AUTHOR'S POV
Her breath hung in her throat.
For a second, her brain refused to process what she was seeing.
Stood at the centre of the living room, pale, sweat- drenched, strands of her hair sticking to her wet forehead and neck, was a woman who had contributed actively into her ruin.
Everyone was surrounding her and none spoke, only glared at her while she panted hard with a scared and tired expression. Drishye had his hands, clutched together behind his back, scanning her face with raged eyes- the ones that could kill a serpent just by staring.
Jade waved a machine over her body, scanning every inch of her existence.
"No taps. She's clear."
Jade finally announced, stepping away from her.
Everyone visibly sagged with relief yet, didn't relax enough. They were on standby waiting for Drishye to instruct otherwise.
But to Chhavi, each moment was hitting her like a lethal storm.
She sensed that something was wrong, from behind the curtains. Those eyes, the hair strands- they're triggering something in her. Something's definitely wrong.
"Speak. Or you're dead, Krisha."
Drishye threatened, looking dead into the pale woman's eyes who was literally shivering at his stance.
Chhavi's world tilted.
Krisha?
Wait! That's Krisha?
She blinked rapidly, her mind scrambling to fetch pieces that would connect to give her a better picture.
Her fingers dug into the curtain fabric as her breath grew erratic.
No.
No! No! No!
Her gaze snapped to Krisha and suddenly, her mind reeled.
Images crashed into her head like a hurricane.
A dimly lit hotel room.
Vinesh, sprawled on the bed, his hands gripping a woman's waist.
The same woman turning her face slightly- just enough for the camera to catch her profile. For her to see and feel like the most unfortunate person alive on earth. For her to loose a family she built for ten years, sacrificed and cared for...
The clip.
The Holi video.
The woman Vinesh was sleeping with.
It was her.
It was fucking her!
Her stomach twisted violently.
Her entire body went numb but her mind was screaming.
No. This can't be real. This is not real.
She clamped a hand over her mouth to stop a sound from escaping her mouth. Her head spun so fast that she thought she might collapse right there.
For the first time, Krisha's voice cut through the cloud of her mind.
"You'll have to make her sign the property papers."
It hit her like a freight train.
"I can't do this anymore. He'll come to know very soon."
The game. The deception. The setup.
Drishye knew!
He fucking knew everything.
A sharp, horrifying realization dawned upon her.
This wasn't a coincidence.
This was never a coincidence.
The sudden crossover at the airport. Coming to his place, at Dehradun. Sending Aahana to school, getting her a job...Trying to win her...
The Holi video. The cheating. The betrayal.
It wasn't fate. It wasn't some bad luck.
It was pre- written.
By him.
By Drishye.
Drishye wrote Chhavi's ruin.
The man she trusted. The man who held her in his arms and whispered reassurances while her soul was deeply wounded. The man who made her feel safe after the grave betrayal she had to go through. The man who made her feel loved when her husband chose another woman over him. The man who made her feel important.
He was the one who orchestrated it all.
Her fingers curled into fists, her nails biting into her palm as white-hot rage poured into her veins.
She had never felt this kind of anger before.
He played me.
He destroyed me.
Something inside her snapped.
With blood roaring in her ears, she stormed forward.
All heads turned toward her at once, including his.
She saw him baffle for a second and the next second, he opened his mouth to explain.
"Miss-"
SMACK!
The sound cracked through the air like a gunshot.
Drishye's face jerked to the side from the impact. A stunned silence gripped the room.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Only Chhavi's heavy, ragged breaths echoed in the suffocating stillness.
She stood there, her chest heaving violently, her entire body trembling with a fury so raw it felt like she was vibrating from the inside.
And when Drishye turned back to face her, his cheek red, his jaw clenched, his eyes watery- she met his gaze, head- on.
But his eyes, those piercing eyes that once looked at her like she was his world, couldn't meet hers anymore.
His gaze dropped, almost immediately as they saw the agony in her pupils.
"All of you men are the same. Bloody traitors!"
She spat venomously.
A pin-drop moment stretched between them, tangled in corny chains of betrayal, until...
PING!
A sharp chime shattered the silence.
Everyone's heads snapped toward the sound.
The screen of Veda's laptop had come to life.
A single message glowed on the screen.
MADEMOISELLE: I need your help. Now.
Her own message!
The one she had desperately tried to send to the unknown. To save Drishye.
The one that never delivered due to lack of signal in that secured room until now, blowing another cold storm on her face.
Her stomach twisted into a sick knot.
Her fingers went ice cold.
Slowly, too slowly, her eyes drifted from the screen to Veda.
Veda' face had lost all colour. She looked caught.
No.
No fucking way!
Chhavi sucked in a sharp breath as realization hit her like a truck.
A bitter laugh bubbled in her throat. She squinted her eyes, trying to make sense of the situation.
"Wow!"
Her voice was barely above a whisper but it carried through the room like a cold gust of wind.
She turned fully towards Veda.
"What more do I need to learn today, huh?"
She asked, tilting her head, narrowing her eyes, staring deep into her soul.
Veda opened her mouth but no words came out. All her sass was gone in the snap of a moment.
"How pathetic of you." She sneered. "To make an already miserable person go through more misery. Wow!"
Veda swallowed hard.
"It's not-"
"Save it."
Chhavi cut her off.
"It was me."
Drishye's finally accepted.
Chhavi's head snapped toward him.
"I was the one messaging you." He admitted in a grim tone, his eyes still studying the floor. "Until today."
She froze.
"Today, I gave...gave Veda the login credentials to destroy them." He looked up, continuing as he stuttered. "Because I was- I was...about to tell you the truth. Myself. I didn't need the alias...anymore."
His confession met with silence for some seconds.
A suffocating, breathtaking silence.
"Why? Coz you've already destroyed my life just because you couldn't take a rejection ten years ago?!"
Chhavi laughed.
A cold, hollow, humorless laugh.
Drishye stiffened.
His eyes softened, a sheen of unshed tears collecting on his waterline.
Guilt crashed over him like a relentless tide, drowning him in the avoirdupois of what he had done.
He had hurt her.
His Rose.
More than he had ever anticipated.
The pain in her voice, the hollow laugh that cut through him like a jagged blade.
He wanted to run to her.
To pull her into his arms.
To bury his face in her hair and whisper that nothing was as it seemed. That she just had to trust him, hold on for one more second, one more breath.
But he knew better.
He knew the moment he touched her, it would shatter them both.
It would be the end.
The end of something that had never even begun.
Something that had been on the brink of existence- so close, so fragile-only to be crushed under the poundage of his own choices.
"The truth?" She echoed mockingly, shaking her head. "Oh, Drishye, you must think I'm so fucking stupid, haan? Just a helpless housewife with a terrible marriage, let's make it worse, right? And, then? Let's take advantage of her helplessness. Why? Because she had the audacity to reject me! Yes?!"
He didn't reply. He just kept looking at her, shattering with each ticking of the clock.
"You were going to tell me the truth, right?" She repeated as she walked to him, her voice rising with every word.
Grabbing his collar, she shouted on his face.
"When?! After you had completely ruined me?"
Her voice dropped to a sob, almost.
"But, Drishye...what's more left? What more is left to be destroyed?"
Drishye exhaled sharply.
"It wasn't ever that-"
"Then what was it like, Drishye? Haan?" She snapped, sniffing. "You set me up. And now what? You want me to believe you suddenly grew a conscience?"
Drishye stayed silent. He looked at her, with his lips slightly twisting and eyes glistening.
Chhavi scoffed, backing off.
"NO! You don't get to act noble now, Drishye. Not at all!" Her voice was pure venom as she shook her head vigorously. "You don't get to look at me like you regret it."
Her hands trembled but her gaze burned into his.
She walked to him, until they're half an inch apart. Looking into his eyes, she spat.
"Because the only thing you regret...is that I found out."
Silence.
And in that silence, the truth settled like poison in the air.
Drishye had no defense.
He had nothing left to say.
Because she was right.
And he knew it.
They all knew it.
"Traitor! You think you're the only person in this world who has ever loved someone? Well, guess what? I've loved you- always! Not just from the day I started sharing your home with you but since I was twenty-five! Back when you weren't this...this cold, deceitful man. Back when you still had a heart!"
Drishye felt like the ground had been ripped from beneath him.
She had loved him.
For ten years.
Just like he had.
His mind reeled, struggling to process it. His throat tightened. His chest ached in a way he had never known could surpass the ache he felt thinking how his Miss Rosy was not his.
She had loved him since she was twenty-five, back when he was still nineteen- trying to balance his adulthood, before life had turned him into the man he was today. She had held onto that love for a decade, despite everything. Despite him.
A bitter, almost self-loathing chuckle threatened to escape him but he swallowed it down.
This should have been the moment he longed for- for ten years. But instead, it was a nightmare.
Because she hadn't said it with longing.
She had said it with hate.
Because of his choices, because of his dirty games.
His hands clenched into fists as he stared at her. The tears didn't wait any longer to gush down his face.
For ten years, they had been trapped in the same storm, circling each other, loving each other yet, never knowing it.
"I loved you when you were just a reckless, stubborn idiot who still had a soul. When you didn't play with people's lives like puppets!"
She spat, balling her hands into fists.
"But you?" She continued, wounding his broken heart with more vexation. "You stood there, looked me in the eyes and lied. Again and again. You bloody trai-"
"I never lied!"
Drishye's voice thundered through the room.
Chhavi flinched but didn't back down. Her eyes blazed with fury.
"Oh! Really? Mr. R. Drishye? You didn't pretend as if you had no fucking idea about what turmoil I've been going through while you're the only one who plotted the entire disaster?"
His chest rose and fell heavily.
"I've always tried to give you hints."
"Oh! Hints! Yes, hints! To let me know what? How you made my husband cheat me? How you broke my family which I've been struggling hard to keep intact?"
Taking a moment to roll his eyes, Drishye let out a sharp breath, utterly awestruck at the absurdity of her accusation. His lips curled into a smirk, one that dripped with condescension as he tilted his head slightly, observing her.
"Do you even here yourself, Miss Rosy? I made your husband cheat on you? Wow!"
He chuckled.
His amusement faded into something darker as he locked his gaze onto hers. Without warning, he stomped toward her, with slow, predatory steps.
Chhavi instinctively backed away as her breath quickened.
"Don't don't- don't come closer to me! I hate you!"
She stammered but her pleas met deaf ears.
A wicked, mocking chuckle rumbled from his chest. He closed the distance in one swift move, grabbing her nape with a firm grip, searing his fingers into her skin.
She gasped as he yanked her forward, her chest hitting his, hard.
They're so close to each other that their skin were breathing in their exhalation.
In a monstrously, low whisper, he announced while his eyes clearly displayed his overwhelming emotions.
"Yes, I made your husband cheat on you but most importantly- HE. CHOSE. TO. CHEAT. ON. YOU."
Chhavi flinched, her entire body stiffening as the weight of his words sank in. The intensity in his voice was undeniable, brutal in its truth.
"And tell me, Miss Rosy." He continued in a slow, taunting drawl. "Which family did I break?"
Drishye tilted his head, studying her reaction with a quiet, deadly satisfaction. His fingers flexed against her skin, his grip neither gentle nor cruel but possessive.
His smirk deepened, his lips brushing dangerously close to her cheek as he delivered the final blow.
"The one that never existed? Except in your illusions?"
A sharp silence followed.
Chhavi's lips parted but no words came. Her eyes burned, her entire world tilting beneath her feet.
Because deep down, she knew- he wasn't wrong.
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||SPOILER||
"I didn't make your husband cheat, Miss Rosy. I simply gave him the opportunity. And he took it- without hesitation."