Anjali looked at khushi smiling at her chote, no, Khushi's husband, her heart clenched and she looked away. Betrayal.
They are all betrayed by someone, someone so close to them.
Anjali looked at Arnav again, sighing, hardening her heart, she limped towards the couple.
"Chote." Her words were mere whisper but this time for once, her chote didn't noticed her pain and her heart shivered.
Arnav looked at his di and questioned her what happened but for once, he didn't noticed how her hands shivered.
Anjali looked at Khushi and told her that she'd like to talk to chote alone and khushi nodding her head went off to leave them to talk.
She wondered though, what the siblings would talk about or if there's a problem but chucking her thoughts she went to kitchen continuing her work.
"She cheated us, chote, she lied to us." Anjali cried and her tears fell while Arnav looked at her with his face hardened knowing he wont be able to control himself if he let out even a little wisp of anger. He didn't want Khushi to worry about him at all.
He might injure her in his anger too.
"I saw them, chote, they were sitting together with that cheap husband of mine who planned to kill you and me. Chote..." she wailed, her heart clenched remembering how the pair of adulterers were sitting so close to each other. Shyam, her husband and Sheetal, his sister. They were kissing and talking infront of her grandmother who left them at such a young age.
Planning to overthrow her own grand children. She finally showed her true colors. She was the one who killed their parents. Her father was so true and right and they, they didn't believed him and didn't even prayed for his after life. They rather said bad about him.
Pain was the only thing Anjali could think off.
"All you have to do is enter their place and that limping bimbo's heart and voila, you will be able to take as much money as you want." Shyan spread his hands and talked in his most mocking words. Kindness? The bitch is not kind but rather an idiot, idiot with money.
"I met her once and then I planned it all, slowly but steadily I made her my slave and now, even if there's a mosquito that bit me, she would go all fussing on me. Caring, tender and loving, she did everything like a housewife. But you know what made me never love her, her chote. She would look at me, like I am her world but she would look at him like he is her everything, like her universe, I am just the planet that roams around in place but I am forgotten when her chote is in problem. Her chote this! her chote that! Everything about that Arnav Singh Raizada, why? Because he is her chote." Shyam sneered everything out of him and then looked at sheetal.
"She provided the comfort I needed, the love I wanted and everything was in place. I was able to extort money and i was able to get momentarily pleasure but what shocked me was, her chote got married and that too when I wasn't there. She remembered her chote but where was her husband? She didn't cared." Shyam squeezed the word out of him as he looked at Anjali's dadi, Subadhra Malik.
"Now all I need, is for that pretty chote to sign these papers and then, I will have everything I want but before that I'll need to go to their place and start thinking of how to get these signs." Sheetal smiled at her husband, her lover. Not Anjali's, she chanted in her brain as she remembered how he looked interested in that limped twat.
"Anju and Arnav, they and that maid's son are the property owners, how will you take sign of everyone." Subadhra questioned with disgust shining in her eyes seeing the two acting like that in front of her.
"Only Arnav's signs are needed. Anjali has already signed a month ago but sheetal fell from stairs, so I had to go back to her." Shyam touched the mark on Sheetal's forehead and smiled at her.
Anjali looked at her chote, and cried her eyes out while her chote held her close and he calmed her down.
"Di, nothing will happen, I'll make everything alright, nothing and nobody can harm us. I'll make sure of that. They wanted to cheat us, I'll make sure they would fear at the word Raizada." Arnav held his sister close and closed his eyes to let some tears fall.
Khushi knocked on the door and called for the siblings to come down for dinner and they both looked at eachother wiping their tears, and smiling at the girl who had flour on her face, they went to dining table and took their seats.
"Khushi, I want to talk to you after dinner. Finish your work quickly." Khushi looked at Arnav and nods her head at him.
Anjali looked at khushi and smiled at her, how and why, even Anjali didn't knew.
"Khushi..." Arnav smiled at his own self, he noticed how his voice shivered, how his heart thudded, how his tendrils curled just to have her in them, in their reach.
Khushi was pulled into a hug as soon as she entered and she too let herself be held closely, accepting that she thrusted for him, for his tendons holding her close, for his heart close to her ears, for him to be in her reach.
It was weird for khushi, how she forgot about the dangers of heart thudding and acidity. Ab shayad dar nahi lagta... (maybe now, there's no fear.)
Arnav smiled and held her close before pulling her to recliner as the other Raizada brothers and Anjali entered the room.
