ArHi FF || Serendipity #5 || CH 59 Pg 136 (JAN 16TH 2017) (new update) - Page 86

18 million dollars. It was approximately half of Arnav's life savings. It was approximately nine times Khushi and Tarang's joint savings.

And it was the very exact price of Kinara Kher's life.

A nonnegotiable price of 18 million dollars is what had been offered to Khushi Gupta when her hotel room's phone rang unexpectedly that night. It had been the cost to keep her older daughter alive. A cost that came neatly paired with a warning that any attempt to contact the authorities would be an easy, one way ticket to lodging a bullet within the little girl's brain.

And though Khushi and Tarang were both ready to sacrifice everything for the safety of their daughter, their upper middle class lives were not worth nearly enough.

Naturally, and without a second thought, Arnav had offered to pay the full ransom. It surprised him greatly, that he felt so immune to losing the very worth of his life's endless struggle, and all for a small kid that he barely knew. 

But the girl in question was Kinara Kher, and Arnav was certain that said girl was worth far more than all the world's wealth combined. 

But one could always trust Khushi Gupta, however, to decline her ex-husband and his more than generous donation without a second thought. Money from him, no matter the amount, was "out of question". Her husband, meanwhile, the more practical of the two, had been working tirelessly that evening to convince her otherwise.

"Baby, please try to understand."

"No Tarang. No. We can't take Arnav's money. Even in a million lifetimes, we'll never be able to pay him back. We can take a loan, we can--"

"Please. Please, Khushi. You're an intelligent woman. You know it's not going to happen otherwise. This isn't a game we're playing. It's Kinara's life."

Meanwhile, overhearing their conversation, Arnav was struggling brilliantly with his anger. He did not wish to scream at Khushi, especially at a time she was at her most vulnerable, but something told him that she would've never dreamed to reject a lifesaver tossed for her daughter, had it been someone else tossing it.  

"Tarang, we need to start calling some of our friends. I'm telling you, they'll more than definitely be able to help us. And we got to... we got to work really fast; we have to make up a list of some names. I think Kathy may be able to help us a little and we can call Francis..."

And that's when Arnav snapped.

And snapped hard.

"I can't believe I fell in love with a woman like you."

He flinched as her tear soaked eyes met his, but stood his ground firmly.

"I know why you're rejecting my money, Khushi. I know you better than you'd like to believe. As modern as you've become and as strong as you are, you're still superstitious enough to think that my bank balance is, first and foremost, a bundle of bad luck. My money has ruined your life and you're nervous that tying your daughter with it will ruin her too."

Khushi's gaze traveled to Tarang and she watched Arnav's accusations reach his dark eyes, her own falling back to the floor in upmost shame. The man had spoken the truth. The foolish, perhaps disturbed part of her brain had not been too proud, had not been too vain, but too f**king terrified to take his money. The Raizada family's wealth had been the foundation for the endless problems in her life, and she was nothing more than damn scared that the pattern would continue for her daughter if she got entangled in his multi-million web.

"Arnav, I--"

"You've more than conveniently chosen to overlook how it was this very same money that paid for your father's operation after the heart attack. You've chosen to overlook that it was this very money that paid for his treatment in Mussoorie and paid for your family's bills the past six years you've been living up the American dream."

He ignored the visible jerk in her body.

"But if you don't take my money now, Khushi, your daughter will die. And if she dies, I honestly don't think I will ever be able to recover from the guilt of having fallen in love with a murderer, let alone from being one."

He grabbed his luggage and moved towards the hotel's front door, seething in uncontrollable rage. But his footsteps stopped as he heard her voice straining behind him, weak and inaudible, but definite. 

"Arnav--"

He turned around and felt a colossal guilt, unlike anything he had ever felt before, hit him hard upon the chest. Khushi had removed herself from Tarang's arms and was kneeling pitifully upon the lobby floor. Her hands intertwined and pleading. Her tears freshly flowing. Her body shaking with panic. She looked powerless and desperate for his mercy, and Arnav instantly flew back through time and space to the night of their wedding, a night she had so similarly pleaded for his humanity...

A night he had so easily ignored her.

The air was palpable with tension that hung thick with far too many unspoken questions. Khushi's intakes of breath were now coming sharp and sparse, with her finding it harder to breathe as time progressed. Her daughter had taken over her senses and her mind, and she found it difficult to concentrate on anything but a five year old girl with messy braids and a missing tooth. Tarang had warned her to remain calm at all times once Kinara arrived, and Khushi had been doing acceptably well at following his instructions.

That is, until the van came into focus and its headlights blared into the dark alley where they stood. Her knees began to tremble as two men stepped out the van and her throat felt parched as they opened the back door, but when she finally saw her little girl's limp body being dragged out, unconscious and visibly bruised, Khushi Gupta lost her f*cking mind.

Completely lost it.

"KINARA," she screamed, running towards the men that held her daughter, uncaring that they were yielding guns in her direction.

Arnav and Tarang quickly grabbed and pulled her back towards their car, trying their level best to restrain her.

"THAT'S MY BABY. THAT'S MY KINARA," she continued to scream, clawing at Arnav's hands as the men flung her tiny body towards the ground. Khushi's voice pierced through the silence of the kidnappers' carefully planned solitude and they responded exactly as Tarang had feared they would.

"Shut the f**k up," one of them barked, pointing the gun towards their daughter's head. "Or I swear to god, I'll blow her f**king brains out right here and now."

"NO, PLEASE LET HER GO. LET ME GO, TARANG." Khushi continued to push insistently, pleading for them both to release her.

"Give us the f**king money and she's yours," the stockier of the two laughed, kicking her small, unconscious body with a nonchalance that made Khushi's blood boil over.

"You... you motherf*ckers"

Her vision blurred bright red and the vein in her temple pounded agonizingly as she listened to those men before her, snickering over freshly bleeding scrapes on Kinara's body as though her daughter was nothing but another gag for them. 

Something primal and atypically violent broke apart within her. 

No one would be able to explain how a woman as delicate and fragile as Khushi Gupta was able to surmount two strong, fully grown men that night... but she did. Brawn and muscle, as luck would have it, were not match for tested motherhood.

And the rest all happened very quickly.

She broke herself away from their hold and sprinted towards her daughter, ignoring the cries that erupted from behind her. Ignoring the men who ran frantically in her direction. Ignoring the gun Arnav pulled from his waistband. Ignoring the guns that were redirected from Kinara towards her.

Ignoring everyone and everything until three gunshots fired, and bodies thudded against the ground. 

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CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE: L O V E 

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