Chapter 18
Raj wakes up and sees Manu sleeping on the couch. He shakes his head and carefully lifts her onto the bed, being careful to not hurt his sprained arm. After placing the covers over her, he goes and takes a shower. FIfteen minutes later Raj makes his way downstairs to discuss bringing Amrit back with Harjeet. Harjeet tried his best to hide his excitement at finally having Amrit and Rohan back. He tried to seem unaffected and agreed to go with Raj.
Harjeet tells Raj that they are both going to go and get Amrit and heads to his room to get ready. Meanwhile Raj goes to tell Manu that he would be going and found that Manu was in the shower. He sees a dark blue saree laid out on the bed and imagined her wearing it. He grinned to himself and looked around the room trying to find his phone. Raj couldn't find his room so before he left, he placed a note on top of the saree to let Manu know where he had gone. Raj wanted Amrit to meet Rohan as soon as possible since during the RajPreet wedding Rohan was at rehab. Raj decided to pick both of them up at the same time.
Manu comes out of the shower and gets ready. Wearing her sindoor was the first thing she did and then she wore her blue saree and matching blue bangles. She didn't notice Raj's note on the floor. It had fallen off of her saree due to the wind coming from the open window. Manu goes downstairs to make lunch for Raj. The cook made breakfast today since Harjeet wanted his Bahu to rest. He even suggested that she only cook sometimes as a hobby and not make a chore out of it.
After making lunch, Manu realized that she hadn't seen Raj for a while. She didn't notice that Harjeet wasn't home either. Usually Raj would be nipping at her every step, especially ever since they got married. She goes upstairs and couldn't find Raj. Manu furrowed her brow as she began to get worried. She called Raj and heard his phone ringing. His ringtone was blaring from the couch. She lifted the blankets on the couch to find his phone. Raj never went anywhere without his phone. Manu decided to look downstairs as her heart started to panic.
She speed down the stairs in her panic and bumped into Nihal. Nihal was about to yell at her when she interrupted him in her desperation, "Do you know where Raj is? He's not at home, he left his phone...he never leaves his phone...what do I do?" she gasped as she struggled to breathe. Nihal's anger dissipated and he tried to get her calm her down. Her uneven breathing made him worried and he grabbed her wrist when she started to collapse. Preet's hands were ice cold from fear. He sat her down on the floor and she started crying hysterically. Nihal put his arms around her to calm her down.
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Raj came back inside the Bajwa because he realized he would need his phone to call Amrit, Harjeet didn't have her phone number and he hadn't memorized the new number she got after coming to the pind. Raj went on alert when he heard crying and ran upstairs toward the sound. He stopped dead on his tracks. Manu was in Nihal's arms shaking furiously. Raj immediately shoved Nihal off of her. He dropped down to her level and hugged her shaking form while glaring at Nihal. He ran his hands through her hair and kissed her forehead. Rubbing her shoulders when he realized that she was shivering Raj asked, "Manu why are you crying? Did Nihal do something? What did he do? Tell me...tell me Manu.". Manu couldn't stop crying and Raj's anger towards Nihal grew. Raj got up and grabbed Nihal's collar. "What the hell did you do to my wife?", Nihal didn't respond as he seemed to be in shock. Losing his patience Raj gave Nihal a punch in the face. Nihal dropped to the floor and groaned in pain. Manu stopped crying and she felt her breathing becoming even. She quickly stood up and held Raj back from throwing another punch. "Raj...where did you go? I was so worried about you", she said. Raj listened as she described that she thought something had happened to him and Nihal just found her when she was panicking. Raj still threw a suspicious look at Nihal and hugged Manu tightly.
Nihal was crumpled on the floor in shock...Raj repeatedly called Preet "Manu". What could this possibly mean? Slowly getting up he remembered his interactions with Manu the Shah and Preet. They looked very similar and not to mention Preet wasn't like a regular girl. Preet tried to fight off his goons singlehandedly and even kicked him in the knee when he was manhandling her. His train of thought was interrupted when he saw Raj pulling Preet into a hug, he clenched his fist and left the scene.
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