Page 84 of The Unwanted Husband
“Not sure ma’am.” Another short response.
She started to panic. Did something happen? Did she unnecessarily bring Ashok into the mix? Did Paramesh Saini find out that Ashok was travelling.
In a frenzy, she called Ashok and it was switched off.
“No,” she said under her breath.
‘Approaching the court in two minutes.’ A voice announced in the walkie talkie and out of nowhere, she noticed multiple other black SUVs close in. They were escorting her to the court. The way everything was going, she knew it had to be Ashok dealing with the details.
A sudden relief fell over her when she felt his presence and as if her heart knew, it started beating rapidly. Just as the SUV turned a corner, she spotted him. He stood strong and tall, waiting for her, his glorious eyes trained in her direction.
As soon as the vehicle stopped, the door opened and Isha felt like she just flew into his arms. All worries, all sorrows vanished as he wrapped his arms around her, his lips grazing over her temple.
“I missed you,” she said, her throat dry.
He pulled back to look at her, a small smile on his face. “Are you ready?”
She nodded. “Now, I am.”
Ashok smiled, taking her hand in his as they went up the stairs. All apprehensions and doubts Isha had about the day vanished. Months of preparation and submission of documentation finally brought them to the final hearing on the case she had filed against Paramesh Saini.
Isha had initially just filed the corporate lawsuit but then decided to add the case accusing of foul play in both the accidents where she lost her family members. As they were entering the main entrance, she could see a dozen lawyerssurrounding a man who stood tall in the center talking to another lawyer.
When she and Ashok entered the main courtroom, they all turned to look at them. There was a shock in the man’s eyes, who she had placed as Paramesh Saini based on the pictures of him she had seen online.
It was evident that the man had not expected to show up at the court or had made plans to make her not appear, just like he had with her father although it was ruled out as an accident over a decade ago.
“Hello, Ms. Varma,” the man smiled charmingly and extended his hand.
Isha refused to touch the man or go anywhere near him. In spite of the fact that she had been so accustomed to shaking hands as part of her upbringing and also for work, she chose to touch her palms in a prayer pose and smiled.
“Mr. Saini.” She refused to say anything more. She wanted to say ‘Delighted to see you’ and not add the ‘Finally in court’ part. Instead, she looked at Ashok, “This is my husband, Ashok.”
Ashok, who was the gentleman who would even shake an enemy’s hand, kept both his hands in his pockets and looked at the man like he was dirt.
“We are both wasting our time but I’m willing to humor you.” The man had a knack with his words and she had repeatedly prepared herself not to take any bait and not to respond to anything he said.
“I guess that’s not for neither you nor I to judge,” she said emphasizing on the‘judge’part before following Ashok to their designated seats.
The man only smiled as he took his seat, being his charming self that had mesmerized her dad into believing the contract was airtight but only ended up stealing his company he built ground up.
Hours passed and the hearing was not going as well as she had hoped. She thought she had the smoking gun with the corporate lawsuit but the man’s lawyers had all kinds of evidence that did not seem legit.
Paramesh Saini’s lawyer had created a substantial amount of doubt with the new evidence from over fifteen years ago and she knew the case could go on for years while everything that was newly submitted had to be verified.
Her stomach was coiling with worry and she squeezed Ashok’s hand that she didn’t even realize she had been holding all along. As if he felt what she did, he patted their joint hands with his free one and that’s when she noticed the bruised knuckles.
Tuning out the statements the lawyers were exchanging, she looked at his scraped and bruised knuckles on his right hand and looked up into his eyes.
As if he read her question, he nodded and whispered, “Later.”
To Isha’s utter disappointment, what she feared was what ended up happening. The judge pushed out the court hearing date for the corporate case at a later day. The silver lining was that it wasn’t fully dismissed. The outcome was definitely an unfavorable situation for Mr. Saini too since he was hoping for the case to be dismissed.
Paramesh Saini was influential and she knew it. What she didn’t expect was for him to pull the strings with the judicial system, to line up both cases that were filed on him, corporateand the criminal case for the accidents where she lost her family members, to be processed by the same judge and within a span of two days.
His goal, make both cases look weak and get them both dismissed. And Isha feared the worst and for the man to target her and her loved ones and she could not take that risk. Like Ashok read her mind at that very moment, he squeezed her hand and said, “Nothing is over, yet.”
Isha didn’t feel that way and only hoped the man would not roam Scott free even after so many attempts of bringing him to justice.
