Codename lotus, p.27
Codename Lotus, page 27
“Right then, lass,” he said. “Ye got yerself a deal.”
His hand extended. I took it, imagining what those hands had done—the silent screams they’d muffled, and squeezed until my revulsion steadied into steel. The final seal on our dark deal.
I’d had an idea—a way to make this lie true if I could move fast enough, before Harrow caught on and killed me—and not long after, killed everyone else: the Hazras, the Singhs, Saanya and…her unborn baby.
“Well, now that we have agreed,” I started, my voice steady, but inside, my heart raced for the exit. “I truly must be on my way. My schedule is rather tight today. I am only in the U.K. for a brief stay.”
Harrow was still simmering. His frown was a jagged, discordant shape. He gave a curt nod. The Hawk unblocked the exit and opened it.
I didn’t let my face change. I just nodded and started to walk.
It felt too easy.
Was this one of those sinister games where the hunters gave you a head start before the chase, just for fun?
“And…” The gruff voice stopped me cold. I turned. “I’ll give ye one truth for the road, hen,” he said, grinning. “Ye caught it right on time. The next name on my list was the lass’s brother. Sidharth Hazra.”
25
LOSS AND HOPE
SAANYA
The scent of sandalwood clung to the air, heavy and cloying, tangled with the smoke from the pyre. Flames danced in the dim evening light, flickering shadows over a circle of gathered faces. It was a small ceremony. Private. Just as she would have wanted.
I stood rigid, fists locked into my saree until my knuckles whitened. Naomi’s aunt Neela and Uncle Rajesh stood beside me. Tears cut clean paths down Aunt Neela’s cheeks. How sad a life. There were no words for the void she had left. The world felt empty, hollow, as if the light had been snuffed out for good.
The pandit’s chants threaded through the hungry fire, his eyes rimmed with age. It felt impossible—as if at any moment, she would appear at my elbow, alive and well, her eyes full of that clever glint, telling me how this had been a joke. But the heat searing my skin was all too real. Smoke stung my eyes, and still, I couldn’t cry.
Sid stepped forward when the pandit passed him the torch. His expression was closed, but his eyes betrayed his pain. He glanced at me. What was he doing? Seeking my approval for the final act? My heart hammered up my throat. I tried to speak.
“Please don’t—” It barely reached my own ears.
He couldn’t. How could he let her go so easily? Surely he’d want one more moment with her. Another second—
He lowered the torch to the pyre, and the flames surged. Something inside me tore.
“No. No, no—” I lurched forward. Someone’s arms—my mother’s? my father’s?—locked around me, catching me as my knees gave out. My fists were full of my saree, and tears came in a torrent of sobs, blurring my vision, but through the haze I still saw the fire devour her.
She was gone—lost to the flames, to the final barrier between us.
A hand pressed my shoulder.
“Madam, wake up.”
Anjali’s face hovered into focus. I jolted upright. Darkness still pressed against the windows. Sweat glued my hair to my temples, and my pajamas clung damp to my back. I dragged my palm over my forehead. I remembered Sid’s call earlier and the dread that had settled in my chest when he told me about Naomi’s plan. I’d rung her again and again with no luck until exhaustion pulled me under.
“Has she called?” My voice came out raw.
Anjali shook her head. “No, madam.”
“I need to call my brother.”
By evening, the open arches of the Singhs’ drawing room turned every word into an echo. I sank into a velvet cushion, very pregnant and bone-tired. Somewhere between dinner and Devika’s summons, the day had slipped from suffocating to unendurable.
It started, as always, with the baby.
The baby’s gender, the baby’s name, the nursery décor. Then she swerved into my supposed inadequacy, and finally, the sermon of duty: the eternal widow’s austerity she thought befitted me. For a second, I counted myself lucky she hadn’t tossed me onto Manish’s funeral pyre.
But something in Devika was different. Her pacing was less predatory and more…measured. Each whisper of her saree across marble was like a clock ticking.
“I’m tired, Devika,” I said. My voice was frayed but steady.
“Of course you are.” She nudged a crystal vase an inch to the left. “You barely eat. Have you looked in a mirror?”
“What I mean is, I can’t stay in this house another day. It’s suffocating.”
Devika didn’t look at me. Instead, her fingers smoothed over the vase. “Fine.”
“I’ve had enough. I can’t continue—what?”
“We’ve never had much in common, you and I. You were always so insolent, Saanya.”
“Insolent? I barely speak.”
“And dramatic,” she rolled her eyes.
I pushed up to stand.
“Sit,” she snapped—then lowered her tone. “I didn’t call you to fight. Even though you expect nothing less from me. There’s more you need to hear.”
She circled an armchair, rubbing her palms together. “I may have once liked you for my son, but there are limits to things.”
“What are you talking about? And thank you for the honesty?”
“You never loved Manish, Saanya. What did you expect?”
“And he loved me?”
She called for Anjali, who dashed in seconds later. “Yes, madam?”
“Gather Saanya’s belongings. She is leaving.”
Anjali’s eyes widened. Mine must have matched.
“I—don’t understand. What?” I managed.
“Go,” Devika told her. Anjali vanished.
I shifted, uneasy. “Not that I’m jailed here—I chose to come and I am choosing to leave—but you truly have no objections? I get to go, just like that? You won’t fight me for my baby?”
Devika barely looked at me. “I have arranged for someone to pick you up. You’d best leave while Mohan is steeped in work.”
My gaze slid past the drawing room arches. His office doors were closed.
What was this? Why would Devika—
The doorbell sounded. And for some reason, my breath caught. It was a twisting in my gut.
Footsteps fluttered and the maids’ voices hissed down the corridor. “There’s someone outside. I saw brief flashes of light.”
Another drama? Now?
A very distinct voice came, speaking broken Hindi. “I am here to see Saanya. Where is she?”
My breath snagged.
It can’t be.
Mohan stormed into the room. “What the bloody hell is going on? I can hear voices and whispering straight through my business call!”
“Please, ma’am,” came a maid’s voice from the foyer, urgent. “I must announce you first—this isn’t—”
“Get out of my way or so help me.”
Sunita stumbled into the drawing room, trying and failing to block the woman behind her. “Sir, she insisted—”
Naomi stepped past her.
My heart was in my mouth. Our eyes met, and for what felt like the longest minute, we looked at each other. Her eyes—that forest green, lit from within.
I swallowed a cry.
“You came,” I whispered.
Her mouth softened. She gave the smallest nod.
Mohan’s bark shattered the moment. “What is this? Who the hell are you, barging into my house? How did you get past the gates? I have bodyguards on the clock.”
Naomi’s brow quirked, bored and lethal. “I’d double-check on that if I were you. I don’t know, perhaps they went out for late-night chai or a stroll around the block. How should I know?”
He turned the full force of his glare on me. “How do you know this woman?”
Naomi’s gaze darkened at his tone. He didn’t notice; he was too busy snapping at the staff to leave. Three maids fled.
Only a fraction of the household staff. Still containable.
“Call Sanjay and Preet,” he told Sunita. “Now!”
The groundskeeper and the chauffeur? What did he intend for them to do? Play bodyguards?
“Where are those bloody—” He glanced out a window.
Devika, though, kept pacing, arms crossed, lips thin. She didn’t join his fury. She didn’t join…anything. So odd.
You didn’t just contain a personality like Devika’s back in the bottle after you’d unleashed her, and I had upset her plenty. Something didn’t sit right.
Naomi’s voice was low. “Are you okay?”
Was I? After these unbearable months? I knew what she was truly asking: Have they hurt you?
“I’m fine,” I murmured.
“We’ll talk after we leave,” Naomi said, just as softly. “Pack your things.”
“What?” I murmured, giddy and aching all at once. I only realized I’d caught her hand when she squeezed mine.
“Trust me. Please,” she murmured.
But before I could even move, I watched as Devika barged forward, face tight as she scrutinized Naomi’s casual familiarity with me. “What are you—”
Mohan lifted a hand—gold signet ring flashing—eyes set on Naomi. “I asked you a question. Who are you?”
Naomi tipped her head. “I’m your worst nightmare.”
Sunita skidded back in, breathless. “Sir, the driver and groundskeeper already went home.”
Behind her shuffled old Anil, cap wrung tight between his hands, dirt-smudged overalls, eyes wide and lost.
Oh, Anil. I pressed my fingers to my forehead.
“But I brought him,” Sunita added.
“Madam. Sir.” Anil’s frail voice quivered.
Mohan’s gaze flicked between the bewildered elderly gardener and Naomi, then me.
Oh, he was blowing steam straight out of his ears.
He turned back to Sunita and Anil. “Get out. Both of you!” he snapped.
It was like watching a comedy of errors.
He rounded on Naomi. “Answer me or I’ll remove you myself!”
I shook my head. “She is my friend. Stop!” My heart was pounding. “And you won’t remove her. From anywhere.”
“You insolent—” His hand lifted—my body braced on instinct—then Naomi was between us.
“Do it,” Naomi hissed. “I dare you.”
“Naomi!”
A sort of distant recognition started to settle on Mohan’s face. Maybe the name. Maybe the memory of sitting in her office months ago.
Naomi tilted her head, her tone almost casual. “How peculiar that you call on your staff. Why don’t you call Harrow and his dogs instead? Their intimidation tactics pack a bit more of a punch. Don’t you think?”
Mohan’s color drained.
I stared at her. “You…know each other?”
“This—person,” Naomi said, “has been dealing with the individual who sent those criminals after you. Edward Harrow. The man who killed Manish.”
“What?” I was struggling not to fall flat on the sofa.
“I did no such thing.” Mohan scoffed.
Devika’s mask cracked. “You know the man who killed our son?”
And for the first time since he’d come out with his unchallengeable patriarchal egotism, Mohan was silent—shaking with anger and throwing daggers at Naomi—but silent.
“Answer me!” Devika snapped.
“I was trying to fix it! The mess Manish made!” he exploded. “Can’t you understand? But I had nothing to do with his death! And I’ll be damned if you people think you’re going to frame me for it.”
Naomi didn’t blink. “Oh, I know you didn’t order his death. Though Manish’s debt was substantial.” Her face closed. “You may have means, but not that much. When you learned Saanya was pregnant, you saw an opportunity. My guess is, you were after GlobalLink all along. Saanya’s pregnancy only precipitated matters. Am I in the ballpark?”
The muscle in his cheek jumped.
And it all slotted together: the slow closing walls, the move to Mumbai early in my marriage, and the isolation by inches. A plan with my life as the passage. Manish’s candidacy as my husband.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” My voice trembled. “I would have paid. I wanted to. Why send them after me? I haven’t slept in months, I—”
He sneered. “As always, making a drama of everything.”
“So this is my fault?” Something in me snapped. “You’re a horrible human being,” I said, for the very first time, and my heart kicked up a beat.
“Saanya,” Naomi warned, low, trying to rein me in.
“No, Naomi, please let me do this.” Years of silence and endurance had hardened into a final, immovable boundary. “Do you know how many people have put themselves in danger to protect me? And you knew they might kill me. You wanted—”
“Sidharth,” Naomi cut in, eyes on Mohan. “He was the original target. Once he had you back under his thumb, he was going to have Sidharth murdered.”
Everything in me went very, very still.
“Sid…”
Devika stared at him, silent and open-mouthed.
If Sid died, the board would force me into Baba’s chair. And then, later, if I died? The company would undoubtedly pass down to my child. An unbroken line to Mohan’s hands.
“You have no proof,” he said. The certainty in it chilled me. Naomi’s gaze narrowed.
“You,” he spat, “have been a thorn in this family’s side since the day you married my son. I want no sight of you.”
Naomi almost laughed. We both watched him go.
I turned to Devika. “You knew,” I said. “You were happy to keep me here—but that detail about Manish, about Sid…that was new to you.”
Something flickered in her eyes and died, then she scoffed. “Just go.”
Naomi’s eyes were like ice daggers. “Leave it, Saanya. Get your things,” she murmured. “We don’t have long.”
Long before what? The question rose and drowned.
I turned to leave, then paused. “Before I go…I want to know.”
Devika’s look was flat. “Know what?”
“You raised him. You must have seen the signs.” My throat tightened. “Why didn’t you warn me—tell me what he was? You’re a woman too. Why didn’t you warn me?”
It felt like a long road ahead. So many times I’d begged some future version of myself to pull me out of that hell. To give me the answers. But it was me all along. Me now. Only I had the power to become the version of me who’d be free. Only I could offer past me the healing, and future me…the gift.
Devika stared at me for a long beat. For a second, I thought this was it. That she’d finally give me the most basic decency.
The coldness in her gaze fractured, and I saw an aching pulse of empathy that made her look almost fragile. But then, her expression snapped back into place. Warmth vanished, replaced by that seasoned, calcified mask.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I swallowed.
“What are you waiting for?” she snapped. “Isn’t this what you wanted? Go!”
Her diminishment hit like a paper fan. It did nothing to me.
The smile came from inside.
I’ve won.
Naomi’s hard stare, directed only at Devika, made me feel less alone.
Because I wasn’t alone.
Naomi nodded. “I’ll wait for you here.”
I nodded back and went upstairs.
NAOMI
A small, unsaintly part of me relished the silence with Devika Singh, the woman who’d sanded Saanya down for years and called it polish. Did she truly believe that excuse of a man she had as a husband? People could be so gullible when emotions clouded their judgment. Lamentably, it seemed she’d made her choice.
To be fair, she’d heard a lot for the first time tonight. It showed. She also didn’t seem to grasp that her husband’s actions would eventually catch up to him. Surely she had to—
Should I warn her?
Devika’s eyes scraped me up and down like inventory. She turned to the window, night black against the glass. “At least it’s you taking her,” she murmured. “A friend, I assume? The only number in the phone history. Aside from…theirs.” Her fingers spun a diamond ring. “It’s the thought of facing those people,” she added under her breath.
Those people.
The Hazras. Saanya’s and Sidharth’s parents. People I cared for like family. The people her husband was willing to leave childless.
I cocked my head. “Why don’t you tell Saanya that?”
Her glare snapped back. “What do you know of anything?”
“Enough to say there’s plenty left unsaid between you.”
“I’ve nothing to say to that foolish girl,” she said with a scoff. “Even less to you.”
And with that, Devika cut me one last look and walked away.
I didn’t think my brow could climb any higher.
Well. No chance in hell I was waiting around for an encore.
It was Anjali, a woman of about fifty, who found me wandering the corridor and led me to a door.
“I’ll leave you now, madam,” she said. Kind voice. Steady hands.
I hoped she’d been a soft place for Saanya to land while in this house.
She hesitated. “And…thank you, madam,” she whispered.
I nodded.
After a knock, I heard Saanya’s soft, “Please come in.”
She was packing on the bed, folding carefully into an open suitcase. We both went still when our eyes met.
I shut the door gently behind me and leaned against it.
Ridiculously, a thought struck me—was this the room she’d shared with him?
Jealousy lit a spark in the pit of my stomach.
But this was all about her and only her.
She dropped whatever she was holding and met me halfway, her belly pressing to me as she threw her arms around my neck. I wrapped my arms around her and finally drew a full breath.
I closed my eyes and pressed my cheek against her hair, her skin, that warm, living weight. Safe.
