Page 214 of The Redemption
“The hospital roof collapsed… and buried my mother alive.”
The anguish in his words is so raw that I can actually feel it.
“If he had stayed...” His voice trembles. “If he’d helped her instead of running away, my mother would’ve lived.”
Anger burns in his eyes.
“Nightmares don’t scare me anymore. I’ve lived with them for years. But this one...” His voice drops to a whisper. “...watching Maa scream for help while I stand there, unable to reach her… it destroys me every single time.”
I watch as another drop of tear escape from beneath his lashes. “Because no matter how hard I try… every time I run towards her, I’m too late to save her.”
Something inside my heart breaks. Without thinking, I brush away the tears that cling to his eyes.
“Raghav...” I whisper. “This isn’t your guilt to carry. You were just a newborn. How could you possibly have saved her then? It wasn’t your responsibility. It washis.”
“I know. But what haunts me is that, even in those nightmares that have followed me for the last thirty months, I still cannot save her. Maa deserved a life, Siya. She deserved to watch her sons grow up.” His eyes fill again. “Instead, the man who promised to protect her left her there to burn.”
Raghav’s fists tighten, and his eyes turn bloodshot again as he continues, “I lived for thirty years believing his lie about how Maa died after giving birth to us. Thirty years of believing him, while he kept on taking the lives of the people who mattered to me the most… the people I loved. First, my mother, and then the closest thing I ever had to a father… my bodyguard.”
My fingers curl around his arms.
“The only man who ever stood beside me... who taught me... protected me... loved me like his own son.” His eyes harden. “My father murdered him too.”
The hatred in his eyes returns. “I was thirteen when he shot my bodyguard because he couldn’t bear seeing me love another man more than my own father. For all these years, I believed he died at the hands of a rival mafia clan. Another lie told by my father.”
I simply stare at Raghav, unable to process what I’m hearing.
“It wasn’t until two and a half years ago, when GLEN attacked the Bat Gang in Mumbai, that I finally saw his real face.” His eyes lock onto mine. “You can’t even imagine what it feels like to hear your own father calmly confess every sin he’s ever committed. He stood right in front of me and Ayaan and admitted everything.”
Tears form in my eyes too. Raghav grabs my arms, his grip tightening with every passing second.
“So, I killed him. That moment he confessed, Ayaan and I pulled the trigger together… and ended him once and for all.”
I freeze.
Raghav killed his own father?
But no one in the underworld knows that. The only story that ever reached us was that Tej Khurana had died during GLEN’s counterattack in Mumbai. That had been only half the truth. Tej Khurana hadn’t fallen at the hands of an enemy. He had been executed by his own sons.
And that day, Raghav didn’t just kill his father... he also buried the man he used to be and walked away from the mafia life forever.
“And I don’t regret it,” he goes on. “If he stood in front of me again... I’d shoot him a thousand times over. There isn’t enough death in this world to repay what he took from me. He stole every chance I ever had of knowing what it felt like to have a family. He had to die.”
The tears burning behind my eyes finally spill over.
“The day I killed him was the day I swore I would never touch another gun again. The mafia life had taken everything from me, and I wanted nothing more to do with that life.” He falls silent, fresh tears gathering in his eyes. “I walked away from that darkness, Siya. I left the guns behind. I left the bloodshed behind. I left Raghav Khurana behind. But these nightmares… they never left me. Every time I close my eyes, they remind meof the one person I could never save.My Maa.People spend a lifetime making memories with their mothers. I don’t even know mine.” He lets out a shaky breath. “One life is all we get... and I never even got to know the woman who gave me mine.”
A sob leaves my throat. Now, I truly understand why Raghav hates his father. My heart aches for the little boy who never knew his mother. For the teenager who lost the only father figure he’d ever had. And for the man standing before me now, still carrying all of that painalone.
Words suddenly feel too small. So, I step forward and wrap both my arms tightly around him. For a heartbeat, he doesn’t move. Then, slowly, his arms come around me too. And for the first time, he lets me hold him.
For several long moments, neither of us moves. The freezing water continues to pour over us, soaking us to the bone, but I barely feel it anymore. All I feel... ishim.
The way his arms slowly tighten around me. The way his forehead drops against my shoulder, as though every ounce of strength holding him together has finally given up.
My fingers slip into his damp hair, gently combing through the wet strands before settling at the back of his head. I slowly cradle him against me and continue to stroke his hair.
“It’s okay...” I whisper.
