-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As he ended the conference call with one of Oberoi industries oldest partners, he rubbed his chest lightly as the uneasiness within grew ever so slightly.
Annika
Her name still sounded like a reverent whisper within him. And as he walked past the dressing mirror in his room towards the large poolside facing windows he was almost startled to see a small smile at the corners of his face.
Annika
Pushing the slight tugging at his heart aside, he checked the watch on his left wrist, only to realise that he hadn't checked in on either Khanna or her in the last 25 minutes.
The call had taken 10 minutes longer than he had anticipated.
Pushing aside the uneasiness and without wasting another thought, he immediately dialled her number for the third time in that hour only to be met with the annoying sound of a pre-recorded "currently unavailable" voiceover.
Pushing the uneasiness away more uncomfortably this time, he dialled Khanna's number for the fifth time.
He should have gone with them.
Khanna picked up on the fourth ring...but before Khanna could actually say something, he heard the rushed heavy breathing of his head of security from the other side of the phone.
Something was wrong.
His mind froze as he let the thought wash over him.
Something was terribly wrong.
In the next second, he found himself running towards his car. "KHANNA! What is happening?"
Annika
He heard his own thundering voice echoing through the hallways of the mansion but in that moment he couldn't have cared less. Somewhere the back of his mind did register Tia and her mother calling out to him, but he couldn't have listened to them if they had been at gun point themselves. He just couldn't.
A fear so fierce had gripped him from inside that he found himself to numb to everything but the raging war inside him.
Annika
The only name that he could hear was hers. The only voice that he heard tugging him from deep within was hers.
Her.
Annika
His heart was erratically thundering in his ears and it was almost miraculous that he still heard Khanna coughing on the line.
Gripping the phone to his ear he shouted once more - "Khanna! Can you hear me?"
"S - Si" "S-ir"
He heard him stutter before he launched into another coughing tirade.
"I am on the way. I am on the way. Have you crossed the toll?"
His voice sounded alien even to him. The fear was too raw. Probably in different circumstances he would have allowed that moment of introspection... but right now... None of it mattered.
All he could see was her beautiful face and her hypnotic eyes...and the fact that he needed to get to her.
He was coming.
He was coming.
Finally out of the doors of the Oberoi Mansion, he almost pushed the army of security guards and servants that were running to help him and got into his car. Within moments, he was already pushing the limits of the car's acceleration as he sped down the roads of Mumbai to the national highway.
Khanna's gasping echoed in the car as he tried impossibly to push the gas even more.
"S-ir"
They had been fine 25 minutes ago. She had been fine 25 minutes ago.
Khanna was tailing them as they neared the toll.
25 minutes.
He had let his ego get the better of his judgment.
He should have gone with her.
"KHANNA! I - I need your location... Khanna.. please"
He was begging. He knew he... Shivaay Singh Oberoi was begging... but that didn't even register to him in that moment.
Nothing mattered except her.
"S-Sir... he has her. A truck..."
Khanna's coughing fit interrupted as he and he felt his heart sink and the pain threatened to paralyse him as he pushed impossibly harder on the gas.
"S - Si...The truck came and hit me from the side...it was him. It was Daksh sir. He has Annika ma'am."
The words echoed so harshly inside him that for a second he was sure that his heart had stopped altogether.
Daksh had her. Daksh had got to her.
His vision blurred as he raced across the barely populated highway. His heart was clenching painfully into his chest and he could feel his breathing ragged.
Daksh had her.
Numbly, he faintly registered that Khanna was still trying to tell him something. "S-Sir RK tried stopping him...b"
"...B- but Daksh sir just threw him off the side of the road -sir... RK is unconscious and An...Annika ma'-am... when she tried to run off to help RK... he.. he hit her on the head."
His knuckles were turning white as the grip on the wheel became almost unbearably tight.
"Annika ma'-am... when she tried to run off to help RK... he.. he hit her on the head."
The words repeated themselves in his mind and the knots inside threatened to push him over the edge.
The words turned themselves around his mind and he felt himself almost hunch over as the weight of reality sank in.
He had her. Daksh had got her. He had hit her on the head. She was unconscious.
A lesser man would probably have been too blinded by the turmoil of pain and punishing ache that burned within him...but Shivaay Singh Oberoi was not some commoner...He was Shivaay Singh Oberoi...so whilst his pain overwhelmed him, there was something even more instinctive to a man like him.
The end goal.
Her.
He hadn't realised that he had been holding his breath so his dried throat could only rasp out the question he had been trying to to get the answer to..."hang in there Khanna. Please. Where are you? Khanna, did you see where he has taken her? The car number? Anything. Something."
The last part of the question was a whisper. A prayer.
An agonised whisper of a burning man.
Khanna's breathing had turned even heavier but he still managed to whisper out the details.
"S-Sir, ma'am's... ma'am's small wrist purse... RK managed to slip in his security tracker when he saw the truck crashing... into me."
A scintillating glimmer of hope seeped into him as he took the car phone to dial his brother.
Rudra picked up on the first ring. "Rudra get the location of RK's tracker."
Maybe it was the alienness of his voice or something else, he couldn't focus on that now...but Rudra hadn't asked a single question... so he only heard Rudra quietly rummaging through the scatter of his room to find his iPad.
"Bhaiya I am on the Oberoi server - RK's position is nearing the old mill warehouse ... south of the toll naka on the highway."
Faintly, he registered Rudra now rushing somewhere too but he didn't stall on the thought as much. "Thank you Rudra... find Khanna's too -"
Rudra didn't need a pause as he hurried on to answer.
"Bhaiya, Khanna is on the crossroads near the toll naka-"
"Bhaiya.. I am on the way."
The vision in front of him blurring already, Shivaay made turns around the lonely roads at impossibly dangerous speeds.
"Rudra... it's Annika."
He whispered to his brother. The helplessness... regret... and agony bristled raw in the whisper.
The words themselves left him in a cold daze.
Shivaay
The way his name sounded on her lips. The softness of her gaze... the innocence of her mind. The selflessness of her soul... the shining truth in her eyes.
Somehow through the moisture that threatened to engulf his vision...he heard Rudra accelerating in the background.
Hitting the wheel in agony, he was racing towards the toll but he was still 13 minutes away and then another 6 to to the warehouse.
"Rudra... get to Khanna."
His voice was rough with emotion... and he didn't wait to hear his brother's reply before he lost the grip on the phone.
Khanna's small whimpers still echoed in the car as he seemed to race against time to get to her.
Each moment that he had spent by her side.. her impossible language... her burning gaze... her hypnotic eyes... her incessant questions... all of them burned deep inside him as he felt his skin bristle with a rage that he had never felt before.
Her.
Annika.
His Annika.
He was coming. He was coming.
"Please...just hang on. I am coming Annika..."
It was a whisper. A prayer. A finality and a promise that echoed and reverberated from somewhere deep inside him.
-----------------------xxx----------------------------
Next: Part F
Suggestions / Comments
