Part 12: Revelations

Mehar sat with her legs crossed on one of the couches in the reception area, the beige sofa seemed to fade behind her.

She smiled when she saw Balthazar, he noted she had switched back to manager mode, her smile betraying not a clue of what had just gone down.

He walked up to her and offered her his arm, and Mehar let him pull her up as if she hadn't just chased someone and flung a knife at him.

On her finger rested a frail silver ring, holding up a Tanzanite gem. He recognised it from the last collection he had released, this was the last place he expected to see it. Balthazar got the message loud and clear, she had been keeping an eye on him all these years.

She motioned to a small seating arrangement with a table in a corner of the reception room.

Balthazar couldn't help but notice that there was a webcam angled at them and that the receptionist could get a clear view of them. He had no intention of trusting this woman anywhere secluded so this suited both of their interests.

Mehar strolled over to the reception, grabbed a file and was back. Balthazar had stopped carrying guns a year back, a vow to truly leave his past behind...now he regretted that decision wholeheartedly.

Each movement of hers, gentle and elegant reminded him of how deadly she could be. She had decided to not kill the man they had followed earlier, she just wanted to slow him down and she would've managed to do just that if it hadn't been for Sarafaraz.

The papers she got out of the file were all blueprints, carefully crafted.

Balthazar's eyes had been focused on where her hands were, and whether he could spot anything concealed, on the outline of cards in the little blue pouch tied to her waist, till his attention was drawn to the sketches she laid out. It was for the show he had hoped to host there, it had seemed taken a backseat with everything that happened that day but he had put so much into it. To see the way it'll be laid out, and executed was something he had longed to see.

Black ink darted across the white paper, spelling out what he had envisioned.

Her whisper dragged him away from his reverie.

"Keep looking at it, head down. I need to talk to you but speak facing down, your lips shouldn't be caught in the camera or by the receptionist."

Balthazar lifted his eyes, to look at Mehar, as she pointed to a corner of the plan laid out, as if intent on highlighting an issue. He grinned, she was something alright.

"I need you to trust me, and let us protect you," she continued.

"Trust a stranger who's done nothing but lie, act or evade everything that's been set to them?" He countered.

"It's not me you're trusting, it's my organisation. I do what I do for a reason," she hissed.

"Lady, stop kidding yourself, I need something concrete to trust you with something as little as picking up what I dropped."

Mehar let out a huff of frustration, before smiling and asking him to follow her. Seeing that Tushar stood rooted on his spot, face defiant but eyes twinkling, she knew even that sparkle was artificial.

The man made stones glitter every day, he would know a thing or two about dazzling someone.

"I'll escort you to your room sir, we could discuss any other requests you have on the way there."

Balthazar nodded, he couldn't make a scene without people getting involved and he didn't want that. His career had finally begun to pick up, he couldn't blow this. They walked in silence towards the elevators, till she stopped to ask,

"Shall we take the staircase? Good for the legs,"

He consented in confusion till he remembered that most staircases didn't have cameras.

The stairwell was dimly lit, lemon light bouncing off the walls.

There was a camera by the door but when they got to the next landing they were well above it.

She reached into the pouch, retreived a card, and handed it to him.

Promised a pension, the country indebted to her, she was dubiously claiming that she, Mehar Bharti, was a civil servant.