Cabir's Pov:
Dammit! Is that how we hit rock-bottom!? none of us had any clue how we could redeem yourself at this point. We have absolutely nothing to put up for people..nothing!
" Checkmate Malhotra" Shekhawat whispered down to Manik walking past him, it took every ounce of me and Nandini to stop Manik from creating a scene.
Anything said and done impulsively at this point is going to cost us our name which would be a heavier price paid than we can afford, thankfully the meeting dispersed for next fifteen minutes.
Manik's entire being screamed rage, I have never seen him losing his calm this bad ever. And that scared me, I have seen his worst heights of anger the one right now could kill and bury the duo bluntly glaring and smirking at us with triumphing their little victory.
We draagged the rigid writhing in anger and reluctant figure of Manik out the conference room and beyond the eyes of the contemporaries, frutive enough drawing minimum attention of the hunger gossip mongers.
" How the fuckkk!!!" yeah, he yelled, as soon as we were pretty distant loud enough to make us shudder a little even though we saw something coming.
" Ughh....!" He ran fingers through his hair aggressively clutching them tight while me and Nandini exchanged worried glances with for what would follow.
" I will kill those bloody Shekhawat's how dare they...how fucking dare they!" Roaring he lashed his anger out on a vase nearby thrashing down to innumerable pieces.
" Manik...Listen.." that was just a futile attempt for some damage control but it was too late
" Nooo! Cabir I won't! This is probably the most helpless I have felt after di's death! I ain't listening...they shouldn't have done that. They shouldn't have messed with me this bad. This time, it is them who aggravated my anger. This time there is no forgiveness for betrayal." He looked ferocious, almost lethal to even speak to. His face pale red, fist clenched and entire body trembling with anger.
" Manik, right now we need to focus on the immediate at hand, what are we going to present we have people looking out for our work we cannot go there with nothing, it will defame Infinity, we have a few of our investors here...we can lose it all Manik! This won't work if you aren't sane enough to handle things with sheer pragmatism. Shekhawat's can be handled later right now we need to save ourselves...or else, I don't know about them but we will definitely be doomed." I jerked him to face me and spoke clear to bring him out of his rage. We need him, him to be sane if we have to work this out.
If we lose this we might lose so much more, it was a risk we stayed oblivious to until now. This time somewhere deep in my subconscious I could feel a subtle mockery at the irony of the situation, here we were with an apparent full proof plan to destroy a certain someone and in the matter of hours, everything flipped for us...from planning a destruction to fighting for survival we did came a long way, we never saw the road we took could lead us to.
Maybe Avya di was right, it is really intentions that matter. No matter what Manik said we knew he couldn't just let go of Shekhawat's like that, he sure did figure a loop out but that was indeed a mere twisting of words. We were being unfair to ourselves.
He heaved a deep exasperated breath before pinching the bridge between his eyebrows as if regaining his composure, stood slumping to the table prior home to the now scattered vase.
Few minutes and he spoke,
" We need to find the culprit Cabir!" I looked at him horridly gaping at his words.
" Manik that can be done later, we need to plan for something right now we have hardly 10 minutes in hand." he groaned roughly.
" Cabir what can we do, it took us months to prepare and you think we can bring uo something remotely good enough in 10 freaking minutes. Have you lost it!" he yelled, frustrated.
" So you basically mean, we go out there nothing turning the entire conference room a laugh riot at our incompetency, is that what you want!" I yelled back, this baby Malhotra needs to grow the f up! His stupid anger isn't gonna get us anywhere.
" Think sane Manik please, Infinity needs you today more than it ever had."
" Alright! Alright...let's do all that we can, you are right we cannot go there with nothing...no, that is definitely not an alternative. Umm..okay, Cabir call back at Infinity and ask them to mail us the summary we prepared for both the backup and the original presentation ASAP! we sure ain't losing this one...Nandini, you..." We both turned to look for Nandini but found her nowhere. Giving a 'where's she' glance we had a quick eye Search for her but she was nowhere, which made us both frown.
" Sir...!" It was Manik's PA, he knew about the ordeal and looked flushed as he spoke with heaving breaths.
" Sir, it's impossible for any of the team members working on the backup to leak anything about it, there is no way. All of them on it have been working with us since more than a decade and are extremely trustworthy....Except Aryamaan." Now that had our ears alert.
" So you mean Aryamaan did all this..?" I questioned, frowning at the advances.
" Actually...Sir, there's something you guys need to know." he fumbled his way through, Manik and me exchanged confused glances this prolonged play of words demanded patience that none of us held at this very moment.
He slid his hands through his pocket pulling his cell phone out, making us frown further.
What played next blew the day light out of both of us.
" CCTV footage of two days ago, arena little outside Infinity, we got this from the footage of a store in the vicinity" his words rang in our ears but took it's own sweet time to seep through our senses.
This has to be the unreal, how and why!? No way could this be real.
" Nandini....with Dhruv!"
Qayamat bhi kya cheez hai na,
Na dastak, na aaghaz
Jab mann kiya tab sir uthake aajati hai
Aur sab jala kar chali jaati hai...
~ Fitoor
Hey peeps! I hope y'all liked the update...I know it's a short one...maybe spam this one with votes and comments and get a new ASAP!?-❤