Page 3 of Addiction

Dressed in a black shirt, a bespoke black suit, and polished shoes, Armaan knew he looked wealthy and privileged. Sure enough, Dorab’s face filled with envy.

“W… where am I?” Dorab looked around the dull and drab room.

“You’re in the basement of my house,” Armaan replied.

The man’s eyes turned to saucers as realization hit him. “You were the one who gave me the…”

“Once we found you, it was easy to lure you into a trap and bring you to London from India.”

“Why? What do you want from me?” Dorab asked.

“I think you know the answer to that, don’t you?” Armaan sneered.

A wall of darkness descended on the man’s face as he understood Armaan’s words. He lifted his chin and tilted his head to the side, saying nothing.

Armaan lifted a hand. “Again.”

In response, his men landed several punches on Dorab’s face. Yet, he grinned arrogantly. Fuck. Some things truly neverchanged with time. Dorab knew what Armaan was after, and despite the beatings, he remained silent.

Memories flashed through Armaan’s mind—of years spent coexisting with bullies like Dorab in the orphanage. The orphanage was a place where each child fought for their own self so they could survive in that environment. However, amidst all that violence, poverty, and chaos, Armaan had found a family—not related by blood, but connected by heart.

His chosen family—Armaan, Vedant, Mihir, and… Even now, years later, his chest still hurt to utter her name. He and his brothers had all failed her in the worst possible way. Thanks to their naïveté and inexperience, they had lost her… their sister… Karina, the fourth one in their quartet. And the man responsible for her disappearance was now in front of him, finally found after months of searching.

Armaan studied his one-time archenemy. As a child, Dorab had been older and stronger than most of the orphans, and he’d used that to his advantage often enough, beating the kids into submission, until Armaan and his brothers had grown up and started challenging his dominance. Dorab had been disliked by everyone at the orphanage. Except her… Karina. Somehow, this weasel had wormed his way into her soft heart and she’d believed the best in him, believed that he was capable of being better. So innocent she’d been. And so bloody wrong!

Karina… God, he missed her. Fourteen years had passed. Fourteen long years… in which the brothers had thought that she had left them and run away to find happiness with the asshole in front of him. She’d left them a letter, requesting them not to look for her and that she was never returning. They had tried for weeks to find her, but it had all been a futile exercise. She’d disappeared into thin air. Her defection had broken him and his brothers. In the end it had also been the reason that the three of them had readily left India and moved to Russia.

Armaan raised a hand, and his men stepped to the side.

“Using your minions to do your dirty work doesn’t suit you, Armaan,” Dorab scorned, gaping at him through his swollen eyes. “Why don’t you untie me and fight me yourself? Or do you think you can’t take me on? After all, you never could as a kid.”

Armaan huffed out a laugh. “We both know that’s a lie. Besides, if I were the one hitting you, you’d be dead by now. Fortunately foryou, you’re not worth my time.”

“Or ours,” another voice said from behind Armaan.

“He’s still a scumbag, like he always was,” a third voice joined in.

Armaan continued to face his captive as both his brothers stepped out from the darkness and flanked his sides. By himself, Armaan knew he was a force to reckon with, but the three of them together… they were formidable and dangerous.

Dorab had finally realized the danger he was in because his face contorted in fear, and he began to struggle against his restraints.

“Where is she?” Mihir, the eldest in their trio, asked, arms crossed on his chest.

“I don’t know…” Dorab’s voice quavered.

Vedant, the youngest and quietest of the three of them, knelt in front of Dorab. He settled his black-rimmed glasses on his nose, studying him. “For the longest, we believed that Karina ran off with you. After all, she’d left a note for us, telling us that. We hoped and prayed that she’d managed to make you a better person, that perhaps she’d be happy even with you.”

Mihir continued, “In her note, Karina had told us not to look for her and that she was delighted to be with you. Nonetheless, we left our contact with the old staff at the orphanage so that if Karina ever reached out, they could get in touch with us.”

“For years, we never got a call from them,” Armaan took over. “But then one day, a few months ago, a call came, anddo you know what we heard?” Armaan gave him a hard look. “We were informed that you had finally returned to Rishikesh without Karina and that you had told someone you hadn’t seen her in years. We also learnt that you were down and out, moneywise, looking for anything that’ll get you easy money.”

“After that, it was so easy to lure you,” Armaan continued. “We simply spread the news among our old contacts that the orphanage had a benefactor willing to leave a million dollars to an orphan who deserved it. We made sure the news reached you. Like a dog sniffing a bone, you went begging to the orphanage management, just like we wanted. We put a condition that in order to claim the money, you’d have to come to London, and we even provided the money to get you here. The weasel that you are, you bought the story, and just like that… here we are.”

“That bitch!” Dorab stormed. “It has to be Mrs. Braganza who told you. She always took your side even then. I will kill her when I see her next.”

“Was it her? Or could it have been someone else?” Armaan asked. “There were many in the old staff who were fond of us and disliked you.”

“From now on, your life is in our hands,” Vedant said, his tone cold. “You will live only if we allow you to.”

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