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“How did you find out?”
“When he died suddenly, Baba hadn’t chosen a successor for his business, and the mantle fell on my shoulders by default, and by mantle, I mean all the responsibilities and obligations of running a gun-running empire that spanned the whole country.”
I gasped at the enormity of what he’d had to face.
“What happened?”
“Well, the first thing I did was to break up with you because I didn’t want you or your family to be dragged into this muck. And you’re right. I was a fucking coward to have done it the way I did. But tell me something. If I had come to you and told you what was going on, would you have walked away from me?”
“Of course, not! I would have stood by you, no matter what,” I exclaimed, insulted that he even had to ask.
“And that’s exactly why I didn’t tell you,” he pointed out. “I didn’t want you anywhere near the mess that my father left, Diya. It was touch and go for a long time. I negotiated a deal where they left my family out of it, but there are no guarantees when you’re dealing with snakes. I posted armed guards on every member of my family. My father’s partners needed access to our lands for Baba’s cosy little trade route, and I was determined to shut down the whole dirty business.”
“Ohmigod! Did they hurt you?”
He shrugged casually.
“They tried, but I soon learned to fight back, and I learned to fight dirty. For every bullet that they shot, I’d spray them with a whole magazine of bullets. If they killed one of my men, I killed five of theirs. I was brutal. I was cruel to anyone who crossed me. I became the beast of Trikhera.”
“Did no one try to stop you?”
“Many tried, but only one man succeeded. Commissioner Dhaliwal. When he realised that I was actively trying to stop the arms trade in Trikhera, he gave me access to the right channels to do that. And he gave me the full support of the police force to drive away the smugglers who were trying to grab my land.”
“Are you still at war with those people?” I asked, with a hollow, sinking feeling in my stomach. I couldn’t bear the thought of him being hurt or worse. Even if he was a bastard who broke my heart, he was my bastard.
He shook his head.
“Five years ago, the four bosses of the arms trade in India sat down with me and the Police Commissioner, and negotiated a truce where they would keep their unlawful activities out of Trikhera, and they would stay away from me and mine. I promised to hunt down every last one of them and cut them to pieces if they ever came after me. And that, Rani Sa, is the dark, shameful history of the Trikhera royals. As a sitting MP, my father made sure that there was no development in his constituency because it is easier to turn backward, underprivileged people into thugs and smugglers with the right inducement than a modern, educated population that is aware of its rights. You once asked me what I do for a living. I try to right my father’s wrongs, and it will take me a lifetime to right them all,” he said bleakly.
I rested my head against his chest, wondering how life had turned to shit so suddenly for a man like Dheer. And I railed silently at the unfairness of it all.
He stroked my back up and down gently for a while, and then he set me away.
“Now that you know everything, I think it’s best you leave as soon as the situation calms down. And I won’t oppose the divorce, Diya. It’s the least I can do for you.”
I knew he was right. There was far too much bitterness between us for this to work out. I knew I should leave, but my feet refused to move.
“I know I should walk out, but I can’t leave you. Not now,” I whispered.
“I don’t want your pity,” he said harshly.
“Were you ever going to tell me all this? Earlier, when you were trying to get me to stay with you forever, did you plan to be completely honest with me?”
“No,” he replied uncompromisingly. “I told you, Diya. I had no intention of dragging you into my murky past.”
“What kind of a relationship would that have been when it was based on a pile of lies? And Isha… she knew all of this but didn’t tell me anything. She told me your family got a kidnapping threat, and that’s why she was given a bodyguard.”
“She was being loyal to me. Don’t blame her, Diya,” he warned.
“I don’t blame her at all because I would have done the same thing.”
I ordered my legs to move and carry me out of the room, but again, they didn’t obey me.
“Dheer, why did you want to stay married to me?” I asked when I ran out of excuses to stay and keep talking to him.
He smiled bleakly as he leaned against the edge of his desk.
“Would you believe me if I said it was because I loved you?”
