Hi guys, I know many of you have exams right now so pull up your socks girls and them As, here is another chapter hope you enjoy this.
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CHASING DESTINY
CHAPTER 6 – Dilemma
Dear Destiny,
I’m tired of playing games with you, this is not a simple threat but a fact now, give me back what you took from me or am taking you with me.
Because Destiny, my dear Destiny; am coming for you now.
*****
Dixit Residence
Ridhima was caught up between real and fiction, she couldn’t understand why she kept on seeing Kabir everywhere. She saw him outside her workplace, she saw him outside her house and today she saw him at the mall when she went for shopping. Kabir was no longer important to her so she knew she wasn’t seeing him because she missed him or thought about him and there was no way that she could be hallucinating then why would Kabir appear before her so often and most importantly why now after so many years.
Kabir was dead, she even went to his funeral too not because she still cared for him but she did it out of respect for Piyali, even Hrishant accompanied her that day then why was she seeing his ghost. Her eyes would catch him and then with a blink of an eye he would disappear, was Kabir’s ghost haunting her? At one point she wanted to believe that he was alive and he was doing it purposely to scare her but wouldn’t the police know if he was alive, was she simply reading too much from the situation or maybe her frequent illusions were merely a result of stress? However the truth may be, it was utterly confusing.
Hrishant saw her absent mindedly making the already made bed, she kept tucking the sheet into the bed at the same corner repeatedly. He had noticed that recently she seemed lost like something was troubling her and he wondered what was eating her mind that she was not ready to share with him. He walked to the other side of the bed “who are thinking about?” he asked teasingly.
“Kabir” she answered still lost in her trance, she immediately turned to him when she realised what she had said “it’s not like that”
“but it’s clear to me” there was no teasing in his voice now.
“No Kabir…ugh…” she bit her tongue mentally face palming herself “I mean Hrishant, it’s not what you think”
Their two year old daughter Riya came running to them holding her toy pink monkey, Hrishant sighed he had just finished tucking her in to sleep and two minutes later here she was “daddy I can’t sleep” she said in her baby voice clinging onto his legs.
“would you like to sleep with mummy and daddy tonight?” Ridhima asked her cheerfully and Riya squealed happily hopping onto their bed, Hrishant laid next to her patting her gently so she could fall asleep.
Ridhima waited till their daughter fell asleep and asked Hrishant to come out to the balcony so they could talk “Hrishant believe me, it’s really not what you think”
“and how would you know what am thinking?” he countered.
She sighed “I don’t know why but I have been seeing Kabir everywhere these days and I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to think that I still care for him or I still think of him, I really don’t know how I keep imagining that bastard all the time”
“and do you?” her brows moved together in confusion “do you still care for him, do you still love him?”
“what kind of a question is that… do you need proof of my love for you?” She cupped his face “I love you Hrishant and I love only you” she rested her head on his shoulder “this is why I didn’t tell you, I was afraid you will doubt me”
Hrishant wrapped his one hand around her “I don’t doubt you I just had to ask” He pecked the top of her head “and I love you too” He smiled when he felt her lips to curl up into a smile “but you cheated me”
She broke the hug to face him “what?”
“yes, you never told me you have a mental illness, that you hallucinate. If I knew then I wouldn’t have married a crazy person”
She thought he was serious at first until she caught that mischievous glint in his eyes and punched him playfully on his chest “not funny” he wrapped his hands around her again laughing and her body shook along with his mirth “what if Kabir is alive” she asked out of the blue.
“he is dead, you are just stressed and even if he was to be alive who cares, it’s not like he runs our lives, does he?” she nodded agreeing with him and snuggled closer to him but Hrishant knew there was nothing called a coincidence, it was either Ridhima was sick in the head or Kabir was alive and he chose to believe in the latter.
El Milagro Palace
Jai stood with a heavy heart watching his angel drawing, Aria so was engrossed in her colourful creation that she failed to notice her father standing at her bedroom door and Jai didn’t want to disturb her, he let her unleash her inner Picasso while he admired her. Tina’s words vowed to not leave his mind stressing him by the second, he could bare anything but losing his daughter.
He could still remember the first day he saw her as clearly as if it was yesterday, lying in that hospital crib and wrapped in a pink shawl he had bought for her earlier. She was tiny, and the feelings that crept in his heart seeing her were so alien to him yet his soul knew she was a part of him. He remembered how he was scared to carry her least he hurt her and when she opened her eyes for the first time he was so overwhelmed that tears of happiness left his eyes or when she wrapped her little fingers around his thumb as if promising him to never leave him alone. He knew then it was them against the world, just father and daughter for life and parting from her was like detaching his very heart from his body.
“dad..” her squeal broke his trance, Jai walked up to her and went down on his knees taking her into a desperate hug “look what I made” she jumped repeatedly in his hold and he was forced to let go so he could see her drawing.
She had drawn three figures, one with that looked like a man and another he figured was of a girl seeing the ponytail and between those two figures there was a drawing of a little girl with pigtails. “what is this?” he asked her.
“this is you” he pointed at the figure of a man “this is Aria and this is mom” she explained.
Pain stabbed his heart “mom?”
“yes, when you marry my friend Preeti she will be my mom right?”
“Preeti..?” he smiled.
“she is nice, she is beautiful and she makes very tasty chocolate cookies” Jai chuckled, his daughter was just like him crazy for chocolate “and I love her very very much” she spread her arms out showing how big her love was for Preeti.
“and she loves you too” he told her.
She jumped excited “so you will marry her and she will become my mom?”
“for that she will have to love me too” he sighed some kind of sadness looming over his face.
“I love you dad” she said making Jai smile.
“I love you too princess” he pinched her nose playfully “and am not going to let anyone separate us” Aria looked at him confused and Jai brushed it off instantly “it’s late and you should go to bed” he lifted her up and tucked her in for the night after reading her a bedtime story.
Turning the light of her bedroom off he walked out of her room leaving the door slightly open so if it happens that she wakes up in the middle of the night she would not be scared seeing total darkness. Of all people why did Aria want Preeti to be her mom, he smiled thinking that both their choice was the same, could Preeti be the solution to all their problems?
Kensington Police Station
Samrat filled with complete boredom lazily watched the female detective go through the file she had walked in with in the interrogation room, this was not the first time he was being questioned about murder. First it was Arjun thinking that he had a hand in his father’s death and now it was detective Sophia asking him about Ajay.
“look lady, I have said it once and I will say it again, we did have plans to go play golf together but I didn’t go with them, I had a business meeting” He sighed “I already gave you the name of the hotel you can go and verify if am telling the truth or not”
“and do you know if Dilip and Ajay went to the golf club that day?” Sophia asked.
“I don’t know because I didn’t ask them, we met at the party that afternoon but we didn’t talk about golf”
“not even once?”
“no” he answered a bit irritated.
“and are you aware of anybody that might have wanted to kill Ajay, do you suspect anyone?”
“no miss” he let out an exasperated sigh “now can I go please” Sophia nodded and Samrat was excused from the station.
“what do you think?” Sophia asked Arjun who was going through the statement Samrat and Dilip made.
“I don’t know what to think any more” he replied feeling frustrated, he was fearing of meeting another dead end.
Samrat didn’t go golfing that day and he had a solid alibi, on the other hand Dilip who did go golfing with his father that day stated that they went to the golf club at noon and didn’t notice anything suspicious while they were there even the CCTV footage of the hotel coincided with Dilip’s statement. With the two men he thought were close to his father unaware of any suspicious person who could have been involved in his dad’s death Arjun saw the light of hope he saw earlier to slowly diminish leaving in an unknown darkness again. And Destiny? He was looking for a person with no face and no address, he didn’t know if Destiny was a man or a woman in fact he wasn’t even sure if Destiny was a real name or not and again this new lead was leading to another roadblock.
A hand on his shoulder broke him out of his cloud of thoughts, he was stunned finding Sophia standing behind him giving him a shoulder massage. He jerked from his seat “what are doing?”
“I can’t you so stressed out” she exclaimed smiling coyly.
“please be professional, don’t make me regret my decision of putting you on this case” Sophia nodded quietly and left his office, Arjun watched her till she disappeared and sighed “what did you get yourself into Arjun” he breathed out shaking his head left and right.
Taste Farm Offices
The boardroom was in havoc, argument after argument, each throwing the blame on the other. Taste Farm had incurred a huge loss after shutting down production of their new fruit juice product that the government food standards agency found with possibilities of food tampering. The agency had raised the issue stating that the Taste Farm new product was being prepared below the required standards and the company was forced to stop all ongoing productions and refund the batch that had already been sold out.
To the public it was just another case of greedy people selling cheap products for big bucks, something like this was no less than a nightmare for the company because of the reputation they had in the market. Some blames went to the director of productions for it was his department’s failure but most of it were directed at the president, the leader will always have to take the fall in the end but her family wouldn’t let her suffer. Neil, Ankush, Priya and Jai stood like tigers defending Radhika against the vile words the other board members were throwing at her, they kept their stance that Radhika shouldn’t be hold accountable for that loss.
“can we stop being irrational just for a second please” Radhika screamed amidst the chaos and silence followed after that “we have rules in this company and I would appreciate if you all stop behaving like animals, if you think am not fit to be president then you know the procedures”
With that the meeting was adjourned and slowly the boardroom got emptied “what’s wrong with these people?” Neil shouted frustrated with the sudden change in allegiance the board members had demonstrated.
“don’t get worked up, I don’t think they can win even if we resort to voting” Ankush assured him.
“Ankush is right” Priya seconded “what we need to do now is get to the bottom of this matter, this all looks like a conspiracy to me”
“you mean someone is purposely doing this to get Radhika out of the presidency?” asked Jai.
“I think so too” Neil said.
“well I don’t care, president or no president doesn’t make much of a difference to me” Radhika said casually “but this tampering matter needs to be investigated”
“am on it” Ankush replied and left the boardroom followed by Priya and Neil.
“bhai, a second please” Radhika called out when Jai was about to leave too, she sighed “Sam asked me why I haven’t returned the inheritance to uncle Samrat now what do I tell her”
“Sam asked you that?” he didn’t expect that at all.
“she said aunt Piyali told her to ask me, do you know what this means?”
“this means dad has money troubles again” he exhaled deeply.
“No, this means you are putting me into a spot, I can neither lie nor tell Sam the truth” she closed her eyes “let me just give uncle the money and get this over with”
“No Radhika you cant do that, you promised”
“then I will transfer everything to your name or Sam’s or anybody, I don’t care I just want to be out of this mess for once and for all, I don’t want the past to repeat itself” she said agitated “do something please, fix this or I will have to tell Sam the truth”
“don’t please, not a word to Sam” he sighed “I will fix this”
Radhika watched Jai’s retreating back, why did her grandfather had to leave her everything putting her in trouble. Samrat wanted nothing else in the world but his father’s inheritance and after three years when Radhika was no longer bound by the will she wanted to transfer everything to Samrat’s name but Jai stopped her. He had found out that his father was never cured of his gambling addiction because of which he was doing business with some shady people and Jai knew once Samrat got his hands on the inheritance he will blew every cent in his non profit businesses so he talked Radhika out of her decision promising her another solution. Their grandfather had worked hard to become a billionaire so letting his father squander all that hard earned money away seemed distasteful to him.
Mehra Apartment
Arjun was again finding himself in one of those tough cases to solve but this time the victim being his own father he was determined to clear all the obstacles. The last amount Ajay withdrew from the bank was on July 4 so he must have met the blackmailer either on that same day or the next day which was the day of his murder.
From the bank security footage he found out that Ajay left the bank around 1 in the afternoon and he remembers that Ajay had made dinner for them that night, dinner was ready around 7 in the evening and that told him that Ajay must have been home since 5 in the evening that day so that only leaves him one conclusion that between 1pm and 5pm one day before his murder Ajay could have met with the blackmailer.
On July 5 the day of his murder Radhika left home first followed by him who left home around 9 in the morning, Ajay had plans to play golf that day and according to Dilip Ajay picked him up at noon and they both have been together from that time till the party where Ajay was poisoned so that gave him another room of possibility that Ajay could have made contact with the blackmailer between 9am and 12pm on that day.
He had two concrete timelines yet he had nothing solid to back up his theory, no witness no clue that could pull him to one direction. He had pulled out his father’s phone record for the past six month but he couldn’t find anything useful in those records too, according to Ron Ajay had a phone conversation with a person named Destiny but Arjun didn’t find any unknown or new number in the records a fact which left him more confused.
Radhika was awaken by something in the middle of the night but she wasn’t surprised when she found Arjun’s side of the bed empty, lately he has been working late till the wee hours of the morning. She found him in the living room drown in papers scattered all around him. She sighed “Arjun it’s late you can continue your work tomorrow”
Arjun turned to her “you go ahead am coming in a while”
She rolled her eyes, am coming in a while had been his favourite sentence recently “it’s almost four in the morning, come on” she said looking at the wall clock that read fifty two minutes past three.
“I’ll be there in five minutes I promise” he answered his eyes fixed on the papers. He thought she went back to bed but was startled when a cup of steaming hot tea was placed before him “what’s this?”
Radhika made herself comfortable on his lap “chamomile tea to calm your nerves” she let her fingers caress his temple “don’t be too hard on yourself”
He let out a deep breath his lips forming a small smile “how do you know me so well?” he wrapped his hands around her waist pulling her close to him.
She shrugged “you just look like somebody who needs help him” he chuckled and took a sip of the tea and Radhika pulled the cup towards herself for a sip before he put the cup back on the table “share it with me, maybe I can help”
“you know dad was being blackmailed right and the prime suspect is a person named Destiny, there is proof of dad talking on the phone with this Destiny guy but there is no new number in his phone record, so what do I make of that?”
She stroke her chin gently “maybe Destiny is a nickname, maybe it’s somebody we are all know by one name and dad used to address that person with the nickname Destiny”
Arjun looked at her thoughtfully and then at the phone records, she could be onto something “maybe you are right” he told her still going over the records.
“see, it’s simple I solved your case now let’s go to bed” she chirped and Arjun pecked her cheek deep.
“okay, let me gather these papers and come” he said when Radhika jumped out of his lap to return to their bedroom. His studied the phone records briefly once again, in every ten calls that were made to and from his dad’s cell phone seven of those calls were of Dilip, his dad had more phone conversations with Dilip than anyone else and that meant only one thing that if there was someone close enough to Ajay to be aware of his joy and troubles then that person was Dilip. Maybe he needed to pay Dilip another visit he thought as he picked up his tea walking towards the bedroom.
That’s all focks!
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