Page 112 of Obsession

“No, that was the only time I took your phone,” Zeeshan stressed. “I was desperate.”

“Why?” Ananya asked. “You lived rent-free in my house for weeks. You ate my food for free. Why the fuck were you desperate?”

“Because I owed money to some people…” Zeeshan said. “I… I used to go to those parties…”

“Which ones?” Ananya squinted. “We partied together all the time.”

“The ones you refused to come to,” he said. “I started doing drugs with the crowd there. Eventually, I developed an addiction, and soon, I couldn’t pay for my drug habit.” He looked at Mihir. “The people I owed money to started hounding me. The day before you returned from your break, they found me at a party and hurt me badly.”

Ananya frowned. “I don’t recall you having any wounds.”

Mihir touched her shoulder. “There are hundreds of ways to hurt someone without making it visible.”

Her jaw fell. Mihir squeezed her shoulder, and she shrugged his hand off her. She didn’t want comfort from him.

She turned to Zeeshan. “Go on.”

Zeeshan rubbed a shaking hand down his face. “The next morning, before you got home, the same people called me and told me that they knew someone willing to pay off my debts as long as I did something for them.”

Ananya narrowed her eyes at him. “They wanted you to get Mihir and me to break up?”

“No, actually they wanted me to ensure that Mihir reached some place alone. I told them that he would never listen to me. I begged them to let me off, but they were relentless.” He looked at Mihir. “I knew you weren’t fond of me. But they didn’t give me a choice. Either I did as they said, or they’d kill me.”

Zeeshan looked at his hands, then back at Mihir. “Ananya came home that day looking so happy. She told me she was going to introduce you to her family, and she was so excited. Then she got a call that her sisters were running late. So, she went for her Pilates class and I realized she’d left her phone behind. It felt like a sign. I took the phone and opened her messages to you.”

Ananya gasped. “Oh God.”

She knew exactly what had happened next.

“Finish it.” She slapped her hand on the table. “I want you to look me in the eye and tell me how you ruined my life.”

He gulped. “I learned how the two of you had gotten married a few days back. That the Kent house was where you’d honeymooned. I read how Mihir was looking for his ring, and I got just what I needed. I messaged him from your phone, telling him to go to Kent to look for the ring. In his previous messages, he had even sent you a location pin to the house. I forwarded it to those men and ensured Mihir reached there at the time they wanted him to. Then I deleted all the messages from your phone. But then, Mihir sent a text saying that he’d crossed your car near the house in Kent. I was so afraid my plan would backfire. So, I replied to him from your phone again, telling him to go ahead and wait in the house. I didn’t know that they would hurt Mihir. I didn’t know…”

“You didn’t know?” she yelled. “You knew exactly what you were doing. We werefriends. You could have told me about your money problems. I would have helped you. We could have figured things out. You needn’t have done what you did. I thought Mihir had died. You saw how devastated I was! You consoled me, and yet you kept quiet. How could you?”

“I could never have told you, Ananya,” Zeeshan said. “You were quite a straight arrow. You would never have been friends with me or allowed me to stay in your house if you knew I was into drugs.”

From beside her, she could see Mihir’s fists clenching and unclenching. The actions of this one man had changed the entire course of their lives.

Mihir addressed Zeeshan, “That’s why you wanted her to go to those parties with you, isn’t it? You were already doing drugs, and she was a rich girl. You were hoping to entice her into joining you. Getting her hooked on drugs would have fed your habit too, isn’t it? You were a fucking free loader, after all.”

Her heart clenched with pain.

Zeeshan’s face filled with guilt. “I tried, but she never agreed to come. And then she met you and stopped hanging out with us. She was always with you.”

A thought suddenly crossed her mind. “What about Devina? Was she also involved in this? I remember she was always at those parties with you.”

Zeeshan shook his head. “She did drugs very occasionally. She wasn’t addicted like I was. The months she was late in paying her rent was because she’d spent more on drugs the previous month. She’s innocent in all this.”

“My instincts kept warning me about Devina and you,” Mihir said. “I wish I had acted upon them then. If I had, then…”

Ananya cut him off to ask, “Why did you send Mihir those messages saying my sisters were being held captive?”

“Because he resented me!” Zeeshan yelled. “He almost never spoke to me, and when he did, he was rude and condescending. I had a suspicion why those men were calling him there. It was obvious they had a bone to pick with him and needed him to be off his guard. It was my only chance to take advantage of his vulnerability. I figured those men were going to hurt him physically, and I decided to hurt him emotionally.”

“Oh God.” Ananya stood on shaky legs and leaned on the table. “Mihir has hated me for years because he thought I sent him to die. Because he thought I chose my sisters over him. Your lies destroyed us.”

Violence raged through her. She wanted to kill Zeeshan for what he’d done to them. Seeing her shaking, Mihir pushed her back into the chair. He leaned forward to look at her.

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