Valley of Flowers

Chapter 23

Khushi raised her hand and slapped him hard across his cheek, using the force of her entire body.

'I should have done this a long time ago,' Khushi spat out. 'You should be ashamed of yourself! You married Di with wrong intentions – for her money! How dare you?

Khushi raised her voice uncaring of who might hear her. 'It was my mistake that I entertained the thought of giving in to your blackmail. I am not going to give you any money. Now get out of this room!'

Shyam held a hand to his cheek, completely flabbergasted by Khushi's rancour. He didn't want Naniji to wake up. He quickly stepped out of the room and looked back at her. 'You know what this means don't you Khushiji?'

'I know!' Khushi spat out in anger. 'I have decided to tell Arnav the truth about what happened when he gets back from Singapore. Di deserves to be rid of a man like you.'

'You think Arnav will believe you over his own mother?' Shyam voiced her own fears. 'Do you think Anjali will believe you over me?'

Khushi shut the door and leaned against it weakly tears streaming down her cheeks.

Shyam Manohar Jha paced about in the living room of his house seething with insane rage. Khushi had slapped him. How dare she? He would have to teach her a lesson she wasn't going to forget in a long time. The phone rang and Shyam's face contorted in anger as he saw the caller id.

'Didn't I tell you to stop calling me?' he barked into the phone. 'Stop threatening me you son of a *****! Remember we are in this together. There has been a delay. That's all. I will have the money in a day or two. I will call you.' He cut the phone.

Khushi refusal to give him the money had put him in deep shit. He needed money desperately.

When Anjali 's dad was admitted in Ashray about a year ago, the state of his mental health had given him the idea that it would be easy to get the old man to sign the will in his name. He knew Anjali had a copy of the original will in which the property was bequeathed to his two children.

But neither sibling cared about the property. Both of them were workaholics who only cared about their work and nothing else. For Arnav, his share of property was peanuts compared to what he made in business and Anjali would probably donate her share to Ashray for the upliftment of the retards she slogged for. But that money would be very useful to him. There had to be some incentive for marrying this Mother Theresa. Once he had made this decision, it had been easy to get his father-in-law to sign the new will in his name.

Getting him out of the way had been the obvious next step. When Dr Manav had changed the BP medication he had explained that the old medication, if continued, would have no effect due to the psychiatric drug he was taking at the time. That would cause a rise in the blood pressure levels, leading to a stroke or a heart attack. This had provided him with the perfect opportunity to get rid of the old man without suspicion. The only problem was that he couldn't have done this on his own. He had been forced to use Raju, the boy who had been assigned to take care of him in the home. He had talked the boy into administering the old medication by bribing him with a mere 1000 rupees. Once the old man had been admitted to the hospital, he had asked Raju to hide out in his remote village in Uttarpradesh --just in case there was an enquiry. Everything had gone according to plan but his relief was short-lived. Raju, had found out that the old man had died and his worthless little pea brain had over functioned, figuring out that he could weasel out more money. And now he called him incessantly demanding five lakhs for his silence. He was considering silencing him in a different way but that would have to wait.

Even though he had the Lucknow house in his name, encashing on it so soon would put him on radar with Anjali .On the night of Khushi's birthday, she had informed him about the will and though he had pretended to be shocked, Anjali 's eyes seemed to be scrutinizing him deeply. And when he had feigned regret over her dad's capricious behaviour, she had conceded with him saying she couldn't believe that her father had changed his will just a month before his death. She seemed upset that Arnav had been cut out of the will. Her sudden attachment to her estranged brother rankled him.