"The moment you sought papers for Raghav sir's transfer to Port Blair, that's the moment a divorce agreement entered the story."

He inclined his head towards the left side of his shoulder. "Raghav sir? Not Raghav this time?" He chuckled. "How sad." He paused, taking off his specs and wiping its glasses off with a kerchief he fished out from his pant pocket. "Now that I think about it, Katoch would have been better off in the holy heavens than in the islands of Andaman and Nicobar, huh? What do you think?"

Rage coursed through her core. "You wouldn't dare."

His towering chassis shook with mirthless laughter the very next second. "I wouldn't dare?" His hands rigidified behind his back as he mocked her, "Come out of your dreamland, wife."

"Just sign the damned papers." She seethed. "I'll get going."

He took another step in her direction. "What about Anirudh?" He whispered softly.

She looked taken aback for a second but straightened her back. "Sign the divorce papers."

All of a sudden something snapped in him as the aura of the Dogra clan's patriarchal office transformed into something chilly. He swiftly heel-and-toed towards her, entered her personal space, restricted her hands tightly behind her back, and leaned in to join their mouths.

She turned her face to the other side. "No."

He didn't retract back; instead, he attempted to turn her face towards himself, firmly clutching the back of her head. "Leave my hand! I said 'no'!" She whisper-yelled. "And you, Dogra sahib, out of all the people, should know the meaning of the term 'no'."

He released her wrists from his hold and immediately took two steps backwards, although still in her personal space. "You can't leave me." His eyes teared up.

"You should have thought about that before using your powers irrationally yesterday to pass his transfer orders, that too in the middle of the case."

His throat constricted as he gulped painfully. "You are ready to abandon us for that man?"

"You are taking it in the wrong way." Her voice persisted in being firm and unwavering. "You should rather say that I am ready to abandon us for an innocent man. There is a difference between these two statements."

"Do you know how I felt when I saw my wife with another man at a club, that too in a torn dress, barely leaving her back for any imagination?" He whispered, planting his palm on her cheek.

"Do you know how I felt when I saw her addressing him by his first name while she still doesn't call me by my name even after six months of marriage?" Their eyes skirmished, night against earth.

"Do you know how I felt when I saw his arm wound around her waist?" He paused, his eyes turning a degree crimson with each passing second. "Do you know how I felt when he addressed my wife as his fiancée? While I am still struggling every day to not let the news of our marriage out?"

His hands shivered. "Do you know how it feels when you wait for someone without any conditions, but when it's the other way around, that person doesn't seem to wait for you at all?"

He gulped again. "Do you know how it feels to always have your gaze set on someone, but when it comes to them, they don't even try to glance at you, per se?"

"Sign. the. papers." She repeated, in a hard tone.

In a second, the vase kept on the escritoire nearby collided against the office flooring, breaking into numerous pieces. "Over my dead body!"

She didn't flinch at all, maintaining her composure. "Behave. You are not a wild animal."

His red-rimmed eyes stared at her as a lugubrious chuckle escaped his lips. "You can take that nonsense back! To burn or to shred or to do whatever you want! But I am not signing those fucking papers!"

"You want to fight for that man?!" He hurled out lividly. "Sure, go ahead! You fight for him; I'll fight for us!"

"You are taking it all in the wrong sense again." She sighed.

"Wrong sense? Am I?" His voice faltered. "Fucking no one, absolutely no one, is aware of our marriage, leaving aside a handful of people! And Raghav Katoch was out there making an announcement about my wife being his fiancée in the club last night, with her in a torn dress and his arm around her waist!" He grasped her jaw, squeezing her cheeks gently. "You are my wife! Not his!"

"And here you are today, handing over these divorce papers to me." He seethed. "For whom? For him only, right? What am I supposed to think then?"

"I have said this before as well." He continued. "I am a territorial man, Inu. Extremely territorial. Not by choice but definitely by situation. And when I see my only hope and life slipping right through the gaps between my fingers, I will do everything in my control to stop them from leaving my side. Absolutely everything."

To her, his eyes looked satanical at this point in time.

"And you won't be able to stop me at all." He added. "No one will be able to."

"My skin crawls every time I see him or any other man around you." He hunched over, matching her height. "My head hurts when I feel their eyes on you. My whole body hurts. Everything hurts. I get this sinisterly murderous urge to wring their necks apart and carve their eyes out."

She gulped but stayed put.

"I know you won't commiserate with this." He looked into her eyes, searching for something. "No one will."

"You should be relieved that the department signed his posting orders instead of a death certificate." He smiled. "And you should thank Karim for that."

She stared at him in a dispirited manner, exhaling heavily. "Why do you make everything about your own self?"

"Yes, I am a rather reserved woman." She trailed off in a soft tone. "Yes, I don't convey or express things like most people or women of my age do, but then if the comfortable silence between us is not enough for you to assure you about my loyalty, aren't my eyes enough? Don't you see anything in them?"

"This is not about loyalty, Hinduja." He countered lividly. "God forbid. Neither have I ever doubted you about something that dishonorable, nor will I ever doubt you about it."

"But to me, it seems so." She replied gently. "Your choice of words doesn't align with the thoughts in your mind."

He instantly touched the platinum band around his ring finger. "I swear on this, I have never doubted you."

She backed of in return, yet her facial expressions screamed nonchalance. "Why is it so hard for you to understand that a thousand men will look at me every day in our lives, but the only man my eyes will look at—is you?" Her eyes turned sheeny. "Just the way a woman looks at her man."

"A thousand other men may harbor the intention to touch me every day, but the only man my hands will reach out for—is you." His breath hitched. "Just the way a woman lets her man touch her."

"A thousand other men may pray for me every day, but the only man I'll ever sing all my prayers for—is you." She smiled feebly. "Just the way a woman prays for her man."

"A thousand other men may lend me their swords on the battlefield, but the only man I'll fight with my sword for—is you."

A drop of tear trickled down his left cheek as his shoulders relaxed.

"Just the way a woman fights for her man." She added softly.

"A thousand other men may let me lead them, but the only man I'll ever let walk two steps ahead of me—is you."

She sniffled as he tilted his forehead against hers. "Dogra sahib, I am a woman of staunch beliefs and moral ethics, and no matter how badly my heart bleeds at times, I force myself to think rationally. I prevent myself from breaking the rules I have set up for myself. But here is the irony: for the first time, I broke a rule for someone—for you."

His eyes narrowed in uncertainty for a second, and then they widened with shock. Realization dawned upon him, "Mal—" He stuttered. "Malvika?"

She neither said yes, nor did she say no. She just continued to look into his eyes, waiting for his earthy brown irises to decode the message behind their obsidian counterparts.

"A thousand men may break their rules for me." She voiced out tenderly. "But the only man I'll ever break all my rules for—is you." She put a halt on her words as a fresh set of tears crawled down her cheeks. "Just the way a woman breaks her rules for her man."

"It's your misconception if you think that I won't wait for you." She sighed. "No matter how many fights we go through, it will still be you I'll return to at the end of the day. It will still be you I will wait for, at the end of the day."

"Then, why have you brought these divorce papers?" He breathed out, his forehead still inclined against hers, in resignation.

"Because you have left me with no choice." She replied. "We are in the last stage of solving the case, and at such a crucial time, you have transferred Raghav sir to Port Blair. Do you know how badly this will affect our pace? We don't have much time left on our hands, Dogra Sahib." She paused, taking a deep breath in. "Trust my judgment when I say that Raghav sir is a good man. Last night, he wasn't aware that we are married, and when you tried to walk towards me in that room, he was just trying to ensure my safety because he saw you as a threat. I addressed him using his name because I was operating undercover, that too with a different name—Naina. I couldn't have possibly called him sir there, could I?"

"Now the choice is yours." She shrugged defeatedly. "Either you sign the divorce papers or you put a halt on his transfer orders now."

He nodded and turned around. Inching closer to the table, he lifted his phone and placed a call to someone, strolling towards the window on the other end of the office.

Two minutes later, he returned and announced. "Done." He faced her. "Now, I want another assurance from your side."

She scrunched her brows together. "I didn't get you."

He walked closer, barely leaving any space between them, mischief dancing in his eyes. "You just said that I am the only man you'll ever break all your rules for, right?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "So?"

"Fine then, break another one. Break another one of your rules." He challenged her with a smirk. "And I'll get all the reassurance I needed."

She smiled, licking her lips, and stared at the floor beneath.

"Time is running out, wife." He teased her. "Quick."

And the very next second, he felt her standing up on her toes. Despite the shock he felt, he bent his waist, matching her height.

He got the sensation of the air she was breathing out, feathering his face. Slowly, he felt something moist, feathery soft, and pulpous on his rough lips.

But before he could even take in and discern the sweet sensation, she retracted back on her feet, avoiding his gaze.

He stood there in a daze for a moment and then swallowed.

Hinduja squealed as the man before her, her husband, heaved her up on his shoulders like a sack of potatoes, strode straight towards the dark brown leather sofa, and plummeted her on top of it. She bounced on the long L-shaped sofa. "Dogra Sahib!" She yelled.

"That's not how you break a fucking rule, wife."

He hovered over her, crawling towards her face, like a viper ready to attack its prey.

She gulped.

"That's not how you fucking kiss." He whispered, creeping closer, and dived straight in, while taking off their respective specs and tossing them in some corner of his office.

And then the mouth of the virile man touched down on the mouth of his feminine woman for a brutal battle. He took hold of her wrists and restricted them on the top of her head while plunging his tongue inside her mouth, twisting it around her tongue, forming a gentle knot. She squirmed and trembled as her teeth clanked against his. The exchange of air resumed to happen through their nostrils and their conjoined mouths.

"Kiss. me. back." He ordered, and she slowly worked her mouth with a faint nod, gasping for air.

The more she writhed under him, the more he devoured her. Her mind echoed with a blank buzzing sound while her swells vehemently rubbed against his hard and tensed sternum. In the due process, his slippery muscular organ inside her mouth traced a pattern on her palate. He then retraced back his tongue and sucked her palely tinted lips, sinking in his incisors into their plump softness. Two drops of warm blood splurged out from her upper lip onto the tip of his tongue as her aching hiss reverberated in the Dogra patriarch's office, followed by his fiercely untamed grunts and the slippery wet lubricious sounds caused by the friction between their moisture coated lips and mouth in general.

Her entire phizog turned a deep shade of rubicund as she felt him kneading his growing arousal against her underbelly.

She struck her fists against his chest, trying to nudge him away. "A—air." Her scarcely audible whisper fell on his eardrums.

Mahadevan immediately withdrew himself from his wife, as her shivery form stared at the chandelier on the ceiling above. She swallowed as her slender index finger touched the blood oozing out of her upper lip, her bosom heaving up and down at a rapid rate.

He chuckled, with his densely dark stimulated pupils set on her, swirling his tongue over his lips completely. "That's how you kiss." He crept closer and collected her in his embrace, pressing her against his torso.

She abstained from meeting his eyes in sheer awkwardness. "I—" She stuttered. "I have to see Anirudh. He is with Poorna or Geeta Didi, probably."

He rubbed the tips of their noses together, while correcting the creases on her shirt. "I'll come with you."

Her cheeks heated up even more, and she didn't dare to even look at him. Instead she strode straight out of the office. He followed her out, caressing the left side of his chest. Something was rushing at an extremely fast rate there.

"Poorna!" She called out.

No one answered.

"Geeta Didi!" She called out again.

She was graced with the same kind of silence.

So, he tailed her as she walked through the great hall and strutted towards the east wing where the in-house quarters for the attendants were located.

"Don't ignore me after this, okay?" He mumbled into her right ear, over her shoulder, as they entered the women's side of the in-house quarters.

She rubbed her face and entered inside, and he stayed back outside.

"Madam!" Immediately, four of the female attendants who were inside the chamber stood up from their respective beds and bowed. Hinduja stepped forward and halted next to the hind legs of the bed on which Geeta used to sleep, a small chest of drawers stationed right beside it.

"Relax." Hinduja waved off her hand. "I am just here to ask about Anirudh. Do you know where Geeta Didi, Poorna, and Anirudh are?"

All four of them glanced at each other. "We don't know, madam, but they are probably in the young master's playroom."

"Oh." Hinduja smiled. "Fine, thank you." And she took two steps back in order to walk out of the attendants chamber. Instead, she felt her pump-clad left foot hitting the hind legs of the bed behind her, as a result of which she tumbled backwards, on the edge of the bed and eventually on the chest of drawers, which crashed on the floor along with her. One of the drawer boxes jutted out, poking her upper back.

"Madam!"

All four women hurried towards her and helped her on to the head.

The chaos inside alerted the Dogra patriarch, who was erect on his feet outside, causing him to rush inside.

"What happened?" The gap between his eyebrows furrowed as he caressed her back. "You okay?"

"Nothing, I just hit my leg there." She pointed her finger at the hind legs of the single bed. "And tripped down. Nothing else."

He nodded as both of them saw one of the attendants picking up the chest of drawers from the floor to place it back in its original locus.

Suddenly, something inside that one drawer box, which had previously jutted out and poked her back during the fall, caught her attention.

She got on her feet at the drop of a hat and lifted the object—a serrated pair of scissors—from the drawer box.

She examined the crisscross-patterned blades of the scissors. The pattern was exactly similar to the v-shaped, teeth-like, crisscross pattern she had seen on the two pieces of wires that were found next to the main electricity supply setup of the manor by the guards four days back when that intruder fiasco happened at night.

It almost felt as if murkiness had swallowed the world around of her. She felt dizzy. Mahadevan witnessed the change of expressions on her visage and supported her back.

"What happened?" He probed.

She finally met his eyes, a knowing look in her eyes. "You knew?" Then her gaze darted back to the bed they were standing next to.

Mahadevan felt an uncanny sensation in the pit of his abdomen.

In lieu of waiting for him to follow her, she directly dashed out of the servant quarters, still holding the crisscross-patterned scissors in her right hand.

"Anirudh!" She yelled as her chassis shook in mind numbing fear.

"Poorna!" She roamed her eyes around the whole place, in each and every corner of the great hall.

"What happened, ma'am?" She heard the frail voice of a young woman from behind, and Mahadevan held her shoulders. "Calm down!" He instructed softly.

She glared at him. "My child is with her! You probably knew everything!" Her svelte frame quivered as she gasped. "And you are asking me to calm down?!"

Then she turned to face Poorna. "Where is Anirudh? Who is he with?"

Poorna looked on in confusion. "Geeta Didi and young master are in the young master's playroom."

Needless to say, the Dogra matriarch darted directly towards her son's playroom, followed by an equally tensed patriarch.

Poorna bolted behind them too.

The moment they entered the long vestibule at the end of which the playroom was located, Hinduja beelined into the playroom.

A bloodcurdling scream resounded within the confines of the Dogra manor as Poorna dropped down on the floor unconscious.

Inside the room, a bloodied, decapitated corpse of a woman sat next to a wall, her back reposed against it, and in her lap was the supposedly sleeping, cherubic frame of the heir of the Dogra clan, blissfully unaware of the carnage surrounding him.

Right beside the headless corpse was a center table, on which lay the gruesomely severed head of the woman the Dogra matriarch had trusted with her everything—Geetanjali.

"Karim!"

"Manoramaa!"

"Gurung!"

Crimson gore was splattered on the wall behind the corpse while a thick carmine stream snaked its way from the body towards the entranceway of the room, yet in a chilling twist, not even a trace of ichor was visible on the chubby little toddler dozing off in the lap of the severed corpse.

Hinduja choked and panted for air. Losing her balance, she dropped down on her knees and helplessly crawled towards her child through the shallow yet thick river of blood, tears streaming down her face uncontrollably. "Laddoo." She cried out softly.

She heard him burping instead.

"Laddoo." She called out again, placing her bloodstained arms around his chunky frame.

He didn't respond.

There was a note kept next to Geetanjali's chopped head, but she just couldn't pluck up the courage to pick it up and read.

"Anirudh!" Mahadevan yellowed and helped her to stand up on her feet "Go out! Go out now! Take him along with you!"

"Anirudh, mera bachha" She sobbed uncontrollably and ran out of the bloodbathed playroom, pressing him close to her chest.

And the kid opened his eyes, rubbing his eyes with his tiny fists. The moment his gaze fell on her, a loud giggle penetrated through the walls of the Dogra manor.

She got out of the vestibule and tumbled down on her knees again, reposing her back to the wall beside her, rocking him to sleep again. "Sleep, my child." She sniffled as he giggled, kissing her on her cheek. "Sleep."

A group of Dogra security personnel rushed into the vestibule led by Karim, Manoramaa and Gurung.

 ***

Roughly two hours later, she stood lifelessly in front of him, her husband.

"Who is it?" She sobbed again. "Who is behind all this? Please tell me."

"You and I, we are both hunting for the same coin—a coin of two sides." He paused, clasping his hands behind his back. "My side and your side—both sides are ruled by different people."

"I don't have any patience left in me anymore!" Fury coursed through her body. "Out with it!"

He sighed heavily, staring at the wall ahead. "My side of the coin is ruled by Jayachandran Bohra. His second in command is Vikram Seth."

Both the names didn't exactly give her a jolt of shock. She was rather expecting to hear these names after the chain of events last night, especially after seeing that tattoo.

"And mine?" She mouthed, taking a step forward.

"That's something I still don't know." He replied. "The syndicate involved in the case you are working on is divided into two factions. One is ruled by Jayachandran and Vikram. As for the second faction, I have no idea about it. I have been working on this and waiting for the right time for years now."

"Geeta was the mole. She was working for Jayachandran?" She tossed her next question at him.

"Yes."

"And you knew about it?" Another sob escaped her mouth.

He looked hither and thither in helplessness. "Yes, I got to know about her real identity two weeks ago."

"And you still let her be around Anirudh?" She held his collar tightly. "How can you?"

He remained calm, his lips curling up feebly. "Because in case, I would have caught Geeta red-handed or confronted her, she would have alerted him and the situation would have escalated out of our hands."  He breathed out. "And believe me when I say this: Bohra can kill anyone in this world, absolutely anyone, but not Anirudh."

"Why?"

He leaned in, "Anirudh is his heir—the legitimate heir to the Bohra group."

Hinduja massaged her glabella. "Now that I think about it, was Geetanjali the one who crushed the faces of those intruders that night to avoid recognition? That's why you were so normal about it? As if you already knew who did it?"

"Yes, I already had a hunch initially." He nodded. "So, when I checked later on, one of the guards told me that she had gone out of the storage room at around the same time when all those things transpired that night, giving an excuse of using the toilet. So, yes, it was her who crushed their faces."

"She was the one who cut the wires of the main supply too?" She added. "The scissors in her drawer had the same crisscross pattern that those wires had."

He nodded.

"But then, who was the person who killed the fifth intruder that night?" She questioned, anxiety crippling her from within.

"That's something even I am not aware of." He responded. "It can't be someone from the syndicate, obviously, because why would they kill one of their own men?" He paused, meeting her eyes. "There are still so many things hidden behind the other side of the coin, to be honest."

x x x x x End Of Part II x x x x x

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