Page 99 of Obsession

“I entered the house, and my phone beeped with another message from you.”

He swiped his phone to the next screenshot and held it up for her again.

I’m sorry, Mihir. I had to do this. They have my sisters. I cannot let anything happen to them. I had to do this so I could save them

All the color drained from her face. But Mihir couldn’t believe her over the hurt and horror the memories of that day brought him.

“There were five men, waiting inside the house…” he said. “They surrounded me all at once. Can you, even for a minute, imagine what went through me when one of them said it was easy for them to get to me because someone closest to me had betrayed me? Want to take a guess, who this closest-to-me person could be?”

She stayed frozen in place.

He continued, “They came at me with knives and with chains. Initially, I was so shocked that I didn’t know what was happening. By the time my fight instincts kicked in, they’d already managed to wound me. I had to fight five of them at once. I killed three of them with my bare hands, but the other two managed to strike me on my head. I fell unconscious. When I came to, the whole house was up in flames. I was wounded, dizzy, disoriented, and the right side of my face was burning. There was so much smoke everywhere. The house was a fucking furnace. Till date, I cannot take a hot shower, no matter how cold it is outside. It’s taken me years to be able to look at a fire even in a fucking fireplace. Thanks to that incident, I loathe fires. They are the one thing, the only thing, that scare the living daylights out of me”

Her throat worked, but still she didn’t say anything.

“There was no way out of that goddamned house. “But I knew I had to survive. I had to get out of there. I broke through a window and escaped through the backyard into an empty field beyond. I wasn’t sure if those two remaining men were outside, so I hid in the shrubs. But I was so exhausted. Plus, I had inhaled so much smoke. I don’t even remember when I fainted. I would have died… Had it not been for my brothers, I would have died that night.”

“Your brothers?”

“I was driving to Kent when my brothers called to say that they’d landed. Armaan badgered me to tell him where I was going. He just wouldn’t accept that I wasn’t going to be home when they arrived. It was most unlike me. An hour later, they reached home and started to worry because they couldn’t get across to me. When they heard in the news that there was a fire in Kent, they drove like crazy to get there on a whim, because that’s where I’d told them I’d gone. They found my car at the site of the fire, and they knew I was around somewhere. The house was completely charred, but they refused to stop searching. They looked for hours, until they found me in that field—bruised, battered, and almost dead.”

He rubbed his scar angrily. “This scar is a result and a reminder of that day. Those men sliced my face with a knife. I didn’t feel the pain then, but I’ve felt it every single moment since. It makes me look like a monster and reminds me that I was stupid enough to fall in love with one.”

Ananya had gone still as a statue.

He studied her. “You could have spoken to me. You could have told me that your sisters were in danger. Instead, you sent me to die in that house.”

She finally shook her head, breathing hard. A tear fell down her cheek. “I never sent you those texts, Mihir.”

“I saw you there, Anna.”

“I had gone to the house to search for your ring, yes. But it was empty when I reached. I searched for a short while and left because my sisters were arriving soon.”

“Forgive me if that sounds too convenient to me.”

“Mihir, please…”

“You were there in that house, negotiating with those men to save your sisters, giving in to their demands. I have your confession in a text message.”

“Mihir, I didn’t send you those texts…” she said.

“They came from your phone, Anna. What else can be the truth? Thank God for technology. I was able download those messages from the cloud once I could finally think and get myself a new phone. I tortured myself for years, rereading them. They were a fucking reminder to never trust another woman ever.”

Her tears came unabashed now, but he refused to be affected. She wiped at them angrily. “My sisters were never kidnapped or hurt, until, of course, they fell in love with the Oshnovs. That day in London, they were late in reaching me because Reina was stuck with some last-minute med school work. Since I had some time, I decided to go to the house in Kent. I thought I could find your ring and surprise you. But I couldn’t find it. I gave up and left because I had to return home on time for my sisters’ arrival. They came home to me safe and sound. I never sent you those messages.”

“I don’t believe you, Anna.”

She continued, “I heard that you died through some friends. Take a guess what hearing of myhusband’sdeath must’ve done to me.” Anna took a step near him. “The day my sisters arrived, I tried calling you and texting you several times, but nothing went across. I even went to your house, but it was empty. The next day, my sisters and I even waited for you at the restaurant, but you never showed up. I was going to return to your house when Asha and Zeeshan told me that your brothers had called the dean and informed him that you’d died in a fire in Kent. I checked the news and realized that you had returned to that house, most probably to look for your ring, just like I had. The police found a body there, but they refused to let out the name. Everyone in college assumed it was you, because that’s the story your brothers had spread.”

"My brothers spread that story because our father told them to,” Mihir said. “At the time, I was still in the hospital—barely holding on—and Alexander couldn’t immediately move me to Moscow. So, to keep me safe from the men who had attacked me, he did the only thing he could think of: he told my brothers to tell the world I had died. I only found out much later, after the danger had passed.”

Anna shook her head. “I blamed myself for years, thinking if only I’d told you that I was going to Kent to search for the ring, then perhaps you’d have been safe and alive.”

Mihir clenched his jaw, so angry that she still refused to accept the truth.

“The ring was conveniently with you all along,” he said. “You used it only to lure me to return to the house.”

“I found the ring in your gym bag, Mihir,” she said quietly. “Remember I’d taken your gym bag with me?” She shook her head. “Your death destroyed me. One minute, I was so happy to be married to the man I loved, and in the next, my world had crashed. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I wouldn’t even talk to anyone—I was shattered. My sisters whisked me to Dubai immediately. I didn’t even realize that they had packed some of my things in that very same gym bag. My family rallied around me when I got home. Rajiv saw how distraught I was and forced me into therapy to heal from your loss. It was months later, when I was a little better, that I was going through my cupboard and found your gym bag. I opened it and found your ring in a side zip.” She looked at him. “You may not believe me, but that is the truth. I loved you. I have always loved only you. But you… you were alive, and you didn’t bother to let me know. I found out through a fucking newspaper article, three years later, after Alexander Oshnov passed away, that you were alive and his heir. Canyouimagine how I felt then? I wondered if you were someone else. I wondered if you’d lost your memory and forgotten me. I simply couldn’t come to terms with the fact that you were alive, and you deliberately didn’t contact me.”

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