Betrayal ripped her heart as she heard aunty talk to Riya, the familiar feeling of betrayal tore her apart. She tried to control the tears that were threatening to spill.

She fisted her hands and controlled herself. She hated crying. She believed it was for the weak. Yet, every night she cried. That was different, she explained herself.

At night, she cried for the injustice that had happened to her. To the unfair life she was gifted with. But she would never show her weakness by crying for people. She believed it was beneath her to cry for others, to cry because someone emotionally hurt you. She took pride in this because even a powerful man like Salem had cried. He had cried for her love, even begged for her love.

She knew her bliss was too good to be true. Her bubble of happiness which lasted for a month had come to an end.
She wanted to question Mrs. Sharma. Why was Mrs. Sharma snatching her little moments of peace and happiness? If she wanted to snatch her shelter, why give it to her in the first place?

But this time, Pari wanted to do something different. In all these years, Pari had only blamed others and barked bitter words, even at her loved ones. But in this moment, Pari wanted to be graceful. Maybe, this was God's way of testing her patience and grace. Maybe, God want to test if Pari had grown from the bitter person which she always regrets being.

"It's okay, Mrs. Sharma. I understand why you feel threatened keeping me here. But I would like to....thank you for what you offered - this home, your company, a good friend like Nia and some happy memories. I will always treasure the time I spent here." She chose to look at the positive things.

Oh, how her Papa would have been happy if he saw how his daughter handled things just now! Even though, she wanted to scream and yell at Mrs.Sharma for doing this to her, she controlled herself and tried to look at the good things that had happened to her. But she couldn't pretend anymore that she was actually fine with whatever she had heard, she turned around left for her bedroom, controlling her tears.

Pari may be a b*tch, but she was never a pretentious bi*ch.

*

The door rattled, unable to take the force with which it was being pushed and kicked. A few more kicks and the drunk voice was heard.

"Pari, open the door."
Salem's drunk state called his wife.

"Pari, open the door."

"Pari, open the door."

He slurred his words and the name of his lover. His right hand turned into a fist as his hand in the air went forward to punch the door with great force but a hand stopped him from punching the door and hurting himself.

He looked towards the owner of the hand to find his loyal bodyguard Tiger.

"Sahab, you will hurt yourself. The door is locked." Tiger said in a meek voice. The otherwise tough and strong Tiger only bowed to Sahab and his Queen. Only they had the privileged of seeing this meek version of Tiger.

"My wife...she is inside. I want her. Pari, open the door." He attempted to kick the door again but Tiger held his body back and made him sit on the couch.

"Sahab, Queen is not here." Tiger knew it was pointless to make a drunk Salem understand. But the truth remained that Pari's room was empty.

She usually stayed in that room, avoiding Salem and locking it. Although, the lock was of no importance on days when Salem needed her. He would open it with the keys. Tiger never understood why Pari would lock the room when they knew if Salem wanted, Salem always opened it and the lock was futile. It must have been the false sense of security that the locked room provided to Pari, concluded Tiger.

"Get me her. Get me her, Tiger." Salem passed out within moments. It was the same thing that happened in the past week. Salem would drink out of hand in the nights, ask Tiger to get Pari and the next morning deny his drunken orders.

It puzzled Tiger and all the staff who closely work with Salem on how he  didn't go berserk over Pari's absence yet.

The next morning, Tiger diligently asked Salem if he should work on his orders from last night and find Salem's wife but again Salem only denied. However, this time Tiger couldn't keep his curiosity down. He dared to ask Salem the reason. In the past few years, Tiger remembered the times Pari had attempted escaping and Salem's rage over her attempts but he was never this calm and unbothered. If Tiger didn't know Salem, he would have been convinced that Salem is unbothered about his wife and her absence but who better than Tiger to know Salem's obsession with Pari.

Pari was not Salem's first girlfriend. He had so many women before her. Salem is still considered the most charming and handsome man and women try all the tricks in the book to make Salem theirs. What they didn't know is that they would need to compete with a certain eternal beauty who has captured Salem's heart.

When Tiger got no response, he repeated the question again.

"Why are we not searching for queen, Sahab?" He asked.

Salem smoked his cigarette and let out the puff, looking all relaxed and no hint of hangover.

"Because if I find her, this time, I might actually kill her."

-----------

22/05/23

I had no plans of update but I didn't want to be lazy and I actually wrote this while laying on the bed. So, I apologise for any grammar and spelling mistakes.

please vote and comment!!

You all wanted Salem's POV, so I included it, otherwise there was no Salem's POV. That would actually come very much later in the book and not so early. But you guys always ask for Salem, so had to do this :)