I hope you like this — long chapter ahead.

• • •

Kashish struggled against the iron strong hold.

His words — "Damn, you smell sweet!"  — sent a chill of fear down her spine. She felt breathing fanning her neck. She whimpered against the palm. 

The man's hold got tighter. Kashish stopped trying to fight back. Almost immediately, she was pushed to the ground. She let out a groan as her knees hurt. She turned herself around, her hand taking the support of the floor. 

Her heart froze as she finally laid her eyes on the face of her tormentor."Naman!" She gasped.

He smirked, and before she could even blink, he was over her. His hands pinned both her hands back to the floor. "You're so fucking brainless, Shukla!"

She scowled trying to push him off her, but succeeded not a bit. He straddled her. The rough contact of their bodies made her feel sick. 

"What are you doing?" She muttered, terrified realizing that he was way more physically strong than she had judged by his physique.

"REALLY!" He chuckled. "Once a dumbfuck, always a dumbfuck I guess. But look at how beautiful you've turned out to be." He said, leaning forward, his face aligning with hers. Kashish immediately turned her face away, the closeness was causing bile to churn in her gut.

"You love to be a hurdle on people's ways, don't you? Even back in school, you were the complain box." He held onto her head, roughly grasping her hair. "You deserve a punishment."

"Get off me, Naman." She screamed.

"Not anytime soon, baby." He sneered, his gaze roving across her chest in a lecherous manner. Kashish had never felt so helpless. She was trying to think of a way to get rid of him. She didn't catch him pull a piece of cloth looking something like a short scarf, out from his back pocket. He leaned forward and began tying her hands together.

Kashish strived her best to get rid off his hold on her hands. Her legs attempted to move to turn over him. However, her efforts met no success as he sat on her, pushing down her thighs, restraining her movements. 

"Feisty! I think I am going to love this. I always enjoy it rough." He chuckled, causing Kashish to tremble in fear. Her hands were tied by the scarf. Tears made it to her eyes. 

"Don't do this, please," she begged, giving up on her struggle. Tears blurred her vision. She prayed someone would come to her rescue. But Virat was held in restrains too. She prayed for the lord to rescue her from this peril.

"Good, beg!" He ordered, his one hand held up her hands while the other pushed down the sleeve of her shoulder roughly. "Since the night of the reunion, I have been wanting to do this," he muttered, his mouth going down on her shoulder.

Kashish squeezed her eyes shut, trying her best to move away. Her hands trying to overpower his hand that held them against the floor, but failing miserably. Her feet kicking in full force. 

He sat up, looking at her with a smirk. 

She met his eyes. This time she wasn't begging him for mercy but glaring at him. She had to distract him, she had to buy time to think of a way out. "You killed Ishaan, didn't you?"

He smiled, a rather chilling smile. "Yes, shot him dead. BALM. He deserved it. By the way, he banged you that night, didn't he? Bastard, couldn't keep it to his pants. Well," his lusty gaze analyzed her, "can't blame him. But sweetheart, what's so special about that betraying bastard that you let him take you so easily?"

Kashish wanted to punch him right on his nose. Her hands struggled, but he kept his hold strong on her hands. 

"Why would you kill him?" She asked.

"Oh, one night of bang bang got you all senti, huh? Don't worry you can go to him too, I will make sure that you get life sentence for killing Ishaan, okay, baby?"

Kashish's heart pounded with fear. Her brain was getting fogged up with all the confusing facts. She shifted her head slightly, catching a quick glimpse of her purse that lay abandoned at least six feet away. It then struck her, Naman had a knife too, didn't he? She looked at him trying to recollect. "What did Ishaan do?"

"Curious cat?" He remarked, tracing his fingers on her neck to her shoulder. 

Kashish stopped struggling. She wanted to break his fingers. She had to loosen his guard before trying to attack.

"It's a long story sweetheart. Let's just say, he backstabbed me. So I killed him."

"Why did you kidnap Virat then?"

"To bring you here, of course!" He smiled, his hand moving to her throat. Kashish froze with fear, as his fingers gripped her throat firmly.

"Relax Shukla, I won't choke you... at least not this way. Let's get to busines, shall we?" Saying that, he chuckled and raised his hand to strike her face. Kashish tried her best to push him over, her eyes shutting as he put in all her strength.

The hand never came on her. He was pulled off her but it wasn't her efforts. Kashish sat up and backed off as quickly as she could. Her gaze rising up to see Naman get beaten by a man. She gulped. With the support of her hands taht were extended together, she tried to get up. In a minute, she was on her feet. She stood by watching Naman getting beaten. 

She gasped when the man's face finally came to her view. "Ishaan!" She muttered, blinking her eyes. No, she wasn't mistaken. She was seeing Ishaan. Was this some sort of cruel joke or witchcraft? Was he a ghost? Was she hallucinating?

Ishaan glanced at her momentarily. Their eyes meeting.

She closed her eyes immediately, as Naman punched Ishaan back. His groan echoed in the room. They laid blows and curses mercilessly at each other. 

Kashish was too scared to even try and help her savior. She couldn't believe her eyes. How could Ishaan possibly be alive? She had been shown the photographs of the dead body. She broke into a sweat. She no longer knew what was actually happening for real.

She watched on as Ishaan drew a handkerchief out from the pocket of his black sweatshirt and promptly pressed it against Naman's lower face. In seconds, Naman fell onto the ground like a rice of sack, leaving Kashish to wonder why Ishaan didn't do that in the first place. 

A relative silence fell, occasionally broken by Ishaan's panting and her breaths. 

"Are you okay?" He asked, catching his breath, looking at her intently. Pushing the kerchief back into the pocket he had retrieved it from. He then pulled off the glove that he wore like second skin on his hand, putting that into the pocket as well.

She kept staring at him, without batting an eyelid. Was he for real? His lips slowly formed a smile as he walked towards her. 

Kashish took a step back instinctively. He seemed as real as he seemed on the other night in the library. He covered the distance between them, looking at her. His hand reached to her shoulder to correct her dress. 

Kashish was at the verge of breaking into a sob. "Are you alive?" She whispered.

His lips curled up once again. "Want me to kiss and tell?" He remarked with amusement.

She continued to stare at him, not finding any amusement in his words. She had been under the burden of guilt and regret. It was as though life was making a fool out of her. How was he not dead? How was he here, as alive as he could possibly be?

A lot of unanswered questions raced her mind. Still finding it hard to believe that he was before her, she raised her tied hands upto his cheek. He didn't disappear like a fragment of her imagination. He was still there in blood and flesh. 

"Kashish," He said, his hands holding hers. His fingers quickly untied her hands.

"You're not dead!" She whispered. "How?"

"It's a long story. Are you alright?" He said releasing her hands. 

"Do I look okay to you?" She snapped, tears leaving her eyes, making their way down her flushed cheeks.

He sighed, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Kashish, right now, I need you to be strong. Virat's life is in danger. You have to help him."

"What are you saying?" She cried, confused, hurt and tired of it all.

"Listen. Listen to me, I am going to come back and explain everything to you, okay?" He glanced at Naman's sedated body. "Right now, I need you to call any cop that you know...other than Sujoy, the cop who interrogated you. He's the man that has Virat held up. He's in the old basement cellar in the police station itself. You need to get to him as soon as you can. Okay?"

Kashish just stared at him.

He placed both his hands on her shoulder. "Kashish, I swear I am going to explain it all. But right now, I need you to do as I say. You tell no one that you saw me. You're going to call the cops, tell him that this man," his finger pointed back at Naman, "kidnapped you and tried to assault you. I have his confession recorded on your phone." He pointed to her phone that lay near her bag. 

"You'll tell them that you had the recorder on. Give them that okay. Tell them he tried to assault you. Tell them he also has a partner —Sujoy, who has Virat captured in some old cellar of the police station. If they also ask about how he ended up like this, you're going to say that a man came in and helped you. But you had passed out due to fear. When you revieved you saw him like that and the man was gone."

Kashish blinked processing everything he was saying. 

"Call any cop... get out of here, get to Virat. And remember, you never saw me. Okay?"

"But--" Kashish looked at him perplexed.

His palm rested against her cheek. "I am counting on you, Kashish. Once everything is in order, I will come back and explain everything. I need you trust me now, please,"

Kashish nodded. He turned around, wore his hoodie and disappeared. Kashish gulped and quickly moved to grab her phone and purse. She stared at the screen that had an audio saved. She glanced at Naman. 

She rubbed the sweat off her forehead. Who should she call? She only had one other cop's number — Bharat. She quickly dialed his number and exactly followed Ishaan's advice. 

Kashish waited until a police jeep arrived, as Bharat had instructed over the call. She gave them the specifics and one officer offered to drive her car to the other police station, where Virat was. She was too tired to think anything. She just wanted Virat to be safe. But her brain wouldn't stop trying to process the fact that Ishaan was alive. Who had Naman killed then? Why did that dead body whose picture she had been shown on her interrogation look exactly like Ishaan?

* * *

Virat was struggling to keep his eyes open. Sujoy seemed to be waiting for a call or message from someone. But it never came. 

"Okay," He muttered, impatiently, putting his phone into his pocket. "Time to say, bye bye," He said, retrieving Virat's gun from the side table he had kept it on. 

"You think people are going to believe that I committed suicide?" Virat scoffed. He had to buy time, somehow.

"Virat, Virat, most unexpected people commit suicide. Besides you're not just guilty of helping your fiancée who committed a murder, but you're also going to be the dirty cop of this unit. You remember that Black Thugs Gang that we took down, who do you think helped Sultan escape? You. Few nights back we were prepared to expose the Casino Zone that Shah uses for networking his funds, but before we could reach there with our warrant, everything was cleaned and they even had a lawyer to deal with us. Who leaked the information? You."

Virat looked at him horrified. "You are the termite in the team! You Swine!" He screamed. At once, Sujoy struck his hand across Virat's cheek. 

"Shut up, bastard!" Sujoy muttered, walking over to stand behind the chair. He raised the gun to Virat's temple. Virat leaned away.

Sujoy cussed and held his jaw from the other side.

"You won't get away with this. You can't make it look like a suicide." Virat mumbled. "The lab will know I was drugged."

"That's why I gave you sleeping pills, idiot. The pills didn't work, so you shot yourself. There's your logic!"

"Why would I do it here?" Virat mumbled, trying to focus his eyes to look around. He couldn't just give up and wait for the idiot to pull the trigger. He had to figure a way out. 

"Virat, not in the mood for your quiz right now. Play it in afterlife."

"Drop your weapon!" A sharp voice sounded. They both looked up to find Mehak at the door, her gun pointed at Sujoy.

"Fuck!" Sujoy cursed and held the gun more determination against Virat's skin. "Drop the gun, or I will shoot him!" Sujoy warned. 

Before any negotiations could be made between the two officers with the gun, a smoke filled the entire cellar.

Virat closed his eyes, he couldn't keep them open any longer. In seconds his head drooped forward like a leaf. A gunshot reverberated in the air and everything went blank.

* * *

Kashish was troubled on seeing Virat on the stretcher. Mehak, the disciplinary lady cop, told her that he was only sedated and was being taken to the hospital to keep under monitoring. She hoped it was just that and nothing serious.

Kashish had narrated everything to Mehak just as Ishaan had asked her to. The officers did find it odd but believed the story and took her phone for evidence. Bharat, the other officer then drove her to the hospital.

Four hours had slipped by. Kashish was seated on the couch in the hospital room that Virat had been allocated. She simply watched him in silence. 

Her own bruises had been tended to by a doctor and a thorough physical examination had been done. After having lunch, Kashish hadn't moved out of the room that Virat was in. According to the doctor, Virat had been strongly sedated with the couple of pills and then the smoke, and would probably sleep until late night. 

Naman and Sujoy were both in police custody. She was asked to go home and rest. But she chose to stay at the hospital. She had had a short call with her parents, which was short, with her telling them that she was working while the latter told her they were getting ready for the wedding reception. She didn't want to narrate everything to them over the phone. She had decided to tell them everything when they came back. She hoped that they didn't rethink the decision of her marriage with Virat. She couldn't picture her life without him, somehow which was strange.

Kashish checked on Virat before leaving the room to fill her water bottle. It was past six on the clock. She walked down the corridor towards the water dispenser. 

Just a few nights, and she was a new person. There was so much she had learned about herself. In retrospect, everything seemed different to her than she had assumed back then. She watched on unblinking, as the bottle filled.

Her heart had been in her mouth when she had seen Virat being brought out on a stretcher. For a second there, she felt like someone had taken away something that was hers. It didn't stop bothering her. She hadn't realized that in a matter of few nights she had got so attached to Virat.

Taking a deep breath she capped the bottle and stepped out into the skyway bridge that connected the building to the other hospital block. Taking in the sight of the almost black sky with hues of purple, she let out a deep breath. Ishaan was alive, that felt like a major burden fragmenting into dust and rising up in the air. Virat would be okay, that was relief. The people who wanted to harm her would be put behind bars. Her life seemed to be arranging itself back into order after the storm.

"Thinking about me?" 

Her grip on the bottle tightened, promptly recognizing the voice. She was about to turn to look at him, when he said, "Don't get startled and turn, please."

She looked from the corner of her eyes. He stood a little more than a foot away, with his palms on the railing. She couldn't get a glimpse of his face just his black hoodie.

She didn't even know where to start. "How are you alive?" She asked, the question that could answer many of her questions.

"Not happy, huh?" There's was a teasing tone to his voice as he angled his head to glance at her. For a minute Kashish thought she was seeing someone else. He had a beard and mustache on. He didn't look like Ishaan at all. If she didn't recognize his voice and tajy beautiful pair of eyes, she'd be fooled into believing he was someone else.

She made no efforts to hide her surprise. Very steadily, he moved closer to her. "I am sorry, you had to go through it all."

"You're making no sense to me." She muttered, her voice shook with a strong emotion, giving away how mad she was at him for everything that happened. She had sleepless nights thinking of him, and here he was as unaffected as a billionaire who had lost a few dollars.

"Okay, let's start from the beginning." He said, moving closer to her such that he was standing right beside her,  looking ahead at the darkening night sky. 

"The day we got the invitation for the reunion I called up Naman. We decided to meet. You know, hang out have some fun and catch up. The night turned out to be way more eventful than I imagined it would be. Naman took me to the casino he owned. It was illegal of course, set up in the hall of the club his dad owns."

Kashish clenched her teeth. She should have kicked that man at least once where the sun didn't shine.

"What struck me was one particular face there —Shah. He is well, know for relaying funds across countries to support anti-nationals. The following day I gave an anonymous tip to the police unit. A day later, a police unit was sent to catch them red handed but it did not go as per plan. The place was clean and nothing worthwhile could be captured. Someone had warned the miscreants.

I didn't know Naman would suspect me, but he did. He called me and started abusing me and threatened me. I denied his accusations but he had concrete evidence against me."

"Why would you put your life into danger like that?" Kashish asked.

"Because that's what I do." He muttered, before carrying on his narration. "So, I was sort of expecting him to come back at me and then I had evidence that he was planning to kill me. So, I also made a plan with my team to fake my own death."

"What do you do?" Kashish asked stunned. He was not a regular employee in a private limited company or the government. 

He glanced at her, and then swept his gaze around. "I...uh, you can say a cop without a uniform."

"No way!" She muttered, shocked.

"Something like that. So, I was all set, with my small team. On the evening, we knew he was planning to shoot me."

"How?" Kashish asked.

He smiled a little, "Curiosity has bitten you hard."

She narrowed her eyes at him, "Er, it's not everyday that a person who I know gets murdered. So excuse me,"

He chuckled. "I had someone like a PI, private investigator, on him. So I knew what he was upto. Everything was in place, we had a plan A and plan B and even plan C. But..."

"But, what?"

"I derailed from track. I saw you...and .." his words faltered and his eyes met hers.

"And," she asked looking into his light brown dazzling eyes. 

"I forgot I was a man on a mission. I .. I wanted to talk to you but I got tongue tied. However, a while later I caught glimpse of your leaving and just followed you."

"And, I wanted to go to the library."

"Yeah! And then, well... uh, after you left the library, I knew Naman wouldn't miss the chance. So, I waited a while and then headed down. Naman was right there. Gauravi, another person in my team, was supposed to be a witness to the entire thing. She made a sound and Naman panicked, he just took a shot at me, I feigned to be dead and he left to see who else was there. He ended up believing it was you who saw the entire thing, of course, I realized that only after there was an attack on you, outside the police station."

"Wow," Kashish said, letting out a deep breath.

"I did try to get in touch with you that night when you were, uh, staying at Virat's place. In the middle of the night, from the window."

Kashish glanced at him shocked. 

"Seriously, I did. I swear. I kept calling your name and you just woke with a squeal. I thought I was busted. But you ended up telling Virat that it was bad dream and I had a narrow escape that night. Honestly, I couldn't trust Virat, because we didn't know who the dirty cop in their team was. So I was sort of tracking you. But seems like your trust on him was iron strong."

"He's a nice man." Kashish felt the need to speak up for him.

A smile crept up Ishaan's face. "Seems like he has cast a spell over you."

"You're just saying that because you're envious." Kashish teased with a smile gracefully appearing on her face. 

"You have no clue how much!" He mumbled, looking away momentarily.

"What?" Kashish preyended to have not heard that. 

"I guess you can put everything together after that."

"Weren't you scared? What if Naman shot you on the head?"

"Well, generally it's a less sure way of killing someone, they can move their head. But just so you know, I know how to duck."

Kashish rolled her eyes.

"We had back up plans too. I had all possibilities covered, honestly. Except meeting you. However, our plan A worked fine except that you got caught in the web too. But, look how it turned out so perfectly."

"You're officially dead, how is that perfect? And what about that body the police has?"

"Oh, that, let's say we have a special person in the lab who took care of everything from fake blood to fake body, actually real body with a fake face. So there it is, everything. I should get going," he added looking at his watch.

"What about your family?"

"My brother knows I am dead. I had pre informed him, so he was sort of prepared."

"You're crazy!" Kashish remarked.

"I was. Hopefully, Ashar Shakeer won't be."

Kashish squinted her eyebrows, "whose that?"

He smiled, extending his hand forward, "Ashar Shakeer, nice to meet you."

Kashish blinked, baffled.

"Ishaan is a closed chapter Kashish," He whispered softly, giving her hand a squeeze. "Have a happy life ahead, and you might want to learn a few self defense tricks from your partner. If you marry him, that is."

Kashish smiled shyly, " I intend to do that."

"Thought as much." He smiled, "he's a nice guy!"

Kashish looked into his eyes. She didn't know why she just didn't want him to leave. 

"There's something more..." He spoke up blinking, breaking their eye contact which was becoming way intimate than it was intended to be. "You need to keep this to yourself. No one can know this secret from you. Not even Virat."

"Why?"

"Because I am off the books person." He said pulling is hand away.

Kashish nodded slowly. "You won't be around I guess..." 

"No. Probably the first and last time Ashar is meeting you."

"Okay," she uttered. Her heart feeling heavy.

"Take care of yourself." He said and walked past her, almost brushing his shoulders against her. Kashish wanted to turn but stopped herself. She stared at the night sky instead. There was heaviness in a heart, a longing in her soul and a sad smile on her face, she wondered if that was what first love felt like. A tear rolled down her cheek, she'd never see him again. But she was glad that she happened to meet him again after all those years, once upon a night.

━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━

Hope you enjoyed this book. Would love to have your reviews on it. What do you think about the whole thing? 

Given that this was my first attempt at crime fiction... do you have any constructive feedback I can work on? Anything that I can improve on? Any parts of the story that can be improved upon to make this one a more solid book?

Signing Off,