The Revenge Games Page 26

  She shoved him away from her. “I hate you so much for this. I’ll never forgive you for ruining everything!”

  His eyes flared. He closed the distance between them, and held her arms. “You hate me? Show me how much you hate me,” he growled, pulling her even closer.

  The adrenaline rushing through her body picked up even more.

  “Come on. Prove it to me,” he whispered the challenge against her mouth, before kissing her hard.

  She bit him. Not the gentle bite that she often used to drive him crazy. But a punishing bite, hard enough for her to taste the metallic tang of his blood.

  He didn’t flinch, and neither did he release the hold on her. She felt a strange combination of bloodlust, and another more familiar kind of lust coursing through her veins. But, before it consumed her completely, she shoved him away hard.

  With blood tricking down his lip, he watched her with an intensity that made the blood roar in her ears, making it deafening, muting any reason or sense that would stop the madness from taking over her.

  He wiped his bloody lip with his thumb and smirked. “I’m glad you had no one to take care of your pent up aggression. You are more than welcome to take it out on me tonight.”

  Listening to his taunting words, she lost it completely.

  She attacked him like an animal.

  Baring her teeth and nails, she literally jumped towards him.

  But he was ready for her. He wrapped both his arms around her possessively, crushing her close until she could barely move.

  And then, he kissed her again.

  PROLOGUE

  Chaos was all around. Several people surrounded a prone body of a woman on the stairs.

  Ajay’s entire body shook in panic as he pushed through the crowd and knelt next to the bleeding woman. “Somebody help me! Please! Call an ambulance!” he shouted.

  Conversations buzzed around him. Calls were being made, giving out the address and the details of the accident. Raising Sia’s hand, he frantically began to search for her pulse as help arrived. Only when he could feel a faint pulse, did his own heart begin to beat again in hope.

  He rapidly assessed Sia for other injuries, and noticed that her head wound was still bleeding profusely. He tore open his shirt, frantically shrugged out of it, and held it against the wound to stop the blood flow.

  Very carefully he pulled Sia close against his chest, to cradle her in his shaking embrace before gently rocking them back and forth. “You’ll be okay, baby. I know you’re going to be okay. God, I love you. I love you so much.”

  Sia’s eyes remained close and her face paled considerably due to loss of blood. Even her lips were beginning to take on a bluish tinge.

  “Please don’t—” His voice broke. “Don’t leave me. Do you hear me?" His voice rose. “Don’t you dare leave me!”

  There was no movement or any kind of response from her.

  Sirens blared at a distance and rapid conversations continued around him. He heard someone calling out his name and saying something to him.

  But he ignored everyone. He kept his eyes locked on Sia’s face, urging her to stay with him.

  Memories flashed through his mind—Sia rolling her eyes at the movies he had made her watch. Both of them having a food fight because he had teased her about her culinary skills. Sia watching him with a soft look when he held her pregnant belly and spoke everyday to their unborn child.

  Sia had been smiling all those times.

  She was happy.

  They were both happy when they were together.

  They will be happy again!

  His vision blurred, and he felt strange as tears burned his eyes for the first time as an adult. The last time he had cried was as a child, when his mother had killed herself.

  No! He wasn’t going to think of that time. Unlike his mother, Sia was still alive.

  “You’ll be fine,” he told Sia, desperately hoping it was a nightmare that he would wake up from soon. A horrible nightmare for having kept secrets from her.

  He would do anything if this turned out to be a nightmare. He would sell his soul to the devil to have Sia safe and sound, tucked next to him, and sleeping peacefully on their bed.

  But he knew. He knew that both God and the Devil weren’t listening to him.

  His chest tightened with pain he had never experienced. An involuntary sob escaped out of his mouth as he kept watching Sia’s still face, and felt her body getting cold in his arms.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Manthena. You need to make a decision. Your wife... or your child?”

  A somber looking doctor stood outside the operating room.

  “My wife,” Ajay immediately replied. “Save my wife at any cost.”

  “But Mr. Manthena, your wife has already lost a lot of blood. Also based on her injuries, chances of her being brain dead are quite high. She might never gain conscious again. So, under these circumstances... usually the hospital’s policy is to…”

  “I don’t care about the hospital’s policy. SAVE MY WIFE’S LIFE!”

  Despite the loud and clear decision, the doctor waited with an uncertain look on his face.

  Ajay clenched his fists. “I already told you my decision. Stop wasting your time arguing with me. Save my wife! Even if there is less than one percent chance for her to live, save her!”

  The doctor nodded and went back hurriedly into the operating room.

  Ajay wasn’t allowed inside. In fact, they told him he shouldn’t even be waiting outside in his state as they felt he needed medical attention himself.

  He had already made a ruckus about that a few minutes ago. But when one of the nurses calmly pointed at his shirt, he finally looked down and understood why.

  He still couldn’t get his eyes off his shirt.

  It was covered in blood. So much blood. Only this time... it was his wife’s blood. Last time, fifteen years ago, it had been his mother’s.

  He had found his mother lying on the ground, outside the three-storied building of his school. She had jumped off the tallest building in the village on a Sunday morning.

  To this day, he feared heights, and seeing a lot of blood.

  His body trembled. It had been shaking since the last hour of hell. Right from the time when Sia had revealed the identity of her abuser and stormed out.

  He had been searching for her frantically with a sick feeling churning inside his gut. When he couldn’t find her, he knew something must have happened to her.

  He had torn apart the entire party hall, where they had been attending a charity event hosted by a friend. He even commanded the other guests to help find his wife.

  A few minutes later, one of the guests did. Sia was found on the stairs.

  Everyone had thought that she was already dead, especially the way she lay so still, bleeding a river of blood around her. But he refused to believe that Sia was gone or would ever leave him.

  Ajay shuddered recalling those moments.

  He began pacing the hospital corridor.

  Thoughts flew inside his head.

  Was it an accident that she had slipped on the stairs?

  It was my bloody fault that I told her the truth so soon. I should have taken her home after she found out about me.

  I cannot lose her. I know I won’t lose her like this.

  He didn’t know how much time had passed until he was interrupted.

  “Jay.” A woman’s gentle voice called from behind.

  He swung around to see Jo and Harsha standing right behind him, looking at him with pity and worry on their faces. He responded to them with only a nod. He wasn’t ready to speak to anyone yet.

  Some of his friends and well-wishers from the party had stuck along until a while ago. But they left when he had ignored them completely and asked them to leave him alone.

  Until he knew for sure that Sia would be safe, he wasn’t interested to listen to anyone’s platitudes, however well intentioned they were.

  “I�
�ll get him clothes to change into. I’ll be right back.” He heard Harsha tell Jo.

  After Harsha left, Jo came closer and laid a hand on his arm.

  “How is she doing?” she asked softly.

  “Not good.”

  He heard Jo suck in a breath.”What did the doctors say?” she asked.

  “That it’s going to be hard to save her.”

  There was silence.

  “What about the baby?” she asked.

  “I told them to save Sia first.”

  Jo nodded, not saying anything. She knew him well. She knew that he hated pity or any kind of condolences. Especially when people said stupid things like ‘It’s going to be okay’ when it was obvious that things were not going to be okay.

  He had been hearing such platitudes since he was twelve. Right after his mother had killed herself. Because she felt her honor was more important than him.

  He still recalled how people had pitied that newly orphaned twelve-year-old boy.

  “I know your mother is gone. But don’t worry; someone will take care of you. You will be okay soon.”

  “You are not the only one. There are lots of children in the world who have lost their mothers. They are all doing okay. So you’ll be fine too.”

  He didn’t care about such platitudes then and neither did he do so now.

  Harsha returned with a shopping bag in his hands. “Change into these, Jay. Or the doctors won’t allow you inside later.”

  Without putting up an argument, Ajay took the bag handed to him and went inside a men’s restroom to change.

  His movements were hurried. He began shedding his bloodied clothes, and then threw them in a trash can. Ripping a paper towel, he wet it and cleaned away as much blood from his body as possible, before wearing the clean clothes.

  Once he was done, he washed his hands vigorously with soap to get rid of the dried blood. When he was satisfied, he splashed water on his face to stay alert and awake through the night.

  He caught his reflection in the mirror for a brief second while wiping away the excess water from his face,

  He looked like shit.

  He even felt like shit.

  Maybe because he ached like hell.

  His head. His heart. He ached everywhere. He ached with emptiness and helplessness of the current situation.

  Before he could drown in self-pity, he shook his head and walked out of the bathroom.

  Harsha and Jo were waiting outside.

  “Did anyone come out of the operating room looking for me?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” Harsha replied, handing him a steaming cup. “Have some coffee, Jay. It’s close to midnight. It’ll help you stay awake when the doctor calls you inside.”

  Nodding briefly, Ajay took the cup from Harsha’s hands and gulped a few sips, not caring that it burned his tongue or throat. His hands were still shaking.

  Harsha nudged him towards the empty chairs, and gently pushed him down into one.

  Ajay just sat there quietly, staring blankly into the cup.

  “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.”

  The last conversation he had with Sia repeated inside his head, further intensifying the ache, until he felt like he would burst if he didn’t get the words out.

  “The last time I spoke to her, I told her I hated her,” he said in a gravelly voice, as regret crushed him.

  Harsha and Jo didn’t respond. They sat on either side of him, placing a comforting hand on each of his arms while listening to him calmly.

  “If I could, I would take back those words,” he rasped out. “Even though they were true...”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Eighteen Months Ago

  “The only way I can move forward—is when I go back and face my past.”

  Ajay was at a gym, lifting weights.

  It was very quiet, owing to the fact that it was an ungodly hour in the morning.

  His eyes took in the unfamiliar place that was a good one hour away from his home. It was his first time here. Only because he didn’t really see the need to exercise outside his perfectly functioning gym at his apartment. But he wasn’t here for the exercise. He was here—for her.

  Sia.

  Birth name, Dharini.

  Twenty four years old and the sole heiress to Blush Enterprises Ltd.

  Also his long time obsession.

  He had been tracking her movements for a while. Fifteen years to be exact. Long enough for him to know most aspects of her life.

  He had tracked her through her social media accounts, her work email, her personal email, as well as through some of the camera footage at her Boston home and office.

  He knew it was illegal to be cyber-stalking her that way. He had already gotten into trouble with the law as a teen, when he had hacked into a popular social media server to track her movements through her account.

  But luckily, he was let go with a warning due to his age, and also due to the Colonel’s contacts.

  But that hadn’t stopped him. It only made him think of smarter ways to hack into systems without getting caught. He had been succeeding pretty well so far.

  He wasn’t proud of it. Because he knew, it had become some kind of sickness within.

  Whenever he pushed the limits by breaking into private networks, Harsha had begged him repeatedly to give up on the obsession.

  “Jay, please,” Harsha urged. “Stop! Why are you so determined to ruin your life?”

  “I can’t Harsha. I have to know how the girl who had ruined my life is faring. I have to know whether she is happy, while I lost the most important person in my life because of her. I just have to,” he said.

  In his mind, it was a strong enough reason to drive him into the darkness, but Harsha thought otherwise.

  “She was a small child when she told that lie, Jay. You need to get over it, and also get over her. You can’t take any risks like the last time. My father might not be able to get you out of jail again.”

  “I know all that,” Ajay replied, feeling torn and helpless as always when it came to her. “Look at her.” He pointed at the screen that displayed a girl’s picture at a party with a drink in her hands and white powder coating her nose. “Unlike my mother, that girl is still alive. She has everything handed to her. And what is she doing with her life? Just drinking and doing drugs. How can I ever forgive someone like her?”

  With arguments like that, Harsha couldn’t stop him from continuing to follow Sia’s life.

  Years passed, and he still kept tracking her movements. With each year, his sickness and obsession towards her only grew further. Until it was put to a stop when she turned her life around.

  That was three years ago.

  Suddenly, there were no pictures of alcohol or drugs filled parties. Instead she was working at her mother’s company and getting appreciation emails and awards.

  He felt cheated. He had wanted her to continue in the path of destruction, until she felt helpless and desolate, and maybe until she eventually took her own life.

  Just like his mother had.

  However, that new phase of Sia’s life wasn’t a temporary one. It continued long enough, until his feelings towards her slowly morphed into something complicated. They were a combination of admiration and resentment.

  She had become his daydream and his nightmare.

  She had become his fantasy and his darkest desire.

  But no matter what, his obsession remained constant.

  And now, the object of his obsession was close.

  A month ago, when he had found out that Sia was going to come back to India, he knew that he had to see her. It would be the first time he’d be seeing her in person as an adult. The last time they had met—was when they were children, and
her presence had barely registered in his mind.

  Ajay continued to lift the heavy weights while he looked towards the second level of the gym. He knew Sia would be practicing kick boxing there.

  This particular gym specialized in it. Kickboxing was one thing Sia did religiously most of the days when she had begun to learn various self-defense techniques since she was thirteen.

  He knew she would want to practice kickboxing even though she was extremely busy during most of the day. And so, he had ‘suggested’ the gym the night before on her phone browser results.

  Hacking into her phone had also enabled him to track her exact location. He had installed a simple app on his phone that displayed a small red dot on the map of the city. Currently, he knew the red dot would indicate that she was only a hundred feet away from him, but on the top floor.

  He put the weights aside. Then wiping the sweat off his face and neck, he grabbed his water bottle and workout bag, before heading upstairs to the second level.

  * * *

  It was relatively quiet when he approached the top of the stairs. All he could hear were the sounds of someone punching a heavy bag systematically.

  Hate and obsession swirled within him, consuming every cell in his body as he got closer to his target.

  He couldn’t understand why he felt so overwhelmed.

  He had the power. He held all the cards. Yet when he went towards her, he felt out of control as his feelings intensified.

  As soon as he reached on the second floor, he saw her.

  He couldn’t see her face as she was turned the other way. But he knew how she looked. The high cheekbones, the gentle slope of her nose, the soft plump lips—he knew them all quite well. He knew every feature of her face because he had watched her for enough years to be able to even dream about her.

  He had seen her face several times, first in the pictures, and then, in the videos. He had watched those blank eyes turn cold and hard over the years. He had watched the short, sleazy dresses she wore during her teens, become simple and classy dresses and suits.