The Revenge Games Read online

How the hell can that be remotely possible?

  Her mind rebelled at the connection. But if she were to spend time questioning every new development in her life for the last couple of decades, she would have gone mad.

  With trembling hands, she splashed water on her face in the ladies restroom.

  She heard the door open and saw a woman enter the powder area. The woman stood next to her, and placed her handbag on the countertop before pulling a small make-up kit.

  “So you are Ajay Manthena’s wife?” the woman asked.

  Sia turned to look at the woman, to smile at her politely, but her body went on alert as she recognized that particular woman.

  “You probably don’t remember me that well. I’m Smitha Gopal. I was with Geeta Naidu when you saved her life at the restaurant,” she said, while continuing to re-touch her make-up.

  When Sia didn’t respond, the woman shook her head, smiling.

  “It’s quite strange how life works. Kranthi probably doesn’t know that it was Ajay’s wife who had saved his mother that day. He was extremely grateful and wanted to thank you in person. I should definitely tell him—”

  “No. That’s not really necessary,” Sia interrupted her. “I didn’t do much.” Except almost poison your friend and plant a tracker in her handbag.

  “No. No. You saved her life. And believe me, Geeta, Kranthi, and even Ajay will be thrilled to know that fact. Apparently, they go way back,” said the woman.

  Sia’s polite smile froze, and she felt it in her gut that her world was going to come crashing down with the woman’s next words.

  “I wasn’t aware that Ajay knew the Naidu family that well,” she remarked casually, with great difficulty.

  The woman smiled. “Oh yes, Ajay knows them well. They are from the same village. Ghadhwaal. And apparently when Ajay lost his parents, Mr. Naidu, who is Geeta’s husband, sponsored Ajay’s education, until The Colonel adopted him. Geeta had once told me that she and her husband are quite proud of his success, and consider him their protégé. He keeps in touch by making anonymous donations to their children’s charities.”

  Sia’s legs almost collapsed under her. She supported herself by holding on to the hard granite countertop, and stared at the woman blankly, trying to process the words that were spoken in the last few minutes.

  Impossible. No way. This cannot be true.

  But she knew it was true.

  Her mind ran through the possibilities.

  The way they first met.

  The way he was always turning up in her life.

  There was no such thing as too many coincidences. He had even made a joking reference about that fact to her. But she was too blinded by him to analyze that.

  He had always known who she was.

  She threw up as soon as she realized that fact.

  “Oh my god! Are you alright?” she heard the woman asking in a concerned voice.

  Her entire world was splitting apart. So, no. She wasn’t bloody alright.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  AJAY WAS WAITING frantically outside the women’s restrooms.

  When he saw a familiar woman rush out with concern on her face, his heart thudded in fear.

  “Ajay, I think your wife is not well. You should take her home or to the hospital,” she said.

  “Thank you Mrs. Gopal. I think I will,” he assured her and rushed inside.

  Heart pounding with dread, he walked towards the resting area.

  Sia was leaning over the counter.

  Her eyes looked wild and she looked close to manic. She was crying and sobbing, and repeatedly saying no.

  She was checking something on her phone in distress.

  He had never seen her behave that way before. And even as he went closer to her, she didn’t notice his presence.

  “Sia,” he called her softly, so he didn’t startle her.

  She froze, and then as though coming out of a trance, she looked around in a horrified manner, and then slowly she raised her eyes to look at him.

  The look in her eyes destroyed him, and he felt his whole world tilt.

  Moving towards her hurriedly, he held her in a hug by wrapping his arms around her.

  “No!” She screamed, trying to jerk away from him. Her phone dropped from her hands and she began struggling to reach the phone on the floor.

  “Stop,” he told her gently.

  But she screamed again, this time in a high-pitched wail that ripped out his heart.

  She tried to shove him away. Hard. But he braced himself and continued to hold her close.

  “Stop.” He commanded her in a controlled tone. “Calm down for a minute.”

  She stopped struggling immediately, and became limp in his arms. He took her towards the seating area where a few chairs were available.

  She didn’t resist.

  Placing her on one of the chairs, he knelt down in front of her. But she wasn’t looking at him.

  “Sia. Baby, please don’t cry,” he said as he wiped away her tears. He hated seeing her lose control this way.

  “Baby, look at me,” he said, holding her face between his hands, and lifting her chin,

  She stared at him, and then he saw it happening.

  Her eyes going blank. She was disappearing behind the cold mask she used to wear during their initial days of marriage.

  “How could I ever think of risking justice for all those helpless victims? Including myself. And all that for what? For having a chance to be with you and to protect you.”

  He didn’t reply, because he didn’t understand what she was talking about. And her deadened tone was worrying him.

  “Sia—”

  “You knew who I was right from the beginning,” she stated, rather than asked.

  His heart stopped. How did she find out? He hadn’t kept papers or any kind of evidence around him.

  “Answer me,” she said with an eerie calm. “Did you already know who I was, before you had met me?”

  His heartbeat sped up, even though he had known and prepared for such a day to arrive.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I’ve always known about you.”

  She stared at him for a few seconds.

  “For how long?” she asked.

  “Since I was eight,” he replied.

  She paused, and then took a deep shuddering breath.

  “What was your name before you were Ajay Manthena?” she asked.

  He watched her quietly, and then answered her. “Ajay Chandra.”

  Sia’s mind immediately ran through the large database of names that were associated with her uncle and the village. Chandra…Chandra…Mrs. Sita Chandra.

  Her teacher.

  “You are Sita Chandra’s son,” she stated.

  Her teacher’s image flashed in her mind. Her teacher’s words and her dimpled, warm smile had always made her feel safe and secure.

  Ajay was the spitting image of his mother. His familiar dimples and smile had lulled her into a false sense of security whenever he was around her.

  “Listen to me Sia, it’s not what you think,” he said, inhaling a deep breath as panic slowly crept into him.

  He gently brushed aside the hair falling on her face, and tucked it behind her ear.

  She flinched at his touch, but he forged ahead determinedly.

  “You and our baby are the only things that matter the most to me. I stopped caring about what happened in our past during our childhood. After I met you again, I decided to let it all go, and start over to make new memories with you.”

  She scoffed with a cold look. “How noble of you. But you still don’t know the half of it,” she said. “Do you want to know the most pathetic thing?” she asked.

  He didn’t reply.

  “Me,” she said. “I was going to tell you the truth about myself. Because I wanted to trust you. I felt you completed me. And I wanted you by my side when I fought against the whole fucking world. Because I felt safe with you. And I felt happy and loved. But it was all a lie. A fu
cking lie.”

  “It’s not. I—”

  “How did you know I was alive or where I lived?” she asked.

  He wanted to pull her into his arms, and hold her, and force her to listen to him completely. But the look on her face stopped him. She looked as though, she was barely hanging by the thread.

  “While you were presumed dead due to drowning, you were actually placed inside my house. My mother was the one who had helped you disappear. A few days later, she was informed of your adoption by a woman who lived in Boston.”

  “I see,” she said, even though she didn’t.

  He held her hands in his. “Sia. Baby please listen—”

  “Do you also know why I married you in the first place?” she asked, cutting him off.

  He paused. “Yes. Some of it. According to your grandfather’s will, if you have a child by the time you turn twenty five, you can claim your inheritance that’s currently being managed by your mother’s brother.”

  “Ah…my dear old mother’s brother. You already know who he is. And apparently, you are also his favorite protégé,” she said bitterly.

  He paused, and then said, “Yes.”

  Pushing his hands away from her, she watched him closely.

  Her phone began to vibrate on the floor, a few feet away, but she ignored it.

  “Why were you targeting me specifically?” she asked.

  He closed his eyes, and then taking a deep breath, he opened them to look at her. “Because you lied about something as a child. You told my mother and everyone that your cousin was abusing you. And my mother fought on your behalf, thinking that it was the truth. But when it was clearly proven as a lie, my mother was fired from her job, and she couldn’t find another one. Everyone at the village disrespected her, and abandoned her. She felt she had no choice, but to kill herself in shame and defeat. For several years, I held you solely responsible for making her take that drastic step and leaving me. You made me an orphan by destroying the only person I loved—with your lie.”

  She watched his face as he narrated the events of his past. And when he was done, she made another soul-destroying discovery.

  “You hate me,” she stated.

  He didn’t reply or contradict that statement in anyway.

  “You planned and arranged most of our initial meetings, because you were targeting me for revenge.”

  She couldn’t believe she had been so naive when it came to him.

  “You pretty much succeeded, because I was a desperate, blind fool, who fell for your act. You demanded my heart and my trust, even while you hated me, and pretended to help me survive and fight my demons. You were playing with me, biding you time until our baby is born,” she said.

  She watched him icily as he stared at her in silence. The sound of her phone vibrating again was the only noise in the room.

  “Answer me!” she demanded. “Did you do this because you hated me?”

  Ajay knew he’d crush his wife with the truth. But it was too late now.

  He looked into her eyes as he replied to her with the truth. “Yes. I met you because I hated you. I’ve hated you most of my life. My hate for you was what drove me forward, and made me achieve things that a normal child wouldn’t even think of doing. I hated you so much that it became my very reason for living. My only ambition, even as an adolescent was to find you and destroy you.”

  If Sia weren’t sitting, she would have collapsed as she listened to Ajay’s impassioned speech.

  But slowly, her eyes hardened even more, as she began pulling every reserve of strength she had to the surface.

  “I see,” she said calmly.

  “No Sia, you don’t. Because it all changed when I met you again in person. I started to fall for you. I love you and I want—” he began.

  She cut him off. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about what you feel or what I felt before. I’m done thinking such shit. All that matters now is the reason I did all of this.”

  “Do you know why I came back to India in the first place?” she asked.

  “Yes. Because you want to get back at your cousin for abusing you when you were a child,” he said softly.

  She looked at him for a few seconds, betraying nothing on her face. “No. My cousin never abused me as a child,” she told him in a quiet monotone.

  Ajay was stunned.

  “Then why are you so driven about going after him? I had him investigated as well. I have been tracking his every movement from the past one year. And I couldn’t find anything suspicious about him so far…” his voice trailed off as dread crept into him at the look on her face.

  She smiled. And it wasn’t a pleasant or a happy smile.

  “That’s because it wasn’t my cousin I was after. It was his father, my mother’s brother. My beloved uncle was the one who stole my innocence, raping me from the age of eight until I turned nine. And your mother was the only person who had believed in the truth when I finally found courage and begged for help.”

  Ajay stared at her in a horrified shock. But before he could react, she picked up her phone and stormed out from the restroom.

  She didn’t know where was going and neither did she care. She had to get away from him. To put together the pieces from the shambles of her life.

  The party hall was still crowded as she hurried towards the exit.

  Her phone began to vibrate in her hands.

  Wiping away her silent tears, she answered it.

  “Sia!” Varun shouted frantically on the other end.

  Before she could respond, he continued shouting even more. “Why the hell weren’t you answering your phone? Get out of there! He’s right there. That bastard is there at the same place as you are!”

  A chill passed though her body and she began to panic. She looked around her, and began to walk quickly through the crowd, going towards another exit which wasn’t the main entrance to the party.

  She heard a few people calling out her name, but she didn’t respond to them.

  She had to get away.

  When she reached the exit, she bumped into another person.

  “I’m so sorry. Are you alright?” a man’s voice asked.

  Why the hell did people keep asking her that? The man she had loved betrayed her because he hated her.

  Her entire world had just split open to come crashing down around her. So no. She wasn’t okay.

  Wiping her tears from her blurry eyes, she looked up at the person she had bumped into, about to apologize to him, before walking around him. But her entire body froze.

  And this time, her world didn’t just split or come crashing down, but it also got blasted, getting destroyed to smithereens.

  The man in front of her froze along with her in shock. His brown eyes were widened and his slightly wrinkled face paled as though he was seeing a ghost.

  “Lavanya…” he whispered.

  Sia broke into a sob as she heard the man whisper her dead mother’s name and ran towards the stairwell to escape.

  “Wait!” the man gasped out and followed behind her.

  She ripped the door open and was about to escape down the stairs when the man’s arm stopped her by holding her arm.

  “Wait. Oh my god. How can this be possible? Dharini…Is that really you…Little Princess?” he asked.

  At the use of her childhood endearment, all the terror and hate came crashing into her head, overwhelming her. She bent over and gagged on the stairs. But there was nothing left inside her to come out, except intense fear and panic.

  She trembled in fear as her abuser and she, stared at each other in shock. And then, slowly his eyes looked down at her. He saw her large rounded belly.

  When his eyes met hers again, she could see the comprehension dawn slowly in his eyes along with all the other possible implications.

  “No,” she whispered as she felt the menace and threat.

  During most of her life, she had been training and preparing for this very moment. But all the hours of kick box
ing or other self-defense trainings couldn’t help her at that moment.

  She was transported to being the same helpless nine year old girl who was pitted against a strong adult who wanted to violate her innocence.

  “You didn’t drown that day in the water. You are still alive. Why are you here?” he asked.

  She moved back a step, whimpering, and holding her stomach protectively. “Ajay,” she whispered.

  “You are pregnant.” The man’s voice changed, and the tone became frantic. “How old are you now?” he demanded.

  “Ajay…” She called out again. But her voice was unable to come out more than a whisper.

  She moved away from the man, trying to escape him. But he held both her arms, and continued shaking her. “Tell me how old you are!” he demanded.

  “Don’t touch me. Please, I don’t want it, Uncle. Please don’t make me,” she begged and sobbed, her voice sounding like that of a little girl.

  She jerked away from him, and felt her feet slip on a stair.

  Unable to find balance, she began to fall. She desperately tried to grab onto something to break the fall, but she couldn’t. The only thing left to do next was to keep her stomach safe. And she succeeded.

  There was loud thunk, a blinding pain at the back of her head, and then…blessed oblivion.

  End of Book One.

  Ruthless

  by

  MV KASI

  Ruthless

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2017 by MV Kasi

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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