Page 102 of Right Where I Belong
“I didn’t do anything.”
“They found me because of you…” She pressed her head to his chest. “You’ve been so patient with me, but it’s time I told you everything.”
“Okay.”
She stood and paced the length of the room. Taking a deep breath, she told Aditya everything—from how Mihir, Armaan, Vedant, and she had become a family, to meeting Alexander, to her running away with Dorab, and finally, everything that happened with JD.
“So, you think you may have killed this JD guy?” Aditya asked.
“He was so still,” she shuddered. “For the longest, I believed I had killed him. But then… that day at the stadium…”
She shuddered.
His brows lifted. “What happened that day?”
She drew a shaky breath. “I was already panicking when I saw those reporters hounding you, clicking photographs of you. In that moment, I just wanted to disappear because I didn’t want my picture to be seen anywhere. You see, I’d been so careful. I’d hidden for so long. I’d changed my identity. And one wrong photo could destroy everything. I was just thinking that when a man bumped into me. It was… it was JD, the man I thought I’d killed.”
“Are you certain it was him?”
“I’m absolutely sure,” Sabrina said. “His face haunts my dreams till date.”
“Did he recognize you?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
Aditya looked in the distance. “Your brothers mentioned that Dorab wasn’t going to be a problem for you anymore. But they never spoke about JD. We need to talk to them about it. Perhaps they have more information. Anyway, please continue.”
“I was petrified when I saw him,” Sabrina said. “JD is dangerous. He had armed men following him in the stadium. I saw him and realized how fragile my reality is. That simply by being with me, you were at risk. In my concern for you, I broke up with you without giving you a choice. I was also worried that you may reject me after I told you about my past. But I was wrong. I should have confided in you first, and for that I’m truly sorry.”
He shook his head. “I understand everything better now, Sabrina. But I want to hear the rest of your story. What happened after you ran away from JD’s den?”
“I was worried that either the police would come after me, or JD’s men or Dorab. So, I climbed onto the first bus that was leaving, not caring where it was going. I just wanted to get out of there.” She paused, swallowing hard at the memory. “The bus stopped at the train station, and I got down. I knew I couldn’t go back to Rishikesh—Dorab had made sure of that. He told me if I ever returned, he’d be waiting… and that he’d kill my brothers and me. And I believed him. I was terrified. I couldn’t let anything happen to my brothers. So, I looked for the first train leaving the station. There was one going to Mumbai. And I sat in it. I knew I had to disappear completely, and the first step was to change my name.”
“Fuck, this is insane!” Aditya sounded shocked. “What happened next?”
“When I reached Mumbai, the city felt like it would swallow me whole. The noise, the crowds, the pace… it was such a sensory overload. And I was only eighteen; I’d never beenanywhere by myself before. It was all so damn scary. But I knew I had to survive and for that I needed to work.”
She smiled. “I heard people on the train talking about how the restaurants near the station couldn’t retain their cooks. They were desperate. I knew how to cook. I used to work in the kitchens in the orphanage. So, I walked into a small café next to the CST station in Mumbai and asked if they needed help. That’s where I started—washing dishes, chopping vegetables, doing whatever they’d let me. I worked hard, I learned from others, and bettered myself. I found a small rundown, dilapidated apartment…” She shuddered at the memory. “Looking back, I can’t even imagine staying at such an awful place. I squatted there for days, hiding so that no one knew I was there. It was scary, but I survived. And from there, I just kept moving, from one place to another. Job after job, six months of scrambling, of surviving, of dodging advances from unsavory men.”
She tipped her head to the side table and at the knife Mihir had given her. “I can’t tell you the number of times that knife has come in handy. Thanks to all the self-defense that Mihir taught me and that knife, I survived against all odds.”
“God, you’re so brave,” he said.
Her gaze lifted to meet his. “Finally, I found myself in my mother-in-law’s café. That’s where everything changed. She had a decent café in a nice locality. Her cook had left all of a sudden, and there I was, asking for a job. She hired me on a trial basis, but soon I was solely in charge of the kitchen. I met Aisha the first day I joined. She was almost the same age as me, and we hit it off immediately. Aisha was my only friend at that time. Thanks to Ajay’s mother, I could finally afford a better place to live in, a safer place.”
“And I suppose that’s how you met Ajay,” Aditya concluded.
“Ajay was a womanizer, quite untamed in his ways. He was always moving from one business idea to the next, neversucceeding in any. Two years after I began working at the restaurant, his mother proposed a marriage between Ajay and me. She knew I had no family, and she thought that marrying me would give him stability. It was also a way for her to keep her future daughter-in-law under her control. Ajay, of course, was open to the idea. He used to flirt with me, but I had rejected his advances. Like his mother, he also knew I was alone, needy, and desperate, and marrying me would give him the freedom he’d never get had he married a girl with a respectable family background.”
She shrugged. “To be honest, I didn’t want to marry him; I knew how he was. But rejecting him meant I’d lose my job; I’d lose Aisha too. So, I accepted. Marrying him gavemestability more than it did to him. I could finally stop looking over my shoulder. I had a family again. I could get a college degree. And then, Ahaan came along.” She smiled. “He was the best thing that had ever happened to me.”
“And Ajay? What about him?” Aditya asked, his brows creased. “Did he change after the marriage?”
She sighed. “I entered the marriage with my eyes open. I knew he wouldn’t be faithful to me. He was neither a good husband nor a good father. Although his mother portrayed to the world that he ran the restaurant alongside her, he was hardly involved. He was too busy in his own life, trying to find the next get rich scheme. After our marriage, he refused to let me work in the restaurant. He knew I was a good cook, yet he prohibited me from working there. And so, I was tasked with running the household, looking after Ahaan and trying to get through college. And then he got into poker. He started playing first on the computer, but soon he moved to playing in real time. His mother, as always, was oblivious to it all. On the days he lost, he was awful. He had a bad temper, which, of course, he directedtowards me. He never physically abused me, but he was mean and unkind.”
“Mental abuse is equally bad, Sabrina,” Aditya said sharply. “Why didn’t you do something about it?”
“Honestly, I had nowhere to go, and I had Ahaan to think of. Tired of his ways, I finally raised a huge ruckus about his poker addiction. I confided in Aisha about this, and the two of us had decided to tell his mother as well. Ajay and I had a huge fight about it, but eventually, he agreed to give up gambling. And I believed him. Ahaan was four then. Things were alright for a few days. He still came home late, but each time I asked, he promised he wasn’t gambling anymore. Like a fool, I continued to believe him. One day, a few weeks later, his mother forced Ajay to take Aisha to her friend’s reception that was being held a few hours away from the city. He had one too many drinks there and fought with her to drive. On the way back, he kept blaming me and her for ruining his life. They met with an accident that night, thanks to his reckless and drunk driving. Aisha survived but he… he died.”
