Gone Rogue

02 . d i s m a y

❝Said every man who later fell for a dramatic one.❞
—Alisha Hegde
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"SETH FOR THE LOVE of God, don't talk." Alisha yelled at Seth who had been chanting the name of Luthra in horror from the moment they left the casino room.

At the moment, they were headed for the CBI building. The building was located a long way behind an industrial enterprise to attract less attention. There were digital inputs that scanned the person from head to toe before they could get into the premises.

As soon as Alisha and Seth walked into the building, all eyes flew in their direction. Some even stepped out of their seats. Alisha couldn't help but notice people staring at her as she sprinted with a light palpitating pain in her lower leg. Some eyes were friendly, while others were excited waiting for the show which was about to happen.

"Alisha, he's going to kill us. WE ARE SCREWED!" Seth repeats for the hundredth time and Alisha fights the urge to slap him in the middle of the department.

"Alisha!" Shruti, Luthra's personal assistant, rushes towards her when they arrive at the other side of the department.

"What the hell have you'll done?"

"How did Luthra—I mean, sir—take the news?" Alisha asks in her professional tone. Seth never understood how she held it together.

"He's been strangely calm since he heard about it. His silence has put the entire department into a scare zone." She mumbles on. "Alisha, out of all the people, he had some blind trust on you. I don't think he's happy that his favourite agent has failed him. You were the only hope—"

"I wasn't his favourite,"  Alisha cuts her off. "My dad was his favourite. That doesn't mean he likes me. Get your facts straight."

Her father, Kamal Hegde, was among the finest officers of his day. He and Luthra had worked together on a billion missions together and they hardly ever failed. After her dad died seven years ago, she dropped out of college and joined her dad's profession. She She never really had any major missions, but she always fulfilled the tasks assigned to her.

Shruti nervously looks at her as she fidgets with the hem of her top. Getting yelled by a senior was never easy when literally everyone around you could see it happening.

"I—," she begins in a panicky tone. "I'm really so—"

"Cut her some slack, Hegde."

The deep voice of the department's most toughest and impassive agent, resonates in the room.

Alisha sighs and turns to the man who could put every person in the room at their feet if and when he wished.

Rajveer Chhabra was everything between the lines of a good and a bad boy. Normally, he had a professionally formal approach to everything and everyone around him. He was a gentleman to every girl in the department and he would never bring down a colleague.

But there was one thing that every member of the agency knew about him: never put yourself on the wrong side of this guy. He could bring you hell.

"I'm not gonna take orders from you, Chhabra," she says and he shakes his head as his lips somewhat twitch.

"I'm not ordering you, Hegde. It's just that you failed and now you're taking it out on everybody else just like you always do. It's not our fault, you know," he said simply, bending his arms against his broad chest.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" She looks for a hint of humour in his eyes and then swiftly grabs a newspaper from the desk near her and throws it at him.