Bound by Revenge (The Singham Bloodlines) Page 8

  Anika frowned as a thought struck her. “I thought there was a drought. Why is the water being wasted this way?”

  “Recycled water… ” Sonu answered in between bites. “Water used from the mansion is collected and filtered.”

  “I see.”

  Anika didn’t know what to think of this place. On the one hand, they believed in curses and superstitions, while on the other hand, they made use of modern technology.

  Just as they continued with their breakfast, an old woman appeared next to them.

  “I have an indigestion problem,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” Anika asked.

  “I’m not able to move freely or do any work because of it. Can you check me and give me medications for it?”

  Anika shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t have the equipment or the medications to treat you. You should check with Dr. Rao? He…”

  The woman frowned. “No. Dr. Rao is always busy seeing other patients who have life-threatening injuries. I’m sure you can help. You helped Meena last night.”

  “Yes, but that was…”

  “Please. I’m an old woman. I am feeling useless with this stomach irritation. I’m not able to work properly.”

  “I understand. But…”

  “Please.”

  Anika sighed. “Okay. I might have something in my medical kit. I’ll check and give it to you.”

  “God bless you!”

  After the woman left, Sonu and Anika finished their breakfast and took the dishes back to the kitchen.

  “Thank you for keeping me company for the breakfast, Sonu. Do you have time to accompany me around the mansion grounds?”

  “No problem,” said Sonu with a smile. “I’ll be off to school now and will be back in the evening. If you wish, I can show you around the mansion grounds during that time. It’s beautiful around sunset time.”

  Anika smiled. “Deal.”

  After waving goodbye to Sonu, Anika went up to the bedroom to bring the medications to the old woman. She knew the man would be gone by then.

  Grabbing the medications, she searched and found the woman waiting near the kitchen. She gave the tablets to her along with the instructions.

  She then returned back to the suite. The next couple of hours she spent in frustration trying to guess the password of the computer. Then an idea struck her.

  She waited until Lakshmi came up to the suite with her lunch.

  “Do you know Dev’s number? I need to ask him something.”

  Lakshmi didn’t hesitate and wrote down his number on a piece of paper.

  “I don’t have a phone. Can I borrow your mobile phone?” Anika asked.

  Lakshmi looked surprised. “We don’t have mobile towers, just a few satellite phones. I don’t have one.”

  Anika’s face fell.

  “Malini has one. Let me bring it up to you,” said Lakshmi before leaving the room.

  Ten minutes later, Anika tapped her foot nervously as the phone began to ring. Dev answered after several rings.

  “Dev?”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “Dev, this is Anika.”

  “Anika! Sorry I didn’t realize you were calling me. How are you?”

  Anika took a deep breath, mentally crossing her fingers. “I’m good. I called because I wanted to know if there is a computer I could use. There’s one in the room, but I forgot to ask…Abhay…the password.” The man’s name felt strange on her tongue, and it caused a small shiver to pass through her body.

  “No problem,” said Dev. “The password is Arundhati. A-r-u-n-d-h-a-t-i. Ask Abhay to get you a phone—”

  Dev broke off to speak to someone on his end. Anika could hear him get angry and upset about something. She was about to hang up, thinking he had forgotten about her, but he returned. “Sorry about that. Can I call you back, Anika?”

  “That’s okay, Dev. I just needed the password. Thanks.”

  After ending the call, she smiled and handed the phone back to Lakshmi. As soon as the other woman left, Anika locked the room and tried to log into the laptop.

  She almost shouted in sheer relief when she was finally able to log in successfully.

  Heart pounding, she spent the next two hours in front of the laptop, and then wiped away all the traces of her browsing history.

  CHAPTER 18

  Over the next week, she began to fall into a pattern. Each morning, she woke up and freshened up before running out of the room for breakfast. After breakfast, she spent time on the computer reaching out to her contacts. Then later, she went to the library browsing through the catalogs.

  Whenever she interacted with the people downstairs, some of them came to her with some or other complaints of minor ailments for which they wanted medications. Soon she began to run out of her limited medicines that she carried with her.

  One day, while browsing through the catalogs, she found a book on home remedies using herbal medications.

  Growing up, even though her mom and stepdad were doctors, whenever she or Myra fell sick, her mom always tried using home remedies to cure minor colds or fevers. Even after becoming a doctor, she also preferred using natural remedies as much as possible.

  She browsed through the book and found that it had clear instructions of what remedy could be used for various minor illnesses. The good part about most of the natural medications was—they had no side effects.

  Feeling it could be useful to the people living within the Singham Estate, she brought it down with her.

  She showed it to the woman who had the stomach problem.

  “This is Arundhati’s!” an old woman exclaimed.

  “Who is Arundhati?” She remembered the password for the computer was the same name.

  “Abhay’s mother. She was an expert in curing a lot of ailments using natural remedies. Sometimes people queued up from the neighboring villages to get her help.”

  Anika was disappointed that Devasena wasn’t the name of Abhay’s mother. Each day, for a couple of hours, she was still obsessively searching for Devasena’s journals in the library.

  “I see. What happened to her?” Anika placed the question casually, even though she knew she could be in a whole lot trouble if Abhay Singham found that she had been snooping around.

  The old woman’s eyes fired up. “A lying cheating dog murdered her. That’s what happened!”

  Anika was shocked. “What do you mean murdered?”

  There was pure hatred in the old woman’s face. “The dirty lying bastard—”

  “Sitamma!” Abhay Singham’s angry voice interrupted.

  The old woman paled looking at his furious face. Anika felt equally terrified. Over the past week, she had barely interacted or seen him. The moment she woke up, she simply ran out the room to have breakfast and other meals with the rest of the household. During the night, after a long day of helping people and searching the library, she was exhausted enough to almost faint asleep.

  And right then, she was back to being terrified of him, especially because he came closer to her, and pulled her away from the people to one of the rooms, and banged the door shut.

  “I had warned you before of speaking about our families.”

  “I-I was just curious to know more about this place and everyone. Please, it’s not Sitamma’s fault. I asked her who Arundhati was.”

  He looked even more pissed. “Don’t ever discuss her again.”

  “W-why?” she challenged. She was sick of walking on eggshells around him. “She is your mother which makes her my mother-in-law. I have the right to know everything about her.”

  His eyes flared as she spoke, and he looked terrifying. He slowly walked towards her and stopped only a few inches away. “Right?” he asked in cold menace.

  “Y-yes. I have the right.” She fisted her hands to stop them from shaking.

  He smiled slowly. With his perfect masculine features and even teeth, he looked dazzlingly handsome from the outside, but all she felt was cold f
ear at the glint in his eye as he gave her a sweeping appraisal.

  “I wanted to give you some time to adjust before you take up your duties as my wife, but if you are so willing and eager to demand your rights, then maybe we should do something about fulfilling all your other wifely duties sooner.”

  At this threat, she wanted to step away in panic, but she stopped herself. It was time she called his bluff. Everyone at the Singham household worshipped him. How bad could he really be?

  “You are not a monster. I know you won’t hurt me—”

  Before she could finish the sentence, he grabbed her close by her hair and pulled her head back.

  She gasped in fear.

  “Don’t ever assume things about me,” he hissed out, tightening the pressure on her hair, causing her to whimper.

  “You won’t hurt a w-woman,” she pressed.

  “I am hurting you right now,” he said, watching her face with utter loathing. “I have been dreaming of hurting you in ways you wouldn’t imagine even a monster to do. Believe me, I’d feel justified, and so will rest of my people. I should be torturing you, ripping out your soul until all that is left is an empty shell. Maybe that will compensate for my loss.”

  She felt his hands wrap around her neck, tightening the pressure around it. She screamed in fear. The next moment, he dragged the material around her neck towards her stomach, causing a loud rip. The torn top fell around her waist, leaving her almost bare in her bra.

  He picked her up like a rag doll, and threw her on the nearby bed, and climbed on top of her.

  Her throat froze in utter fear as she watched the glittering dark eyes filled with rage. He stared at her for the longest time, until she felt tears leaking from her eyes.

  After several moments of silence, he loosened the grip on her hair.

  “Now do you believe I can be a monster?” he asked quietly, causing chills to break out on her skin.

  She jerked her head once.

  “Make sure you follow my orders. Don’t ever ask or discuss anyone’s family again,” he said.

  With her heart thudding, she nodded.

  “Give me the words,” he demanded.

  “I-I won’t ask about anyone’s family again,” she whispered.

  “Good.”

  With that, he rolled away from her, got up from the bed, and left the room, leaving her shaking and trembling.

  The rest of the day, she remained frightened. She spent most of her time at the library, continuing her search. A few hours later, she finally found the rest of Devasena’s journals—that was the only silver lining to her living nightmare.

  CHAPTER 19

  “What’s so funny?” Anika asked when the sounds of giggles made her look up.

  The two teenage girls continued to giggle.

  Anika was in the yard planting medicinal herbs. Meena and Sonu were her usual helpers during the yard work. She had grown rather fond of them in the past few days.

  Anika smiled. “Tell me so I can join you girls.”

  Their giggles broke into laughter as they pointed towards the top of the building.

  “Huh?” Anika looked up, and immediately her eyes fell on the tall figure leaning against the balcony wall looking down at them. She felt an unexpected zing pass through her, when their eyes met. The man stared at her for a long moment before gesturing her to go up to him.

  She was almost tempted to shake her head no, but she knew that would only lead him to come down to her and drag her upstairs. It would only piss him off more.

  “You two stay put and finish up. I will be right back.” She dusted her hands and stood up to leave.

  When she reached the room, she took a deep breath before entering into the lion’s den.

  “Close the door,” the man said quietly. His back was facing her as he was taking something out of the safe. Despite spending a lot of time in the room, she hadn’t realized there was a safe within. She closed the door and turned back towards him. She froze when his eyes were on her muddy shoes.

  “Umm… I was working in the yard… ” she explained unnecessarily even though he had seen her from the balcony.

  He held a large velvet rectangular box in his hands giving her his usual expressionless look. “Wear this to the temple next week.”

  Carefully, she took the box from his hands and opened it. She gasped looking at the beautiful necklace. She wasn’t a jewelry person, but the intricate carving and the precious stones embedded within took her breath away.

  She recalled reading in Devasena’s journal about the custom of exchanging gifts on the twenty-first day of the wedding, and then also the ceremony they needed to perform at the temple.

  Abhimanyu Singham had custom ordered a breathtaking necklace for his wife, and in return, Devasena had gifted him a jeweled hunting knife.

  Anika recalled how excited Devasena had felt on that day.

  “Thank you,” Anika said softly. “But I don’t have anything to give to you.”

  A surprised look passed on the man's stern face for a moment. “I guess I’ll survive,” he said tonelessly.

  Anika compressed her lips to avoid snapping at him. What was she thinking? She had been reading Devasena’s journals so much that sometimes she mixed up their worlds. Unlike Abhimanyu Singham who was a fierce yet loving husband, Abhay Singham was just a bullying ass. She had been trying to keep out of his way the entire week, but all she got from him were sneers and more threats thrown into the mix.

  “I need you to behave at the temple. I want you to convince everyone this marriage has been consummated, and we are actively working on conceiving an heir. If anyone thinks otherwise, I might have to make it real. Do you understand?”

  She hated the thinly veiled threat and bit her lip from stopping herself from lashing out at him.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  “Yes!” she snapped, unable to keep quiet anymore.

  She expected him to say something nasty to frighten her, but surprisingly, his eyes looked amused. “I think I like this version of you better.”

  After saying those cryptic words, he strode out of the room. Moments later, she heard him barking out orders.

  Once his voice completely faded away, she carefully placed the jewelry box on a chest within the closet, and returned to the yard work.

  *****

  Over the next few hours, she continued planting the herbs based on Arundhati Singham’s book. When she was finishing up the last of the plantings, she noticed a lot of buzz outside the house where people were gesturing and talking frantically.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, looking at some of the tense faces.

  “They lit a fire to the warehouse and destroyed most of the grains.” An older woman looked devastated.

  “Who lit the fire?”

  “Those rabid dogs! The Senanis.”

  Anika’s heart jumped when she heard that name. Devasena was a Senani who was married to a Singham. Why were the Singham’s and Senanis at war?

  “Will the farmer’s families suffer because of this?” Anika knew the area already suffered from drought. To have something as precious as grains destroyed would be truly devastating.

  “No. Abhay always makes sure that farmers and their families don’t suffer. But we all worked so hard, and Abhay had also put in his sweat to grow the drought-resistant crop. It took just a few minutes for the Senanis to destroy the fruits of our hard work.”

  “I’m sorry,” Anika said softly, meaning it. “Let me know if I can help in any way.”

  The old woman looked at her with a sad smile. “You are kind. You remind me so much of Arundhati. She was also a very kind-hearted woman. Everyone adored her.”

  Anika was curious, but she stopped herself from asking more. She recalled Abhay Singham’s reaction when she had inquired about his mother the last time.

  Soon it was dark. Anika went up to her room after dinner. She hadn’t been able to spend much time in the library that day due to the yard work. She headed to
the bathroom to take a quick shower, but as soon as she stepped into the bathroom, her eyes fell on the large bathtub.

  All the minor aches she had acquired due to the yard work that day seemed to twinge at the same time. Sighing, she decided to run a bath knowing the man wasn’t going to be back anytime soon. She sprinkled the bath salts into the water, stripped off her clothes, and stepped into the bath.

  She groaned as she stepped into the warm water that soothed her sore muscles. The sweet smell of the lavender in the salts transported her to a happy place. She rested her neck against the rounded edge of the tub, and slid lower into the water. Her eyes rolled shut as she relaxed her mind and body.

  Moments later, a loud crash stripped her of the brief peace, and she opened her eyes to find Abhay Singham standing at the doorway.

  The sight in front of her, made her shrink and recoil in horror. The obvious stains of dried blood were splattered all over his face and clothes.

  She tried hard not to scream in fear.

  He began to remove his clothes. When he was completely naked, he walked into the shower.

  She lay still in the bathtub trying not to give away her presence. But her trembling caused ripples in the water.

  His head was bent down as he let the steaming hot water spray on top of him. She couldn’t see him clearly through the mist, but she could feel the palpable anger and tension radiating from his body.

  “Fuck!” he growled out loud followed by his fist banging onto the glass wall of the shower. He banged it several times making it vibrate with loud sounds threatening to shatter it.

  Each time, his hand connected to the glass, she jumped.

  Finally, he stopped banging, and all she could hear was the heavy breathing. She quivered, unable to move, her mind frozen with fear.

  Just a few hours ago, she thought he was almost human, but now all she saw was a violent monster which brought her crashing back to the reality. Her fear and insecurity choked her while she felt the strong urge to hide underwater as he continued washing away the blood next to her.

  After several moments, he stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his hips.