IPKKND FF: Masquerade [Chapter 18] Updated 10 Sept - Page 33

Arnav closed his laptop and leaned against the recliner. He had had a hectic day at work today and he had come home to be greeted by incessant wedding arrangements. The good thing was that she hadn't been around.

He had decided to watch her every move closely. He knew that there was definitely something wrong about her but he didn't want to risk his cousin's happiness because of her. He would observe her every move and then surely he would come to know the reasons behind the discrepancies in her identity and her personality. Why had she been going around as Ms. Menon when she was actually Khushi Kumari Gupta? What was the need to dress and behave like high society women when she was in reality a normal, middle class girl? And where had she learnt to fight like that? All these questions continued to plague him but his mind was much calmer now because he had taken the decision to not act but to observe.

...

"Akash, I'd like you to meet my new client, Mr. Shyam Manohar Jha."

Akash shook hands with the pleasant looking man in front of him and smiled.

"Nice to meet you Mr. Jha."

"Please call me Shyam. It's nice to meet you too Akash. Anjali here tells me that you've just completed your graduation and you're getting married. Exciting time are awaiting I see."

"Uh yes. That's right. I'm getting married in a few weeks time actually."

"That's great! And if you require any help in the future regarding your career, please don't hesitate to ask."

"That's really kind of you. But I'll probably be following Bhai into the company."

Shyam looked enquiringly at Anjali, wondering who Akash was referring to.

"Akash is talking about my younger brother. He owns a fashion house in Delhi."

"Oh really? Which one?"

"AR Industries. My brother is Arnav Singh Raizada.'

"Really? That's really interesting! So you're Arnav Singh Raizada's sister? Who would have thought? I've always admired his caliber as a businessman. I'd love to meet him some time."

"Of course Shyam. He's actually not at home right now; otherwise I would have introduced you to him."

"No matter. There's always next time. Let's get down to the plans for the front office shall we?"

Anjali nodded and they went into the study to discuss the designs she had come up with. Akash watched as they walked away, feeling a genuine warmth towards this genial and very charming person. He liked Shyam Manohar Jha.

...

Khushi felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and quickly took it out to check. It was from work.

She picked up her bag and headed towards the Delhi office, curious about the details of her next assignment. It had been two weeks since she had arrived in Delhi and she had been expecting some briefing before now. But none had come and she had almost forgotten that she had come here for some work.

She knocked on the door a few times but there was no response. She took out her phone and dialed the help line number.

"Hello Seema? This is Khushi. I'm outside the Delhi office and no one's opening the door. In fact there's a big combination lock hanging from the handle. I don't think anyone's inside."

"Just hold on for a second. I'll find out."

"Ok Khushi, I just spoke to Kushal who's in charge of the Delhi office. He's running a little late but he'll be there soon. I'm sending you his number in case you want to reach him."

"Ok thanks but what happened to Paresh? Wasn't he in charge of the Delhi office?"

"Yes but he was replaced by Kushal a few days ago. I'll speak to you later Khushi. Lots of work to do."

"Bye Seema."

Khushi put her phone inside her bag and waited for Kushal to turn up. She didn't even know what the guy looked like. This was one of the company's major drawbacks. They replaced employees very quickly. In fact, she probably was the company's longest serving employee. Seema had been appointed a month ago and before her had been two other girls, Rekha and Ashna. When she had joined, Manish had taken over the Lucknow office from Payal's friend Rohan. After that there had been several handovers from Manish to Kiran to Preeti to Mukta and finally to Shakti. Khushi had never really had a problem with this because she got along well with everyone and she could mix with people very easily. She checked her watch once more and was about to call the number she had just saved when a man spoke from behind her.

He was big built, with a head of thick hair and a slight stubble. He wore a loose t-shirt and jeans, an easy smile gracing his lips.

"I'm Kushal. You must be Khushi?"

Khushi nodded and shook his hand. He seemed to be just a little older than her and she felt glad that there was someone near her age working in the same company.

He opened the combination lock and asked her to go in. The lights came on and Khushi was quite stunned to see the magnitude of the Delhi office. It was huge and comprised of a large hallway leading into numerous rooms. She gaped as Kushal grinned and showed her around the place.

Most of the rooms were assigned to people but three were for common use. One was the conference room, the other was library cum cyber caf and the third was one that Khushi hadn't gone into.

"What's in that room Kushal?"

"Oh that? That's- Hold on Khushi, I'm getting a call. I'll just be back."

Khushi nodded as Kushal stepped out of the office to get better network coverage. She decided to check out the room on her own and walked inside.

It was a very different room. While the rest of the office had modern equipment and furniture, this was only contained a wooden desk and chair and rows and rows of cabinets. There was a thick layer of dust everywhere and Khushi wondered if anyone ever came in here. She walked towards one of the cabinets and opened the middle drawer, resulting in a huge cloud of dust which made her cough terribly.

Once she had regained her composure, she peered into the drawer, wondering what its contents were. There were hundreds of files marked alphabetically and stacked neatly in it. She picked up a random file and opened it. She was surprised to see that it was an employee's data file, containing Seema's details. The front page had a huge black stamp on it which read UNDER EMPLOYMENT. Khushi leafed through the file and realized that it had all the details regarding Seema's life, when she had joined the company, etc etc.

Khushi wanted to see what her file looked like and began searching for it. She picked up another file and realized that it was Kiran's, a former Lucknow manager. She opened it and was stunned to see that on top of the black stamp she had seen on Seema's file was a second stamp, in bright red letters - TERMINATED.

Khushi frowned wondering what that meant. She kept the file away and reached for another one. She gradually realized that every file either had a single black stamp or two stamps, one black and an overlapping red one. Every employee who had been dismissed had two stamps on their picture while every person who was still working for the company had only one stamp.

She finally came to her own file and was not surprised to find only one black stamp. She put it back and was about to close the drawer when a particularly thick file caught her eye. She pulled it and realized that it was much older than most of the ones she had gone through. The pages were yellowing slightly and the corners were faded. She opened it and her eyes grew wide with shock.

The file belonged to Arnav Singh Raizada and on top of the black stamp was a faded red one which read - INCOMPLETE.

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Chapter Eleven