Broken But Beautiful

41. Five.

And I was already so tired. So, so tired. Either coming face to face with Manik Malhotra gives me all the energy back or it sucks all remaining much of it out of me. It was just a crazy time to evaluate on the probability- so I found it easier not to try at all.

And then- there was also the fear that he might do it both together and I'd turn fucking helium.

"Nandini!"

"Huh, sorry," I shook my head, turning back at her, "Hey, you really don't know what happened between them?"

I was really, really curious though. Can't really explain why, but something kept telling me it might be about Mukti and Abhimanyu.

I watched Alya chewing on her lips for a while before replying, "I don't wanna lie to you, Nandi. But it seems like a topic for them to resolve- do you mind if we don't talk about it?"

"Of course," I nodded and smiled, a little startled.

Manik

"So basically, there's nothing that can help us,"

"Not nothing," Abhimanyu twisted his lips, "In fact, there is quite a stuff. Hint of controversies, even clear evidence of frauds too. Nothing you cannot expect from someone like Madhav Mehta,"

"But-"

"But those doesn't serve our purpose," he sighed dejectedly, I watched as he rocked into the chair in my laptop screen, "See, these are things that could send him to jail. But then, he's a powerful man, Manik. So he gets a few years of jail, big deal. Or he may even scrap out of that, who knows? What I understand here is he could still come back and torment Nandini with the deal till the rest of her life. There wasn't a time limit on the agreement, you know,"

"So basically they just don't help Nandini," I finished for him. He nodded.

I shoved my hands onto the root of my head, and groaned.

"This thing is getting out of hand, Manik," I watched Abhi's face appear closer on the screen, "I mean, do you understand what's gonna happen if Madhav finds out we have things on him? Even if they don't matter to his power, he's gonna blow and he's gonna blow hard. We don't have time either, Manik,"

"And what makes you think I've not thought of those," I murmured, standing up for a beer. As I turned back to the laptop I heard him say, "So have you given any thought to the other option?"

I stopped on my track. Then I took my time. I walked to the fridge, took out a bottle, took a long, hard sip. Then I went back to sit in front of him.

"That's a no," I said, rubbing my hands together. He shifted away.

"Look, it's not my place-"

"It's really not,"

"I know that," he snapped, somewhat irritated, "But you do understand this could really, like really help us? Help Nandini?"

"First of all, I don't see how it might help," I took another sip, "And lastly, I'm not going to meet Srikant Malhotra or anyone from the Malhotra Empire,"

He tried fixing me into a hard gaze, but I lazily turned away. Out of all the things we were going to do, meeting my father willingly was not one of them.

"Look here, Abhimanyu," I sighed, "We worked on intuition once. Went to meet the Murthy's lawyer and we both know how that turned out," and it was my turn to fix the gaze, "I don't trust him, Abhi. I'm not going to bring him into this. It's not going to help,"

Not without anyone paying for it, at least. Bad.

"Mr. Devar worked really hard on these," Abhi said. I watched him idly toss the papers all over his table and get up, "I mean, the things he has on plate are not huge, but small bricks that builds a tower. Madhav could seriously be punished,"