I'm actually kinda disappointed with myself for neglecting the Shyam issue for sooo long- after all he is the root of all evil in the story :s. Anyway, there may seem to be a great deal of him in this chapter, but I just needed to get some of it out of the way. And because I hate it when an episode has too much of that creep, I tried to balance it out:p Hope u like it

Fair warning though...most chapters will have at least a little bit of Shyama until the issue is resolved, but I'll try to balance the unpleasantness;)

Chapter Sixteen

Arnav sat slightly bent over, the tips of his fingers joined as he rested his forehead against his hands.

He was seated on the recliner in his bedroom, and had every appearance of fatigue etched upon him. He sighed heavily as he opened his eyes blearily, staring blankly into the distance. It was hard to believe that it was only moments before that he had been nothing short of ecstatic.

He had just finished a long and gruelling phone call with his right-hand man, Aman. If Arnav relied on anyone at this point, apart from himself, it would have been him. He could trust him to follow his instructions through to the letter, listen to his predicament calmly, and offer practical solutions. Devoid of the emotional trauma that was liable to blot out his own perspective.

Following Arnav's discovery of Shyam Jha's duplicity, Arnav had immediately set the wheels in motion. The evening he had disclosed the news that Bauji was recovering and was in hospital, right after he had dropped Amma and Buaji home, he had spent the entire drive back to the hospital to check on Bauji filling Aman in on details. The facts, his own suspicions and what he wanted done without further ado. For all he knew, Aman could have been stunned, mildly surprised, or even indifferent about what he was being told, but the fact of the matter was, Aman was possibly the only person who could make sure that everything would go according to plan. And Arnav, marooned as he was without anyone to turn to, could at least count on some help.

And just as he had predicted, Shyam had made- or attempted to, at any rate- a midnight visit to the hospital. Arnav, devoid of his hopeless prejudices and blind rage that had been clouding his judgement for so long, had been able, quite easily, to predict Shyam's calculating but underhand personality to know that he would not sit around idly and wait for his own ruin. He had no idea whether Bauji had revealed the truth he had worked so hard to keep cloaked in the dark, about his cruel deception of Khushi's family and Arnav's, but of course, like the wily creature that he was, he was not going to wait around for that to happen. If he hadn't flinched from murder before, he would most definitely try again, especially as this time he was running a real risk of exposure to Anjali, his personal goldmine.

Arnav grimaced, hatred causing each muscle in his body to contort painfully. He was, however, no less of a tactician. After all, he had single-handedly raised a formidable business empire defying anyone and everyone that stood in his way. The money had come later; it was his own shrewdness that had been his biggest weapon, and Arnav had made sure that Bauji was shifted to the most secure ward in the entire hospital. Surveillance cameras were fitted in practically every nook and cranny, and he made sure, via regular reports from Aman, that the room was continuously monitored at all times. In fact, just before Arnav had arrived home that night, the night he had unearthed that he had been tricked into being the architect of his own demise, Aman had called to inform him that the special security force that he had ordered to guard Bauji's wardroom, surreptitiously dressed as hospital staff but constantly on the watch, had caught none other than the snake himself trying to sneak in. After having been refused repeatedly, Shyam, apparently in a fit of paranoia, had practically hurtled out of the hospital like a wild thing. It must have been obvious to him that he had ended up attracting far too much attention to himself; if anything, the Raizadas would hear about the incident soon enough, especially as he had made the mistake of identifying himself to the receptionist when she had refused to tell him where Bauji was being kept. And now he had no way of ensuring that his secret would remain safe for long, and if anything, had precipitated its disclosure.

If only he had any idea that every devious, deceptive, backstabbing act he could possibly have committed, against every person who had been fooled by his sugary words and had placed their blind trust on him, had finally come to the fore. In front of the one person who would have loved nothing more than to tear him up, limb from limb.

Shyam had scooted after that. Aman had followed through on Arnav's commands, and set a private investigation team on his track. Only fifteen minutes ago, Aman had called to inform Arnav of what they had managed to glean so far. It appeared that Shyam had fled to Lucknow, and was now staying at the house of a friend, under the pretence of having travelled for work purposes. It also appeared that his cell phone was off, or in all probability had been chucked away, in an attempt not to be traced. Whatever the case, Shyam appeared to be sufficiently familiar in Lucknow for it not to raise any questions about his sudden, unforeseen appearance there early in the morning with just a wallet of full of money and no luggage whatsoever. He appeared to have stayed with his friend long enough to have left some of his things there from before. In all probability, he had used Lucknow as a safety valve countless times before when everyone else had been thinking he had gone on out-of-town business trips.

The investigators believed that Shyam intended now to lie low for a while, trying to gauge events back in Delhi. So far Arnav had not revealed to anyone else anything about Shyam's misdeeds, which were indeed enough to land him in jail for a couple of years, and so no news had leaked from any quarters for that fraudulent little charlatan to guess whether his cover had been blown. He was likely to burrow himself in Lucknow for a while longer, possibly waiting for either Bauji to spill the beans, or else for another opportunity he could seize to silence him, which Arnav was not, at any cost, going let happen, and step back into the game with his slippery smile and cloying voice. Until then, he could do nothing but wait.

Arnav leaned back into the armchair. He had done what he had to do, making sure Shyam was cornered and in no possible circumstance to try and hurt anyone. But by then the damage had already been done. He was almost vehemently thankful for Aman; he had literally dumped the dirty work on him, taking a huge weight off of his shoulders and letting him focus on damage control elsewhere, a place in such shambles he could barely begin to understand where to start as he attempted to piece together something very precious to him, something as necessary as breathing.

Khushi.

His eyes strayed to the glass door, looking into the evening glow reflecting off of the water outside. It was like trying to fight a war on two fronts. Having Shyam out of the picture had allowed him to turn to Khushi, turn to the essential task of bringing her back in his life, of slowly reversing every mistake he had been making since he met her so she could surrender herself to him as completely as he had surrendered himself for her. But this phone call had been nothing short of a rude awakening. For all his influence in all the key places, all the leverage that his money let him gain, at the end of the day what was he going to do with it? On the one hand was his sister and her blind, unconditional devotion to a husband that was nothing short of the devil himself. And on the other was Khushi, who had been wronged in every possible way, both by Shyam and himself.

The thought dealt him a severe blow, right in the middle of his stomach, and the impact knocked his breath out. Nausea threatened to break loose on him once more as the poolside swam in and out of focus in front of his eyes. Dread settled into him like a plague, seeping into every pore of his being like an epidemic as he tried to contain the anguish within himself.

He had dumped the practical matters on Aman. But who was going to deal with the emotional matters? Who was going to deal out justice? Arnav wanted so badly to punish Shyam, to inflict such pain on him that he would be afraid to see his own reflection in the mirror afterwards. He wanted every remaining living, breathing moment of Shyam's life to be filled with suffering so acute he would beg for death. And he would deserve it, deserved so much more, for ruining the lives of the people Arnav would stake his own life to save. Khushi deserved to be avenged. And yet, hurting Shyam would mean hurting his Di, who had been his only pillar of support, of comfort, the only person he could relate to home for so many years of his life. Could he afford to break down that pillar, with no assurances that it could ever build itself back up again? Could he afford to shatter the precarious illusion of marital bliss Anjali had chosen to live in, shrouded from the harsher realities of life?

The familiar black hole in his heart began to gape open, its wide mouth empty and ravenous. He could feel it sucking him in, slowly but relentlessly, while he frantically struggled to hold on to his sanity. It was a deadlock he could not get out of. The only thing he could do now was stall. He could only try to keep Shyam as far away as possible from Anjali and Khushi. He had no idea how difficult that was going to be, only that he would have to be alert at all times, watchful, wary. It would stretch him, drain him completely, trying to keep up two walls on two polar opposites of his world.  But he had to try. Anjali's smile and Khushi's trust, her love, were enough compensation for a lifetime of suffering, and he was determined, so determined his sheer willpower could have moved mountains, that he would restore balance in his life once again. He was being a hypocrite, a selfish, self-centred hypocrite. But if even one of those walls which sheltered his existence crumbled, he could not live through it, and it was up to him to make each wall wholesome, to plaster the breaks and plug the holes so that there could be no possible fissure which could weaken them.

Suddenly, awareness sliced through the air, sharp and precise. Arnav's entire body acted on reflex; he sat up, his eyes flying open and turning to the door, with every particle of his being suddenly concentrating with almost electrocuting keenness on the presence beyond the walls.

She was there, she was outside.

The drums in his chest began their rhythm again, no longer disjointed or dissonant, but throbbing louder and quicker with every beat. Every worry that he could possibly harbour in his mind flushed away into nothingness as all his senses suddenly tuned in to Khushi. His mind raced back to lunch, when he had hardly been able to keep his eyes off her. Not that he was really trying. He barely noticed what he was eating, what people were saying around him, saying to him. He only had eyes for his Khushi, looking so damn beautiful it was impossible for him to form one complete coherent thought in his head at a time, let alone follow any particular stream of thinking. Instead he just contented himself with watching, punctuated by the familiar rhythm of the melody he knew so well, his wife blush prettily under the constant assail of his eyes. Watch her eyes flit towards him through her wonderfully long lashes as she bent her head low to avoid locking eyes with him again. About how every so often she would fidget with her pallu or with the ends of her hair.

He remembered, with a particular sensation of pure pleasure surfing through his blood, how vividly Khushi had blushed when first Anjali and then Payal had warded off any evil influence by dabbing her behind the ear with kajal, a tribute to how downright awe-inspiring she looked in that saree. By the time lunch was over, Khushi had looked distinctly traumatised. And while the urge to follow her as she and Payal left to discuss their plans regarding their father was overwhelming, Arnav had to grind the brakes in place, telling himself that Khushi probably deserved time off to relax and let her defences slack.

Now, convinced that the time was ripe, Arnav purposefully marched towards the door.

***

Khushi had just left Payal's room. She was in a good mood. On her wrists clinked a whole array of translucent blue rings of crystal. Beautiful, wonderfully intricate glass bangles which her Jeeju had picked out especially for his 'Saali Sabeha'. The sight of them had sent Khushi over the moon. She had forgotten what it felt like to be thrilled to the core, happy to the extent that she felt the urge to break into song and dance, over such little things.

That's all she had learned to live for. Khushi lived for the little things. Like glass bangles bought especially for her, with only her in mind. For a blissful night under a starry sky shared with memories of her parents. Like piping hot samosas and big mugs of steaming ginger tea on a rainy afternoon, listening to the patter of rain against the sills while speaking to her Jiji, or listening to old songs with Buaji, or learning how to make gulab jamun from Bauji or embroidery from Amma.

Khushi had lived for those moments, each packed with its own unique concoction of happiness, settling quaintly into place in her warehouse of precious memories. She had been very young when she had realised that staking your dreams on bigger dreams, bigger hopes, could topple everything you lived for in an instant. When the big things came crashing down they took you with them.

And how right she was.

Khushi felt her arms drop to her sides, the tinkling of her bangles now suddenly sounding empty and pointless. She had for one small moment become attached to something bigger than herself, and the result was in front of her. A life stretching ahead like a cobwebbed corridor disappearing into the shadows. There were, now, a few stray beams of light dispelling some of the darkness, but they only served to cast other shadows. Khushi had no idea where she was headed next.

Caustic bitterness suddenly sprang up in flames in Khushi, with as much ferocity as a lit matchstick on a trail of petrol. This was worse than facing a dead-end. The perpetual uncertainty, not knowing what might happen to her the next day, the next hour or even the next minute, living in dread of some unnamed, unseen foe that stalked her like her shadow. And who was to blame? A lying, cheating, good-for-nothing creature who defiled the name of humanity. Who played with her family's hopes and dreams with such deceit that Khushi felt her body prickle in sheer disgust, in hatred, in utter revulsion against him. That man whom she had once trusted, who made promises and preached philosophy like he was the only person on the planet who could understand her. That dirty little low-life who was responsible for bringing practically every single person she cherished in her life to the brink of their own destruction.

And what had happened? Who had had to suffer the consequences? She had. Every minute of every day, she had to bear the burden of his crimes. She was the one being crippled under the razor-like strikes of each and every one of his lies, each carved into her flesh. While he went about his life as though nothing had gone wrong. Khushi felt sick to her stomach every time she saw him getting intimate with Anjaliji, every time she saw Anjaliji blush and reprove him for being too blatantly affectionate in front of the family. She felt herself cringe whenever he put his arm around her, when he made jalebis for the family in the morning, discussed politics with Mama or complimented Mami's get-up for the day. She felt her flesh crawl every time he smiled at her; each smile was no better than acid searing its way through her skin, so drenched were they in insincerity.

Khushi hated him. She hated him a lot. She hated him so much that if she could, she would probably mangle him with the sharpest, deadliest object she could find for manipulating the lives of this family, which she was subconsciously beginning to accept as her own.

Suddenly feeling the ground shift beneath her feet, Khushi stopped abruptly in her tracks, and backed into a wall. She felt its cool solid surface press into every inch of her back, seeking some restoration of calm as the chill penetrated her skin. But the ground was still moving. Khushi closed her eyes.

And thought of...him. The other rakshas in her life. Who was in a league of his own altogether.

What did he think he was doing to her? She already knew that he had realised his mistake, had wanted to set right his errors...but how did anything he had been doing since picking her up at the hospital, in fact anything he had been doing since the morning she woke up, curled up on the floor in his arms, make any sense?

The earth beneath her feet seemed to rip slowly apart. Khushi could not take it anymore. She could not take the strain of what his actions, what his words were throwing at her heart, her mind. She could not understand- did not want to understand- what he was doing, or why he was doing it. A part of her prayed almost piously that he would just go back to how he had been before. At least then everything would be black or white. Either one or the other. But ever since the day he broke the news to them that Bauji was moving again, shades of grey had interspersed with the monochrome of her viewpoint, and now she did not know where one colour ended and the other began.

It threatened to make her hope for things she did not want to hope for. That she feared hoping for. Light, light so bright that it threatened to blind her forever, beat upon the windows of the corridor she had shuttered tightly a long time ago. But now it had grown so glaringly bright, slivers of it were streaming through even the tiniest of gaps and nothing she could do would keep them out. Everything seemed to be conspiring to break the ground she stood on, waiting for her to be swallowed up by earth, stifled under the darkness forever, one more time.

The song...that song which battered her newfound self-assurance anew, his eyes on her the whole time she was picking sarees, his undoing her hair, his walking towards her as though hypnotised, his shouting at her when she burnt her finger, pained concern burning furiously in his eyes...

Khushi gulped painfully, and felt her feet sink further into the ground. Panic seized her as she realised she could not move. Her limbs refused to obey the half-formulated commands her frenzied brain threw out haphazardly. Khushi had traipsed this path before. And she knew where it headed. If she did not get off, if she did not run as though the hounds of hell were loose behind her, she knew what she might have to face.

This time the sea would claim her, and leave behind no trace.

No, Khushi told herself sternly. The darkness pressed against her; she could feel it push out the air. She was not going to take all of this all over again. She was not going to be taken for granted. She had some questions, and she had the right to demand an answer. How did he find out that she was right, when he had refused to heed anything she had said, pleaded, begging him to listen, all this time? What suddenly caused this turnaround? She had a vague notion that it might have something to do with her father; after all, his behaviour had turned on its head the very day he was moved to hospital. Why? And what was he going to do about it? If he knew she was right, then he should also know Shyam was wrong. Was Shyam going to get away with it? Was he going to get away with ruining her life and nearly ruining Anjaliji's? The mere possibility of it, of that no-good, lying scumbag leeching off of the love of this family, made Khushi feel like screaming, like breaking something.

She wanted to march straight up to Arnav, to scream at him, shout at him, hurl abuse at him like he had hurled abuse at her. She wanted to hit him, hurt him the same way he had hurt her. But she couldn't. The thought of hurting him struck her with pain twice as strong. No matter how much she tried, no matter what she did, no matter how much pain she suffered, how much anger she carried, how much spite was simply waiting to spill out...she could not hate him.

Kaash...kaash hum aapse nafrat kar paate...

***

After a long time, Khushi felt her legs stop shaking. Light headed, she hoisted herself upright. There was a light, very muted buzzing in her head, like a hoard of angry bees trapped in a jar. Khushi no longer had the energy to cope with any of those thoughts, to seek answers for her queries, answers which threatened to cast even darker shadows. So she dealt with them the best way she could- she ignored them. She would keep on ignoring them until Devi Maiyya finally opened another door on her horizon, illuminated some more of the dark corners of the corridor leading down her life. She knew that she was not wrong. What she did not know was how long she would have to wait until that was acknowledged.

So absorbed was she in suppressing those troubled tides that she walked straight into someone coming out from a door on her right.

Every part of her body clamped down tightly as her mind registered, painfully slowly, painfully helplessly, the shock of it as she tripped over her own feet. She cursed her own clumsiness even as her brain noted her body tilting precariously to a side, watched as in slow motion his arms came around her and held her in place.

But even her brain was not fast enough to foresee what happened next.

Two strong arms locked themselves tightly around her waist and pulled her sharply. Khushi felt the last of the air in her body whisk away as her entire body collided with the person that had turned her world upside down since the day he had met her.

She still did not breathe as the side of her face landed lightly against his chest from the impact. Her body was scorched, scalded outright as she felt herself mould helplessly against him. His warmth, swelteringly hot, set her ablaze as she felt electric shocks zap through her from head to toe. All conscious thought, all reasoning, all logic, all desire for justice, flew out of her head. The angry bees were loose, and they flew gleefully in every possible direction, weaving loops and circles. Khushi felt her head spin.

And then a familiar ringing sent the bees scurrying back to their hive.

Logic made a reappearance, mortified by its own weakness, and charged through her with voltage so explosive she could easily have burst into flames. Khushi jerked back as his cell phone rang incessantly, blaring into the silence of the corridor like a crude reminder that they had no business standing there like that.

Only to realise that the arms around her waist were showing no sign of letting go.

Dreading what she would see, Khushi lifted her eyes up, from his chest, his neck, his lips, until they met his eyes. And she immediately wished she hadn't done that. She felt her knees give way as lack of oxygen rendered her completely unable to coordinate her own limbs. His arms tightened themselves around her, wrapping themselves around her more securely as she felt herself yanked straight into him.

Dhak dhak. Dhak dhak. Dhak dhak. Dhak dhak.

Caramel brown, melting dark depths. Just inches away from her. Little gleams of light in the swirl of gold burning with their own fire, drawing her in, pulling her inexorably into them. Khushi couldn't look away. She couldn't stop herself gravitating towards what those eyes pledged, vowed, even as the warmth of the iron hold he had around her waist branded her, even as she felt every beat of his heart hammer against her, even as she felt his breathing become as ragged and laboured as her own. A thousand butterflies flew loop-the-loops in her stomach, as Khushi felt her blood burn in her cheeks, and she knew she was blushing harder than ever.

And all the while, the phone continued to ring away, trying vainly to defuse the tension that was thick in the air.

She knew she was going to pass out simply from the intensity with which his eyes drilled into hers. Hiding absolutely nothing, and slowly chipping away at her own defences until she felt thoroughly vulnerable, exposed. But for some strange reason not afraid.

'Arnavji', she could barely recognise her voice, no louder than a breath. When she got no response, with an extreme manifestation of will, she closed her eyes, took two deep breaths, which left her all the more breathless, and, clearing her throat, tried again.

'Arnavji?'

'Hmm?' Arnav murmured back. Khushi felt herself shudder involuntarily. She had felt his voice rather than heard it, their bodies pressed together inch for inch in such a way that she had felt each quiver reverberate through her. She fought to stay conscious as she tried to look at him without being pulled under again.

'Arnavji...uh, your phone is ringing.'

'Hmm', he hummed again. Khushi felt panic grip her as she felt herself shiver uncontrollably, feeling the slightest of tremors passing through his body magnify tenfold in hers, and she frantically looked around as though afraid someone would just pop out from the walls and catch them there. The mere thought of being caught in that position set the sirens in her head off.

'Aren't you going to answer it?' she urged him, her voice breaking with alarm. He didn't seem to even hear her this time. He just stood there, staring at her as though committing her face to memory. As though he saw something he liked there. A lot. Completely unaware that being this close to her had her burning like a furnace, unaware that there was nothing normal whatsoever with what was going on.

'Arnavji!' Khushi squeaked in exasperation, wriggling around in an attempt to free herself but to no avail, 'Your phone!'

The smallest of pauses, and then Arnav sighed. His warm breath washed over her face and left her momentarily stunned. She had to blink twice to come back to earth.

But instead of letting her go, one of his arms laced around her waist, completely encircling her, while his other hand rose gently to carefully brush away a few strands of her hair that lay across her cheek, slowly, reverently. Then, causing her to gasp, he lightly touched his forehead to hers before finally letting her go, reaching into his pocket as he murmured, 'This thing always rings at the wrong time...'

And he walked away, leaving Khushi hyperventilating and suddenly feeling very cold. Like her favourite blanket had been yanked off her.

Do leave your comments and likes!! And again, aspects of this chapter are laying a foundation for the next, which I hope will be a major turning point for Arhi so yeah...