“I know.”
She stands then, pacing the room, hands fluttering around her temples.
“How can a car catch fire like that? It’s not even hot outside. It wasn’t overheating—right? You checked before we left?”
“I did,” I say quietly.
She turns to me, eyes narrowing. “Abhimaan…”
I nod.
I have to tell her.
Now.
Before something worse happens. Before she gets hurt.
“I know why it happened,” I say, standing. “And I need to tell you.”
She stops moving.
I run a hand through my hair, suddenly nervous in a way I’m not used to. This is the woman who managed to somehow break all the walls I had around my heart, the only person I have ever let in in my entire life, and I am about to tell her things that may change her entire perspective about me.
I am scared, and I don’t like this feeling.
“I didn’t grow up in a family like most people,” I begin. “I was raised in an orphanage in Byculla. One of the bad ones.” She nods, because she already knows that; almost everyone does.
“I ran away when I was fifteen. I thought I’d die on the streets. Until I met Anil.”
I take a breath, not wanting to visit any of my past memories.
“He was a small-time gangster back then. But rising fast. He saw me stealing food outside a temple and said if I wanted to eat, I’d have to work. I was starving. Angry. Desperate to matter to someone. So I said yes.”
Her eyes don’t leave my face. “I did bad things. I don’t want to sugarcoat it. But Anil made me feel like I had value. Like I was someone.” I pause, trying to see her reaction, but I get none.
“But there were lines I couldn’t cross.” I sigh, “When he started trafficking children and women… I couldn’t do it. I didn’t even know I still had a conscience left after everything, but somehow, I did.” I lower my voice.
“I went to the cops. Told them everything I knew. Enough to put him away for years.”
I meet her eyes again. “He got out around the same time when you joined the company.”
Her breath catches. "The taxi imbalance," I exhale deeply, fear gripping my heart. She will know now what she had to go through because of me; she will leave now, and no amount of strength can make me ready for that. Because for the first time, I am thinking of a future with her, and I want to live it.
“The auto formatting of the laptop,” I reach out and grab her hand, to ground myself, to feel her still being here. “It was all him.”
“He promised revenge before he went in. Said I’d never know when or how—but he’d make me pay.” I add and inhale, “I think today was him making good on that promise.”
Aditi raises my chin, using her index finger. “So… I’ve been dragged into a gangster’s vendetta?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, voice cracking. “It’s too late for me to back out now.”
I reach up and tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away. “I can’t let you go,” I whisper. “I tried. God knows I tried. But I have the willpower of diamond, and I still lost the moment you walked into my life.”
She stares at me, unreadable. And then smiles. “I’m glad you lost,” she murmurs, kissing my nose, my eyes fluttering closed. “I’m fire, and fire can destroy diamond, Abhimaan.”
It’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever said. And it makes me laugh. Loud. Free.
She looks smug. Victorious. And heartbreakingly beautiful.
