My Ruination

Chapter 4.

~Zaeden~

6 months. 6 months I spent scavenging and hunting details on her, her life, her identity and her existence. The curiosity turned into madness, an uninvited distraction. I lived every sleeping and waking moment, sowing and cherishing the seeds of acquisitions, of capturing all of her for myself, of controlling every aspect of her life so no one ever has the audacity to survey her life I had, like I could.

Her cucumber melon scent invaded the living room as she entered the living room, an emergency and panic in her strides. She was wearing a black hoodie and jeans that soaked brightly against her golden-brown skin, her brown hair tied in a half-bun like the very day 6 months ago.

"What the hell is happening here?" She muttered in her terror-stricken throaty voice as the scene unfolds before her and recognition flickered in her eyes. This was supposed to a reception party for her  brother, Rudra's wedding, swarming with billionaires and A-list celebrities but I had turned this as my altar as her family were forced to sit in a circle and my men holding a gun to each of their heads.

"Maahi, why did you come here?" Rudra growled at her as my man shoved the barrel of the gun onto his bleeding wound on the forehead. He was the most difficult to subdue, out of all the family and he was paying sufficiently for his bravado.

Maahira gasped but she quickly managed to composed herself and trailed off, "Why do you mean why am I here? Dad called me. But who are these people?" She ended her statement as her eyes land on me.

It was impossible to hide the pungent smell of blood and fear from the predator. Her facade was transparent because I noticed how her ears turned red, the small artery in her neck thumped wildly, popping out. The horror in her expressions provoked my worst, my carnal desires and rabid thoughts.

"Zaeden. What are you doing here? Why the hell are you holding my family captive?" She interrogated, her voice margining impatience and annoyance.

"6 months ago, you saved my son and refused to accept money as a token of my gratitude." I rose on my feet, buttoning my suit jacket and continued,
"But Zaeden Kaushal does not remain indebted to anyone. I am simply here to repay the favor you had done."

Obliviousness followed by surprise made her family stare at each other and at her like she was a mystical, unknown creature standing before them. Their assumptions ranged from her plotting against them to her inviting grave danger upon herself, both of which are possible for me to fulfill.

"By holding my family in their own house against your gunpoint?" Contradiction and defiance was re-installed in her tone, the one I so clearly remembered from the day of the fair- the insubordination and the indiscreet disgust for my methods.
This is getting better.

"You are a difficult woman to reach, Maahira. Your father had perfectly wrapped the proof of his disloyalty from the public eye and made you untraceable." I had apparently struck a sensitive nerve because she winced and recoiled, her courage dispersing through cracks and crevices.

Keshav Damani was an aristocrat, born with a silver spoon in the mouths of three generations of his ancestors. They were reputated in London for their medieval and strict authoritarian principles. Bragging about the daughter he had conceived through a one-night stand while fathering two kids of his own wasn't in the cards for him. His life would be uprooted and the family business shredded if the world gets to know about his debauchery.

"That is none of your business, bastard. Stay away from my sister. You will be getting what you want over my dead body." Rudra defended his stepsister without bothering his life but his wife, Athira pleaded with him to control his tongue.

"Well, I am here now. What do you want from me?" Her voice shook as the pools of honey filled up with unshed tears, threatening to flow down her cheeks any minute. She had to know that I was no gentle man. I was a chauvinist, not chivalrous. My intolerance for insubordinate behavior usually resulted in bloodbath and mutilated body parts.

My lawyer unlocked his briefcase and handed the papers to him. I set them on the glass center table and instructed, "Sign these papers and let the officiant do his job and your family walks out safe and sound. If you disagree with this or fail to do so, you will be responsible for 6 murders."

The precarious reality of the situation settled in her gut as she took slow, cautious steps towards the papers and holds them in her hands. She reads the words on the head meticulously and repeatedly, hoping they were just a figment of her imagination. But they were not.

"You...you want me to marry you?" She whispered almost inaudibly but I cannot provide her with the necessary time required to process this news. I have patiently waited for six months and that ends tonight. If she returns to a home tonight, it's going to be my mansion as my wife.

"I am aware that's what marriage contract imply." I pulled out the ring, the mangalsutra and the vermilion from the insides of the suit and that is when she seems to lose her sensibility. She dumped the papers at the table as she slowly backed up, staring at them like she was holding an explosive, the one had imploded on her face.

"No. I am not signing these papers." She shook her head vigorously, "I am not getting married to you. You cannot blackmail me into doing this." The tears seeped out of her eyes as she keeps glaring at the papers.

"You have been provided with choices and every choice has consequences." I set the nuptial insignias on the table as I accelerated her denial to be thawed to defeat, "So, who should we begin with? Your father? Or your sister?" My men cocked the guns off their safety at the mentioned people, filling the room with a clicking sound.

"I saved your son from that riot. I jumped into that crowd without a second thought. And this is how you choose to pay back,you ungrateful psychopath." She spat, the disgust and the hatred settling prominent roots within her. I was used to receiving backlash and unacceptance because my practices clashed with their beliefs and I was dulled enough to not care.

"Shut up, you bitch. Shut the fuck up. We accepted you into our homes after your harlot mother disappeared on her own filth, fed you and brought you up and you dare stab us in the back? Sign the papers so we can get rid of you." Her stepmother, Suman, ground out and sniped in a shrill voice. She was an upper class woman, wrapped in pearls and a sophisticated background but all that laid under those layers were frivolity and insubstantiality. Her behavior doesn't surprise me but her tyranny was going to end now.

"Maahi, you are not going to touch those papers. Back off." Rudra ordered.
"Yes, Maahi. This is against your wishes, it is simply wrong." Arjun, her brother-in-law, prompted as he held his sobbing wife in his arms.

"Don't do this, Maahi. We will deal with what comes next even if it means sacrificing our lives. But this is not something you can embrace." Antara managed to choke out between her sobs and they start chanting their disapproval like a propaganda. But she remained silent. And her father.

She was backing out subconsciously but Harrison was standing behind her, blocking her path. The choice, even if ridiculous, was a pretense. It was a shield I had so graciously provided her to shield her from traumatizing her with my dominance and tyranny. If she resists beyond this, I will kill her family and drag her out of here as my wife.

She shoved her hand under the hoodie towards her stomach. I presumed she was facing stress cramps but my defiant little brat pulled out a gun as she shoved Harrison before her, choking him with an arm around his neck and the gun pointed at his temple.

Women weren't raised to be so ill-tempered and disobedient in our society. They were bound with restrictions and regulations, caged in backward practices like not stepping into the corporate world or being shipped off to their husbands by 22 and provide the families with heirs.

I sighed heavily with disappointment and turned, walking into one of the guest rooms of the mansion. Maahira could be a warrior as long as she desired but I will always be her jailer.