Page 102 of Since the Night We Met
‘Bigger than your daughter and her dignity? Bigger than the humiliation you just made her swallow in front of the whole family?’ Mihit asked, incredulously.
Sharda answered, ‘Spare us the lecture, Mihit. You’re still young enough to think idealism fixes the world, but let me tell you it doesn’t.’
Neena argued. ‘How can you even justify not getting her the medical help she needed? She lost her mother, and you wouldn’t let us visit her in the hospital, when neither of you even bothered to come back home. What kind of a fuckall family does that?’
‘It’s so stupid that none of you see how generous we’ve been with Siya. In my time, we’d throw such girls out of the society because they weren’t suitable to live in a noble family. At least we didn’t do that with her.’
‘Should I get on my knees and kiss your hand in gratitude?’ Siya called her out. ‘You didn’t keep me home out of thegoodness of your heart. You kept me because someone had to take care of Kashvi as a baby, and neither you nor Dad wanted to spend money on a babysitter, no matter how many times I begged for help. If not for Kashvi, I don’t know what lengths you’d have gone to get rid of me.’
‘If I had my way, we wouldn’t have been unfortunate enough to have you but your stupid mother didn’t listen to me when I told her to abort you!’
Dhruv gripped her elbow as he said, ‘Dadi, stop it! Do you even have any idea what you’re saying?’
Sharda narrowed her eyes. ‘Better no child at all than a daughter! Arohi got what was coming for her.’
It happened too fast for Siya to stop herself. She pushed her chair back hard enough to make it scrape, the sound screeching through the room, and stood.
‘You think her death was some kind of punishment? You think the universe killed my mother because she made the “mistake” of giving birth to daughters?’
‘You are forgetting your place, Siya,’ Kartik warned her with a fist banging on the wood.
‘Oh, let me guess, that place is beneath all of you, isn’t it?’
‘Is this how you speak to your father?’ he yelled, each word laced with cold indignation. ‘You’ve clearly lost all sense of shame.’
Betrayal and humiliation burned like smoke in her chest, so much so that she thought she might suffocate. Rage exploded out of her as she said, ‘Okay. Let’s talk about shame. You parade around this house like you built it brick by brick, likethe name Kashyap was born from your ambition, hard work ,and sacrifices.’
Kartik went still, and Siya saw the flicker of warning in his eyes but she didn’t lower her gaze or shrink the way she once might have. ‘Tell me, Dad, when exactly did you become a Kashyap? Was it the day you were born or the exact moment you married my mother, and with it, came this empire that you never could’ve built on your own?’
All colour drained out of his face and his eyes widened. Sharda gasped and Dhruv turned to look at Kartik, disbelief crossing his face.
‘Arohi Jairaj Kashyap, in case you’ve forgotten who is therealheir of Kashyap empire,’ Siya declared proudly.
‘She doesn’t understand what she’s saying. She’s gone insane,’ Kartik tried to wave it off with a panicked laugh.
‘I understand more than you think. I understand that the man who loves to call himself the backbone of Kashyap heritage was originally born Kartik Sharma. I understand that before you married my mother, you were another small man from a smaller world who saw her as a ladder rather than a wife.’
His jaw clenched, and the vein in his temple pulsed erratically, but Siya was unwilling to bend anymore.
‘You took her last name because it opened doors for you. When she died, instead of mourning her, you erased your past and took over everything because Mom was an only child and we were too young. You inherited all of this from the woman and her family you claim to love but refuse to respect.’
The room had gone completely still. Even Sharda had lost her edge, her lips parted in shock. She didn’t need any evidence.Kartik’s silence was loud enough to prove it. Anger shone in his eyes, but there was a hint of fear in their depths.
Sharda lost her cool. ‘You ungrateful bitch! Kartik is your father. How dare you speak to him in such an abhorrent manner?’
The old barrier she’d built around herself with polite submission broke down. ‘Because for years, I’ve listened to people call him a visionary when all he did was put his name on my mother’s designs. Every article, every award speech, every press release has been carefully crafted by his PR to create the myth of his golden child persona. But none of it is real. You built it all on her grave. ’
‘I built this empire from nothing,’ Kartik boasted. ‘I took this failing brand that your mother left and turned it into a brand that people envy.’
‘You built nothing but debts. You begged for loans, you bet on scams, you banked on favours, and when everything dried up, you used my inheritance and sold my family jewels.’
His face contorted, the last remnants of his mask finally slipping off and Siya saw her father in all his merciless glory. ‘You’ve lost it if you think I’ll allow you to twist your lies into facts.’
‘You forced me to become a lawyer, Dad. Did you honestly believe I wouldn’t dig into my own family? Maa is the true Kashyap blood. You’rejusther husband, and don’t you dare forget it.’
Kartik pushed back his chair, coming at her in anger, but suddenly, Abhay was standing behind her before she could even register him moving. His hand slid across her waist, and his chest touched her back as he aligned against her like a shield.
‘If you take even a step toward my wife, I’ll bury you so deep down in the ground that you’ll finally be in hell, exactly where you belong,’ Abhay said, dangerously calm, but wrath was radiating off him in waves.
