Page 26 of Born in Ruin

“No.”

“Then no,” she smiled sweetly back at him.

Ishaan laughed, the ache around his heart easing with the simple pleasure of friendship. “I could keep you in a lifetime of tomatoes.”

“Tomatoes, medical care.” She held her hands out pretending to weigh the two. “Sorry, Ish. It’s not an even contest. It’s the trophy that’s the clincher.”

They were still talking when Virat’s phone chimed. He picked it up and walked away from the table, his face a mask of concentration.

“The trophy,” Ishaan said. “Is never part of the deal. It’s too precious.”

“Guys.” Virat was back, his face an expressionless mask. “We have something.”

FOURTEEN

Mayukhi

Her mind spun in a million different directions, the past and the present colliding. Her palm flexed, the old scar, mostly forgotten but more likely suppressed, rising to the fore bringing back memories she never wanted to relive.

Ishaan Adajania had brought it all back. She should resent him for it. Instead, all she did was welcome the sharp blade of vengeance she hadn’t known existed inside her. She’d come into this wanting to take Ishaan down and now found herself in the unlikely position of an ally.

She snorted, laughter bubbling up inside her. An ally of Ishaan Adajania. Her mind filled with images of his skinny self glaring at her from across the lunch hall. She was laughing loudly now, the cab driver giving her strange looks in the rearview mirror. Her phone pinged with a message and she glanced down. Ishaan would live to be a hundred years. He was messaging right as she was thinking about him.

Reached safely?

Curt, annoyed and to the point. Just like the surly teenager she’d known in what felt like another lifetime. The cab pulled up in front of her home and she paid up, stepping out and replying to Ishaan.

Yes.

“Yukhi.” She looked up from her phone to see her father standing there, looking like he’d come back from a late night walk. He was sweating through his t-shirt, his scanty hair sticking to his scalp.

“What is happening?” he asked, huffing as he came to a stop beside her.

“Just getting home after dinner at Adajania’s,” she told him, her voice cool with the hurt of how easily he’d handed her future over to the other man. It didn’t matter what she knew now or what her own decisions were, it didn’t change the fact that both men had taken from her – her choices, her power, her voice. Mayukhi wasn’t sure that was something she would ever be able to forgive.

Her phone rang and she glanced at it. It was a group call from Naveen and Ashish. Her heartbeat sped up, the reality of what she’d taken on hitting her.

“I need to take this,” she told her father who was still staring at her, looking mournful and apologetic. She turned away from him and headed towards the elevator trying to get to somewhere private before she picked up. Her father followed, right on her heels.

“I’m working with the legal and financial advisors to see what I can do, Yukhi. I’m trying to fix this.”

She came to an abrupt halt and her father walked right into her.

“You are?” she asked, allowing the call to go to voicemail. “What can you do at this point?”

“I don’t know,” her father admitted. “But I’m trying.”

Throat tight, Mayukhi nodded. “Thank you Baba.” She knew it was fruitless and yet, it meant more than she could ever express that her father hadn’t just thrown her to the wolves, or one wolf in particular.

Theirs was not a particularly affectionate family and so they just stared at each other in awkward silence before her father patted her on her back and walked off towards the elevator. Mayukhi followed and they rode up to their floor in silence. She branched off from her and to her room before calling Naveen back.

“Hi, I-“

Naveen interrupted her prepared excuses. “Wait. I’m conferencing the others in.”

Mayukhi’s brows rose at the peremptory tone but she said nothing. A minute later, Majid, Parash and Ashish joined the call. They had an almost full complement, unless Varun was there in spirit, she thought sardonically. Damn, she shouldn’t joke about that. That bastard was capable of coming back from the dead. It took a lot to keep Satan down.

“Talk to me boys,” she said, keeping her tone light. She couldn’t afford to sound any different from her earlier self. Contrary to what Ishaan and his posse thought, these guys weren’t fools. Vicious, predatory dickheads maybe but not fools.

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