Love Happens With A Twist

10

Mumbai

•
"Let it be. We will talk on the phone. I will explain it then." She drew away while exhaling a long sigh and cleaning the traces of tears under her eyes.

"You can't go. Who will I stay with?" Lakshmi gripped her hand tightly, refusing to let her leave for whatever reason it may be that she got married. Poonam matched her gaze and wanted to release tears at any moment, so she hugged her and murmured.

"I will be okay. How many things have I faced in life alone? Don't forget, I was sent to London to live on my own with no support. I returned at last, even when I thought I would never do so. It will be the same this time. I will return soon." She exhaled a heavy breath out of her mouth and pulled, pecking her forehead, and she told her,

"I will talk to your father. I will try my best to see if he forgets this incident. Don't worry yourself."

She responded with a small smile, before she agreed to leave with Abhimanyu to his car. When she entered and he closed the door prior to her doing so, she reclined against the chair and shut her eyes, her mind getting consumed with thoughts of what her father told her—that she was now on her own in life. She didn't realise it when another tear rolled through her eyes. Her life was first messed up when Shraddha entered, and now it was the damned Abhimanyu.

"We're here. Come out," she heard him say.

She opened her eyes and turned to see where they were. It was a hotel. A very cheap three-star hotel. She got up and followed him as he went in. The interior there was extremely awful. The designer seemed to have lacked taste or didn't know what style meant because instead of a hotel, it resembled more like a government hospital.

When she entered his room for the first time and her eyes met the TV that was mirroring all corners of her home, including the bathrooms, paralysing fear gripped her. All the while, her being watched never crossed her mind because he instilled so much panic that he ensured she couldn't think straight to be able to realise how he knew everything. Including the plan she discussed to nab him.

"Oh that! Don't bother. Even your phone is tapped." She shuddered with unyielding nervousness as his hand slid around her waist. Her lips became glued when he came nearer, and he rested his head on her shoulder.

"I am not like those men in the films you watched in your childhood. We are married. As my wife, you must fulfil my needs. I don't care whether you love me or not. I won't lie by promising to give you time to settle."

"I hate you. And I'd rather chew stones than agree to get close to you." She spit with immense hatred and tried to break free of his hand, which instead began to roam around her body. Her anger for him was already above handling, and from his point of view, he enjoyed teasing her to remind her she was now his and he could do whatever he wanted to with her because she had lost her freedom. She gritted her teeth and, using all her strength, stamped her foot on his, which made him move back as he released a loud groan from the unexpected excruciating pain of her shoe on the veins in his foot that made it numb.

"How dare you? Because of you, my dad told me things. He told me things he never told me in the past." She shrieked a yell. After her eyes saw the knife in the fruit bowl, she took a pause and went there to take it with the intent to show him how extremely angry she was and that she could be violent no matter who was in the law. But when she turned, she saw a gun pointing at her.

"Put it back!" he warned her.

She refused to budge, as when she gets angry, nothing scares her. "Where is my money?"

"You will only get it back after you're arrested. Now put it back." He lowered his gun, and he went to lock the door so that she wouldn't escape at night, even though doing that would be pointless because he would still find her. She also put it down, but her anger was evolving and refusing to be quenched, especially when she saw him keeping the keys to the room inside his pockets, which showed that just like she didn't trust him, he too didn't trust her.