Page 30 of Addiction

“Brother, you know I like women!” Armaan quipped. “Don’t make more of it.”

The last thing he wanted was Mihir on his case. His feelings for Navya were too new, and he wanted to figure them out by himself first before answering questions his brothers would ask.

“Is she truly just another woman to you, or is she different?” When Armaan didn’t reply, Mihir continued, “You haven’t been yourself since you met her. I knew you would have pursued herfour years back too, that’s why I was more than happy to agree to Rajiv Mehra’s terms. I’d hoped she never ran into you again, but now that she has, I can see you’re determined to claim her, and you won’t rest till she’s in your bed.”

“I still don’t see what is there to worry,” Armaan stated.

Mihir sighed. “She’shersister. After seeing my example, I thought you’d be smarter than I was. But here you are, making the same mistakes with yet another Mehra woman, just the way I did.”

“Stop worrying, Mihir. I like her and that’s all there is to it.”

Mihir looked him in the eye. “Are you falling in love with her?”

“Love?” Armaan scoffed. “Lust would be the right word here. I’ve barely met her thrice.”

Mihir gazed into the distance. “Sometimes even one meeting is enough.”

His brother looked lost and sad. When he saw Armaan observing him, a curtain dropped on his face. And just like that, he was back to being the stony, cold-hearted man the world knew Mihir Oshnov to be.

“Promise me, you’ll be careful,da?” Mihir said.

Armaan nodded. “I will. Now, let’s get to something important. I have news.”

Mihir frowned. “Is this about Karina or Ivan?”

The whole of last week, none of them had been able to focus on these two issues. Once in Russia, all three of them had gotten so inundated with work, meetings, and site visits that focusing on anything else had been impossible. O-Corp was a huge empire, and running it took all of their combined energies.

“I’m calling Vedant.” Armaan lifted the iPad and video-called his brother in London.

Vedant answered on the first ring. “Hey. I was just going to call you.”

“Mihir’s here too. What happened?” Armaan asked, worried about Vedant’s serious tone.

“You go first,” Vedant said. “It’s late in Dubai, and if you’re both awake, then it means something has happened. Tell me.”

Armaan shifted the iPad, so both Mihir and he came into the frame.

“It’s about Dorab,” Armaan said. “Like we’d planned, one of our men was driving him in a car when he regained consciousness. Since we’d deliberately left him unbound, he tried fighting our guy, who then let him think he got the better of him. Dorab found his passport in our guy’s pocket, stole the cash he had on him and escaped. I’ve had someone trailing him since then. He went straight to a small, dingy hospital, got himself admitted for his wounds and is now on his way to Delhi. I have two guys on the plane following him. Let’s see what he does next.”

“Well, he took the bait… so far so good,” Mihir said. “Let’s hope we can get something conclusive from that fucker.”

Armaan focused on Vedant. “What do you want to talk about?”

“It’s Ivan,” Vedant said. “He’s disappeared. After he didn’t show up at the shareholder meeting, I had a feeling something was up. I put some of our men on him but they couldn’t find him anywhere. Even the staff at his homes don’t know where he’s gone.”

“I don’t like this,” Mihir said.

“If I know him correctly, then that fucker is up to something,” Armaan added. “And whatever it is, it won’t be nice. We all know that he wants O-Corp. Hence, his silence and absence are definitely worrying.”

“As a precaution, I’d like to increase the security around us,” Mihir said.

“I’m not afraid of him, and we already have enough security,” Armaan countered.

“Which you seem to take for fucking granted.” Mihir looked at Armaan. “You only took Arlo with you when you went running to her.”

“Who her?” Vedant asked.

Armaan ignored him. “Mihir, Arlo is enough, and you know I can fight.”

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