Not proofread, please excuse any mistakes.
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Chapter 48:
Kabir was jerked backwards by a sudden pull at his collar and Rachna was harshly removed from his embrace. Closing a pair of handcuffs to pin Kabir's hands behind his back, Mayank stepped forward with a smirk to reveal himself to everyone in the room, as he pointed a gun at Kabir's chest and held Rachna's wrist tightly with his other hand. Gayatri smiled brightly as she saw her son.
"Mom, won't you officially introduce me to my little brothers? And my dear papa ji of course; we meet again after so long. It looks like a full on family reunion happening here."
"Mayank beta!" Gayatri rushed to her son's side and stroked his face with pride, while Kabir looked on with a mixture of shock and disgust. She glared at Kabir and gave him an evil smile, as she answered the unspoken questions in his eyes.
"Those papers that you signed to take back all charges against Mayank were just a ploy to see how far you would go to save that tramp you call your wife. Mayank has already been out of jail for a few weeks now. In fact, he only spent 2 or 3 nights there. After all, this great country of ours has plenty of beggars disguised as politicians that will do anything for a bit of money."
Taking hold of the gun, Gayatri kept it pointed at Kabir while Mayank turned his full attention to Rachna, as he restrained both of her hands behind her back forcefully. Rachna stared at Kabir helplessly as tears welled up in her eyes seeing the gun pointed at him, realizing dismally that his life was in severe danger now. Mayank closed in towards Rachna and stroked her cheek hungrily with his fingers.
"We meet again my dear. This time I will make you mine though, no doubt about that."
She pulled her face as far back as possible from his reach while crying out with disgust and trying to free her hands. "Let go! Leave me!"
Rachna squirmed violently as Mayank put his free hand around her waist and pulled her close to himself, keeping both of her hands held tightly behind her back. Karan stood up furiously and stepped forward to come to Rachna's aid, when Gayatri pulled down a tab on the gun to unlock it with a loud click.
"Karan beta, I hope you love your brother enough to not do anything stupid that would put his life in danger."
Rachna forgot her struggle against Mayank and turned towards Karan, shaking her head furiously and screaming. "No Karan! Stop! Don't move!"
Mayank eyed Rachna greedily as he inhaled the flowery scent that emanated from her body. Kabir reflexively stiffened as he shook with anger, causing Gayatri to laugh at his state.
"If he was already out of jail, what else did you want from us?" Kabir spoke through clenched teeth.
Gayatri replied easily, a distant look in her eyes. "Revenge."
Kabir stared at Gayatri, bewildered by her response. "Revenge? What more do you want to do in the name of revenge? You single-handedly wreaked havoc in so many lives. You attempted to murder your husband and treated your own children like dirt. You ousted me from the family business. You tried to separate me from my wife. Your basta*d son..."
Gayatri slapped Kabir across the cheek, leaving a dark red imprint across his face. "Don't you dare speak a single word against him!"
Kabir glowered into Gayatri's eyes. "Why? What is he to you that I'm not?"
Gayatri responded cuttingly. "He's not a mistake like you were."
Tears fell from Kabir's eyes, as though a flood had been unleashed from his tear ducts. He had yearned for his mother's love, craved for her to look at him just once with a loving glance, longed for her to run her hand across his head with the tiniest bit of affection. These feelings became more deeply buried within his heart as years of dislike and distaste against his mother built up. He had stopped referring to her as his mother when he decided to leave the house after the news of his father's death, but somewhere beneath the layers of hatred remained the smallest ray of hope that his mother would one day realize the folly of her actions and hug him genuinely with the maternal care that he had always desired. To hear himself being referred to as a mistake shook him to the core; his entire existence had been deemed worthless and insignificant in just a fraction of second.
"He was not a mistake! The mistake was letting you become completely blinded in one son's love. The mistake was saving that son the first time he committed a criminal act. The mistake was not disowning him sooner than I did!" Prakash roared the words across the room.
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Prakash beamed at his newly wedded wife, smitten once again by her coy smile and dark mysterious eyes, as he gifted to her a sparkling diamond necklace to celebrate their first night together. She hugged him seductively, a glint of happiness and bliss in her eyes. It was a dream come true for them both: he was finally joined to the one whom he had fallen in love with at first sight when she stepped into his office for an interview, she was finally getting the fortune and power that she had always desired growing up in an orphanage.
Just one short year later, Prakash smiled proudly as the doctor handed him the squealing bundle of joy. As the first born, he was the apple of his parents' eyes, the center of their universe. He passed effortlessly into childhood, when it became increasingly apparent that he was a complete momma's boy. The child was just beginning nursery school when happiness knocked on the door of the Tripathi household again.
Prakash was overjoyed to learn of his wife's second pregnancy, but she was less than thrilled, fearing that the second child would draw attention away from her first-born and leave more dents in the marriage that was already crumbling.
The four-year old marriage was beginning to get shaky, a result of his complete focus on further expanding the business and her possessive desire to spend every waking hour with her husband and child. Both spouses at odds with each other's priorities, the endless fights and growing number of insecurities built a wall between the couple. He convinced her to carry the pregnancy forward and in return, promised to spend more time at home.
The moment he took the tiny infant into his arms, the child clasped his little hand around his father's index finger tightly, refusing to loosen the iron grip even a little. At that moment, Prakash saw his second son becoming his biggest support, his right hand, his reason to live, just as their first-born had been for his wife. He initially brushed off her indifference towards their second-born, thinking it to be an effect of the post-partum depression that the doctor had warned about. As the months and years passed and the infant moved into toddlerhood, her behavior and complete coldness towards the child became a greater cause for worry. A few attempts to unsuccessfully address the situation with her left him at a complete loss, leading him to the pathetic conclusion that she just needed more time to warm up to the idea of caring for both children together.
Though Prakash tried to reduce the number of trips he took for business, his wife was never satisfied with the amount of time he devoted to her. She grew more insecure as the stress of the second pregnancy left her with unsightly stretch marks across her abdomen and weight around her mid-section that she found repulsive. Seeing numerous beautiful young women, just business associates they were claimed to be, flock around her husband only fueled the misconceptions and anxieties further, leaving her with the fear that someone would snatch away the luxurious lifestyle that she was living. She directed her attention away from the growing gap between them as a couple by pampering her favorite child, giving into his every whim, spoiling him. The second child was only given cold stares and passing glances, as she held him responsible for ruining her perfect hourglass figure and disturbing the balance that the family of three had managed to establish. Seeing his mother's aversion towards his younger brother, the older child too developed a deep loathing for the toddler, contributing to yet another point of disagreement and detachment between the couple.
One particularly shocking incident pushed Prakash over the edge and instilled in him a deeply rooted concern for the well-being of his second son. Coming home after a long day of meetings, Prakash wanted nothing more than to spend the remainder of the night with his wife and two sons. He tiredly walked out of the car to set his eyes on the shocking sight of his younger son bawling and sitting next to the trash can, completely bruised and beaten up, several long gashes across both his arms and legs. Grabbing the toddler into an embrace, he immediately rushed to the hospital, where the child received no less than 57 stitches and 2 blood transfusions, the doctors essentially pulling the child out of death's grip. Returning home with the now asleep and heavily bandaged toddler, Prakash became infuriated to learn that the eldest child, left unsupervised for a few hours, was responsible for his younger brother's injured state. He took several weeks off from work and spent every waking hour with his family, trying to bridge the gaps in the relationships, trying to build the family into one strong entity. As hard as Prakash worked to bring everyone together, his wife and oldest son continued to foster an inexplicable hatred and loathing for the younger child, a feeling that he just could not eradicate irrespective of his multiple attempts.
A few years later, despite his wife's protests, Prakash sent the oldest Tripathi son, now 9 years old, off to boarding school in Benaras, seeking to make the child independent and bring him out of his mother's shadow. Plagued by the sadness of being separated from her favorite child, his wife became all the more distressed upon learning of her third pregnancy. Where the second pregnancy had been surprising, the third was completely unwelcome and vehemently opposed by her. Her outburst when announcing the news and the following attempt to abort the pregnancy left Prakash broken. It must have been God's wish, nothing less than a miracle, he later assumed when he took his third child, another boy, into his arms and placed a tender kiss on the infant's forehead. The third child's infancy and toddlerhood passed again without the mother's involvement in his upbringing. She remained detached from the two youngest children, pining only for her first-born, washing away her sorrows through alcohol, gambling, and late night parties, possibly with a few hidden affairs.
The breaking point of his patience came only when she began physically and mentally abusing the second-born, spewing out venomous words to scare the child, raising her hand on him, holding him responsible for breaking the family and home that she had worked so hard to build. Prakash found it more apt to send the child, now 10 years old, off to Benaras, away from the disturbing environment that was causing him to become very subdued, serious, and introverted, and call the eldest back to Mumbai to restore his wife's sanity. The time alone in Benaras had done him no good, as he returned to Mumbai more misguided than before, brewing a deep resentment in his heart against his father, referring to him only as his mother's husband, the man who had punished him and kept him away from his mother for no fault of his. The youngest son soon joined his older brother in Benaras when he was of school going age, leaving only the original family of three in the Mumbai house.
The divide between the father and eldest son only grew, as Prakash spent the majority of his free time away from the house in Benaras with his two younger children, leaving the mother-son duo alone in Mumbai to do as they pleased. Prakash's absence in Mumbai and complete disregard for her favorite child only fueled his wife to drift further away. The love between the couple was completely eradicated by now; they remained connected only by the piece of paper that was their marriage certificate and the existence of the three lives that their togetherness had produced. The children who were direct products of their togetherness now drove them apart, as her unending love that spoiled their first-born left him feeling disgusted and disappointed in her upbringing, while his preference to care for the two youngest sons left her fuming with anger and jealousy.
The oldest son celebrated every birthday of his lavishly, demanding the priciest gifts; each of his wishes was fulfilled by a doting mother who felt the need to provide her son with all the luxuries and comforts that she had lacked in her own childhood. The two younger boys grew up almost exclusively in Benaras, celebrating their joys in a modest way, enjoying the small moments of happiness in their lives, cherishing memories and events more than material things.
Since going off to Benaras, the two younger ones had not seen or heard any mention of their oldest brother, whose existence they largely had no knowledge or recollection of, the cloudy distressing childhood events related to him long forgotten, replaced by vivid, happy memories of Benaras and the times spent with their father. They only had a number of brief, mostly non-verbal, encounters with their mother, when she was unwillingly forced by their father to attend the annual Parents' Day celebrations at the boarding school. His wife and oldest son spent the summer holidays at various destinations abroad, while Prakash spent the summers with his younger sons in Mumbai, taking small weekend trips to every corner of India, learning about the untouched and unexplored beauty of their motherland.
Then, there came an event that changed the family dynamics completely; the three Tripathi boys were 21, 17, and 11, respectively. Conceding to his outrageous demands, the eldest son had been gifted a sports car for his 21st birthday by his mother. In a case of drunk driving, the young man caused a horrific accident that took the life of an elderly woman. Prakash of course saved his oldest son from the legal repercussions of the foolish actions, but a repeat incident in which two young children lost their lives forced him to oust his misguided son from the family, leaving him with just two children and a devastated wife who became more and more vengeful towards him for the decision. In retaliation for separating her from her son and disowning him from the family fortune, she planned the shattering revenge that would separate Prakash from his family, essentially orphan the two younger Tripathi children, and act as the stimulus for a whole slew of destructive events that would soon follow.
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Prakash lowered his eyes and dejectedly voiced the truth that pained him the most. "Mayank is your older brother. He is not Mayank Tiwari, but Mayank Tripathi. He took on Gayatri's maiden name out of spite after I disowned him."
A hollow laugh sounded from Mayank's throat as he heard the words. "It's too bad that you survived all those years ago Prakash Tripathi because what you're going to witness now is going to make you wish that you had died instead."
Placing a tighter hold around Rachna's struggling body, pinning her against his own torso, Mayank sharply announced. "Mom. Pull the trigger."
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❤️ Nivi
Edited by nividances - 10 years ago
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