Page 133 of The Redemption
“Ayaan—” Kailash Uncle warns.
“No!” Ayaan cuts him off. “Don’t stop me today, Dad! You saw it too. He picked up the gun again after promising he never would.”
His furious eyes lock onto Raghav once more.
“How could you do this, Raghav?” Ayaan demands, taking another step forward. “Do you even understand what the hell you’ve done? You exposed yourself to the entire underworld. For years, I cleaned up all your past sh*t. Every trail. Every old mafia record. Every loose end connected to the Dark Prince. I went out of my way to ensure your past stayed buried so the life you builthere would never be destroyed by it. I made sure nobody could trace you back. But you failed me.”
Ayaan exhales sharply before continuing, “You promised us that you would never step back into that world again, that you would never pick up a gun again. And yet, you walked straight back into the mafia world as if you had never left it.”
Raghav strides forward again, straight into Ayaan’s space. The movement is so sudden and aggressive that even I instinctively stiffen.
“And I would do it again,” Raghav growls, his jaw clenching dangerously. “And what did you just say? ThatIfailed you?”
Every single person in the room freezes as he jabs a finger hard against Ayaan’s chest.
“What about you?” he fires back. “You didn’t even have the guts to tell me you were changing Siya’s drop-off location. Because you knew I would never approve.”
“Yes, I knew,” Ayaan snaps. “And Siya herself had approved that place. Ask her,” he points towards me. “Ask her how badly she wanted it. Ask her how happy she was knowing she was finally going to start a new life in Queenstown, New Zealand.”
“That’s because her idea of freedom is a myth,” Raghav counters.
My anger spikes immediately on hearing that.But before I can say anything, he continues. “Siya is naïve if she thinks they wouldn’t trace her just because GLEN changed her records. You really think the underworld simply forgets people like us, Ayaan?”
Then he lets out a dark laugh devoid of any humour. “My case was different. GLEN erased my records and buried my old identity. But that alone wasn’t enough to keep me alive for the last two and a half years. I survived because I never stopped watching the underworld, even after disappearing from it. I hadmen tracking every enemy, every movement, every whisper, and every rumour connected to the Dark Prince.”
The veins in his forearm flex as he continues.
“The moment even a suspicion about the Dark Prince began to turn into a spark, it was crushed right there before it could spread.”
A heavy silence settles over the villa. Ayaan’s jaw clenches, but Raghav isn’t done.
“Who was going to do that for her?” he asks flatly. “Who was going to watch every shadow around Siya twenty-four hours a day?”
Nobody answers him. Even I stare at Raghav in shock. Until this moment, I had truly believed that changing my identity and disappearing from the mafia world would be enough. But now, hearing this, realising that even after disappearing, he had spent the last two and a half years constantly watching every enemy, tracking every suspicion, I suddenly understand that a changed identity alone was never enough.
Maybe one day Samarjeet would have found Mom and me too, and dragged us back. And then, the consequences would have been deadly.
Slowly, I lift my head, and my eyes lock with Raghav’s. The look in his eyes is enough to convey that I’m safe here. That nobody in this world will ever touch me again without going through him first.
“She’s nowhere safer than RK Estate,” Raghav says, holding my gaze without blinking. “She’s under my protection now... as my family. And anyone who comes for my family dies.”
Ayaan’s face hardens as he looks at Raghav.
“That still doesn’t justify you risking this entire family for amafia princess?” he challenges.
Raghav whirls around so quickly that I flinch. His fingers fist Ayaan’s collar. “Call her a mafia princess again… and see what happens.”
Ayaan jaw locks just as hard. Neither of them backs down even an inch. Then Raghav releases Ayaan’s collar and turns to the family.
“Let me remind everybody standing here one last time. Siya is no longer some bloody mafia princess.”
My breath catches in my throat.
“She is Siya Raghav Kundra now…my wife.”
A deafening silence follows. I swear the entire room freezes at that.
Ayaan.
