AADISH's POV
I push myself off the ground and take one last look at her this closely. I don't want to walk away. The pull I feel towards her is like that of a metal to the magnet. But I have to. So I let out a trembling breath and step back towards the chair.
I sit back down in the chair before the door opens.
The door opens with a bang and I hear several footsteps walking towards me. I do not turn around to see them. After a few seconds a man comes and stands in front of me.
He is wearing a leather belt around his waist, and straight denim pants. I move my eyes up and I see the face of the man who had almost choked her on the road. My eyes almost protrude out of my eye sockets. I continue to glare at him.
"We meet again Mr. Arya." I clench my jaws at his teasing tone. He moves his fingers to his mouth and his other hand moves towards his waist, "I forgot to take an appointment...tsk..tsk.... Should I call your secretary now? Or wait outside your office? Or maybe I should just free your time by taking away something you love the most." Then he looks behind him, " oh! I already did that."
I don't say anything. He grabs another chair and pulls it forward. Then he moves around it and takes a seat. "I was so busy trying to hurt your business, thinking it was all that mattered to you," he pauses and shakes his head and then laughs manically. Moving his left hand forward he hits himself lightly on the forehead. "So stupid of me. A woman has always been the reason kingdoms go down. Of course it had to be your case too."
He turns around and takes a look at Roses. "Poor girl doesn't even know why she is here."
"What do you want?" I ask him.
"Well, a little late to ask that question." He bends forward and wipes the sweat droplets from my forehead. "Funny how the last time I saw you, you didn't even have a hair out of place and look at you now."
I have seen him before. And his voice...I remember it.
"Well both of us have changed vastly from the last time we saw each other." He falls back into his chair and passes me a smirk. "Last time I was begging you for something and today you will beg me for something."
"We have met before," I say, hoping that he will give me something that might help me remember him completely.
"Of course we have... and I don't expect you to remember me. That was exactly what I was counting on. Because had you remembered me, you would have spotted me in your engagement and connected the dots."
He shakes his head. "Seriously I thought it was just for the eyes, loving her. But then, you acted so out of character on the news for her."
His words remind of his malicious motives. He took her because he wanted to hurt me, because he wants to hurt me. It takes everything in me to keep my eyes focused on him, rather than the woman behind him.
"You said you will let her go," I say through gritted teeth.
"I will, once I get what I want."
"And what the fuck do you want?!" I shout. I watch him flinch at the decibels of my voice.
He gets up and holds a fistful of my hair in his fist and pulls my face up. "I wanted a fucking job. I wanted to learn from you. I wanted to be a part of your world." He bends down, "but you didn't let me, so I made it my life's mission to destroy your world."
And it all starts coming back to me. Job. Intern. His face. His prospects. Akhil, that's his name.
How could I forget it? Because I never thought it mattered.
"I interned in your office for two years, not once, not once did I get to meet you. But I was always hoping that someday you would walk down and greet us." Then he spins around on his heel, "but you didn't. I still hoped. Then on our final day of internship, you were there. Giving speeches, encouraging us and telling us that we could achieve the world if we wanted. I was moved." He turns around again and dramatically puts his hand on his heart, "I truly was. I went home, motivation running in my veins and started this project."
I continue to watch him. He can take as much time as he wants narrating and adding dramatic effects to his stupid story, because in reality he is only buying me some more time. Time to keep Roses away from the thought process of his psychotic mind.
"That day I shook your hand for the first time, I showed you my work, told you about my observations of your company and you told me I had an eagle's eye."
The symbol.
"I decided I will become a man like you. You were my idol. 'Never meet your idols', they say," he laughs manically, "but I ignored. I decided to start a startup, since you were impressed by my reports. I named it after the most lethal eagle known to mankind, just because you called me an eagle. I was counting on you to support me. I spent 8 months," he raises eight fingers in the air, "researching and working and preparing a pitch for you. I was passionate." He shakes his head. "The day finally came and I stood outside the company. A company I had worked at for two months. I stepped inside. Your receptionist won't let me go any further, she said I had to wait since I didn't have an appointment, so I did."
He steps back, his face going dangerously still as he puts his hands in this front pocket. "You came, you ignored and left, didn't even spare me a glance. I ran after you, but you didn't listen. I thought you were busy, so I came back again the next day. And surprise, surprise, you ignored me again."
He steps closer and then lowers his body. "When I finally convinced you by sending numerous emails, you told me to see Avinash. And he did. Only to reject my project like it was worthless. He told..," he pauses mid sentence. I raise my head and meet his gaze to find the reason behind the sudden pause. There is hurt, pain and a little emotion in his eyes. He shakes it away immediately and continues, "he told me it wasn't a project worth investing in, that a company like yours would never let a device like mine be a part of their security system."
Is he fucking stupid?
How could a company like ours trust his device? Arya group of companies is one of the top industries of India. We provide technological devices of all sorts. We have the best engineers, best designers and the best team. And every year a bunch of no wits try to hack into it and steal our details. This is the reason Avinash looks after security himself.
He is stupid if he thinks we would have accepted his project — that wasn't tested or approved — for securing our data.
He huffs. "It was a device to shield all your devices and protect your details from hackers or any other threat. It could even detect viruses." Then he tilts his neck to the right, "so, I decided to prove how wrong he was. I did everything I could, but that asshole had some really strong softwares protecting your databases. I could never hack in."
Avinash went to one of the best places to learn what he does and the fact that this guy, Akhil, failed to hack proves it. It also proves that Sidya is a better hacker than him, and that's a huge blow to the trophy sitting in one corner of Avinash's home.
"I came up with something original, it cost me my entire savings to build a design like that. So I retaliated."
Annoyed from his constant complaints I look around myself. Several armed men stand around me. There is no way he did all this without help. If he was just an intern, someone with a no money background, how did he pull all these stunts?
"Where did you get the money from?" I ask.
"Not yet. Let's save that for the last. I like keeping the best bite of the meal for the last you know." He puts his dirty fingers on my chin and raises my face up.
"I planted moles, I paid your people and turned them against you. I had them leak your projects, create hostility at your workplace. I kept hitting you where I thought would hurt the most, but had I known this woman was your weakness, it wouldn't have taken so long to have your arrogant ass on his knees." He laughs.
"Where. Did. You. Get. The. Money. From.?" I say through clenched jaws. I am five seconds away from losing my temper. He did all this, because we, a multi billion rupees company, refused to let his startup handle the security of our systems. What kind of stupid does that? A maniac.
A devilish grin spreads all over his face. As he opens his mouth to speak, a deafening voice emerges from behind and he stumbles backward, his face covers with utter shock. My eyes instantly move up and down his entire body.
The room is badly lit and he wears a black shirt, so it's nearly impossible to make out what hit him. But then he grips his left shoulder and stumbles backwards in pain. I watch the scarlet red colour of blood covering his fingers and the back of his palm. Another bullet hits him on his right bicep and a guttural scream of pain and agony leaves his trembling lips.
I turn around and watch all the men raising their guns and turning backwards. One of them moves forward towards me, while the other tries to reach for Vanie. And that is when I get up.
I have had enough. I have heard enough. I still want the name of the man who funded him, so I take a quick glance at Akhil lying down on the floor to ensure that he is still breathing. I step forward, my hands still tied, and extend my leg forward, tripping the guy heading towards Vanie. Then I hit him in the ribs, making him fold himself in a foetal position.
No one touches my woman. Not when I am there and can break their limbs for doing so.
With all the strength in my body I pull my arms apart and break the ropes tying my hand. I scream as the ropes break. Then I elbow the man who stands behind me.
I turn around and see no one at the door. I frown.
Some of the men run out and I watch them tripping and falling as the sound of bullets fill the air again. I smile. They are here.
I watch Sidya and Avinash step forward, both of them working very efficiently as a team, as they hit, dodge and make their way to me. My eyes immediately look for her. She is still lying on the floor.
Something sharp pierces my heart, the pain of seeing her like this.
I will make them pay, Roses. I won't let them get away.
My eyes look for the man who called her names, who dared to address her disrespectfully.
I ignore everything going around me and head straight for him. Holding his neck in my hand, I lower his head down and bring my right knee up and hit him hard on his nose. He winces in pain and the gun he was holding falls to the ground. The blood from his broken nose starts dropping down on the floor.
"I am going to make you regret every little word that you have ever spoken. You will regret for even having a voice." I hit him again in his jaw with my fist and then knee him in the stomach. "You will pray that you were born mute," I tell him.
My blood boils with rage and anger. The thought that how she would have felt if she heard what he called him shakes my soul and body. She would have been hurt. So I continue to slam my fist in his face. It's only when blood starts oozing from his mouth and nose covers my knuckles, and his body starts shaking with pain, that I stop.
I look around and watch the shitshow going around me. My eyes fall on the one lonely corner of the room, where she lies lonely. I still don't know who funded it. So, I head towards the man responsible for all this, lying on the floor as one of his own men steps on him in hurry. I hold him from his collar and bring him forward. "Tell me the name!"
A vein in my head throbs with anger, pain, and the need to get to her. I had let anger guide me for long enough, now I need to let my love for her guide me. And my love for her tells me she needs to be tended, she needs to be taken to the hospital and brought into senses. She needs to know she is okay, she is safe and I am with her, that she is not alone.
He laughs. "You....ahhh.. will never know."
I hit my knuckles in his face. "Don't play with me."
"Fucking let him go," Avinash growls from behind me.
"It was her father," Sidya says loudly. Her voice echoes in the entire room.
Her father.
Her fucking father.
The man who gave birth to her.
I freeze.
Why?
"Now go and take her, we will explain everything later," Avinash shouts.
The words hit my ears, and everything that happened starts flashing in front of my eyes. It was her father, but why? Why would he put his own daughter in such danger?
I remember the way she choked for air in this man's hold. Akhil's arm around her neck as he cut her air supply off.
His daughter couldn't breathe because he was after all this.
"Why?" I pull the pathetic human lying in front of me as I scream at him.
He starts laughing through his pain. Evil grin spreads all over his face as tears smear down his cheeks. He is hurting, but he is enjoying it.
"There is so much you can make someone do when you keep giving them what they want." He laughs harder and tries to fold on the floor, trying to hold his shoulder with his injured arm. "So...fool...ish." He coughs. "And the best part...," his eyes glisten with victory, "he didn't even know. And you could have never guessed it. After all...why..," he pants. "....why would a man put his own daughter in a condition like this? Why would a man—."
I hit him across his face. I am done listening to him.
I turn around and grab the gun lying down on the floor. A man lies next to it, his fingers wrapped around the gun. I snatch it from his hold and turn around. Then I stand up and empty the magazine in his arm. The one that was around her neck.
Once I am done, I turn around and watch two stern faces watching me. Sidya and Avinash.
"He tricked her father," Sidya says.
I don't fucking care.
"Take her. We will follow right behind you." Avinash throws keys at me.
Catching them, I run towards her. Her eyes are closed but they flutter lightly. She is still there. I collect her in my arms and run towards the door, ignoring everything else. If she is okay, everything else will be too. But if something happens to her, my entire world will break apart and all that will be left of me are ashes.
Because I'd die with her. A life without her isn't life, it's a cage, a prison that would suffocate me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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