Page 75 of Married in Vengeance

“I’m leaving,” she told the woman who’d welcomed her so warmly into the family. “I’m leaving him.”

Her mother-in-law’s face tightened but she didn’t look surprised. “May I ask why?”

Aadhya raised her hands into the air and dropped them, Ram’s shirt still clutched in her right fist.

“Whatever is broken,” Athama said gently, “can be fixed.”

“There has to be something for us to fix.” Aadhya turned in a circle, taking in the room she’d lived in so briefly and one shewas devastated to leave behind. “He broke us before we could even be an us.”

“What did he do?” Anger flashed in the older woman’s eyes.

“I think that’s a question you should ask him,” Aadhya replied, unwilling even now to let Ram down. “He deserves the right to tell you himself.”

Her mother-in-law cupped her face gently and kissed her forehead. “Whatever else he may deserve, he clearly didn’t deserve you.”

The dam Aadhya had just managed to shore up broke again. She wept on the other woman’s shoulder, her grief a bottomless ocean of tears.

“We women,” her mother-in-law murmured, “waste too many tears on these men. No wonder we’re permanently dehydrated.”

Aadhya laughed, a watery sound. She slowly pulled back, wiping her tears with Ram’s shirt. The irony of that was not lost on her. She stared at the damp material in her hand for an endless moment before finally letting go. It fell to the ground at her feet and she stepped over it and towards the storage space at the end of the room. She pulled out her largest suitcase and tossed it on to the bed.

“I came for my stuff,” she told the older woman who stood motionless at the foot of the bed, watching her.

Pain and compassion formed a tortured mask on Dhanvantri Gadde’s beautiful face. After a brief pause, she nodded and said, “I’ll help you pack.”

Forty-One

RAM

The house wasin darkness when he finally got back. A whole day of working with Virat and Aarush to dig through the mountain of evidence they were painstakingly amassing had done him in. Stress and fatigue had a vice like hold on his body and his mind was a cesspool of regret and pain. He paused on the foot of the stairs that led to the first floor.

He didn’t want to go up. He didn’t want to go to his room. He didn’t want to lie down in his bed. She wasn’t going to be there and he didn’t want to walk down a path that didn’t end with her. But none of his paths would end with her again. Never again.

I want a divorce.

Pain slammed through him at the memory of the words. She wanted out and she deserved out. He didn’t deserve to keep that from her. He’d taken so much. None of it had been his to take. The least he could do was let her go.

“What are you waiting for?”

His mother’s quiet voice startled him out of his dazed stupor.

“Amma.” He walked over to where she stood and bent to touch her feet. She took a tiny step back before his fingers couldmake contact with her foot. Ram froze, still bent at the waist, his brain computing her actions and what they meant.

He straightened, meeting his mother’s blank gaze. But he knew her too well. Behind the careful poise was a maelstrom of emotion.She knew.

He waited what felt like endless seconds, but he was met with nothing but silence. Damning, judgmental silence.

“Goodnight,” he murmured finally when it was clear she wasn’t going to say anything. He backed away and made it to the stairs, one hand on the banister when she said, “I had very little in my life that I was proud of, Ram. But you were always the brightest star in it.”

He noted the past tense in the sentence. He knew he deserved it but still, it was a blow. He’d spent his life trying to be someone his family was proud of and he’d lost it all on the altar of ego and hurt pride.

He didn’t offer any excuses. He just nodded once and repeated, “Goodnight Amma.” He took the steps two at a time desperate to escape the cloud of guilt and disappointment that seemed to follow him everywhere.

He stopped at the door to his bedroom, still heartsick at the idea that Aadhya would never be waiting for him on the other side again. Lost in thought, he pushed the door open and came to an abrupt halt.

Her scent hit him first, the light overtones of lemon layered with a hint of vanilla. His eyes slowly adjusted to the dark of the room and he saw her sitting on the edge of the bed.

His stupid heart leapt in his chest, relief and hope flooding through him. Until he caught sight of the suitcases stacked by her feet. The same stupid heart plummeted to the soles of his perfectly polished shoes.

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