3

Four months later

Mishti had been back in Kolkata for about two months when Ruhaan Sharma approached her.

The first two months since she left Germany she'd gone to Kolkata and stayed in her Dida's house locking herself away from the world. It had been willed to Mishti after her death and she was unwilling to part with it so she turned it into a sort of vacation home and rented it out occasionally with the help of Sughandha Garg, her Dida's lawyer. The house was the one thing she missed, her only connection to the town she grew up in.

Her dad had visited her a few times and they had dinner together. It was after he tentatively offered to set her up with a job at his wife's office that she snapped out of her hibernation and remembered why they spent time apart. His wife Nandani was all smiles and formality but Mishti knew she saw her as nothing but a mismatched puzzle struggling to be part of a family she didn't belong to. Their little twins, full-cheeked and dazzling grey eyed looked more like Namit than she did.

The next week she was on a plane to the big apple.

Kolkata had been a good change of pace. She was out of the hotel business for now taking her talents to a specialty bookstore doing translations for rare books. When Mishti returned to the country she decided to stay away from the hospitality business for the time being. The thought of working behind a hotel desk made her chest feel tight and her throat squeezed shut.

The counselor she saw told her it was a panic attack brought forth by trauma. She wanted to disagree but every few nights since she left Germany she would dream of Mallishka lying on the hotel bed, throat cut and gushing over a file. The crimson red stained the words but left Trident international emboldened. Her eyes begged and blamed Mishti for what she was not sure of. The horrible gurgling sound as she choked on her blood. Those nights left Mishti lethargic and shaky for the rest of the day nearly unable to function. Things were getting better or at least she hoped they would. The dreams were reducing in frequency and she could go a few days without remembering.

She was working through her lunch break when a knock came on the door of her small office. Her co-worker Joy looked apologetic at the interruption. Joy was sweet and polite. She was from Texas and the two of them bonded over their love for the East Coast.

"What's up?" Mishti dropped her pen on the table.

"There's a man here to see you," She informed. Mishtis' brow wrinkled in confusion. She certainly hadn't been expecting anyone. She walked out of the office to see an unfamiliar dark-haired man in a suit and aviators glancing around the isles with disinterest. Not into books.

"Can I help you?" She greeted cautiously.

He turned to her, "Mishti Khanna?"

"Yes?"

"Agent Ruhaan Sharma. I believe we have a mutual friend from the Indian embassy in Berlin. I have a few questions for you," He stated smiling. To give herself some credit, Mishti managed to stay still. It seemed almost laughable that she expected to leave Germany the way she did without any repercussions. Four months was a good run. The other shoe had just dropped.

She blinked then turned back to check the counter. Thankfully Joy had gone to the backroom.

"Not at my job please," Mishti whispered pleadingly.

He nodded and she walked robotically out of the store not even checking to see if he was on her heels. If she was lucky he would disappear. Once they were safely away from any overly curious ears in front of an abandoned storefront next to the bookstore, he addressed her.

"There's no need to be scared. I do have just a few questions for you," Agent Sharma said stuffing a hand into his pocket.

Her bottom lip wobbled, "So you're not here to arrest me? I don't even know what agency you work for, how can I trust you?"

He sighed as though proving his credentials as a truly tiring piece of work. Mishti decided at that moment that she didn't like him.

Apart from coming into her life and wrecking the calm she tried so hard to rebuild. He reached into his jacket and brought out a badge. It looked real enough.

"I'm with the RAW and I'm here Miss. Khanna because four months ago you gave Shakti Arora a file containing some very damning information," Agent Sharma explained.

Mishti still looked apprehensive so the agent took off his glasses to reveal piercing dark brown eyes, "I meant what I said. I'm not going to arrest you neither are you in any sort of trouble. At least not that I know of. I just want to ask you some questions. I spied a diner across the street on my way here. Maybe you'll feel better with a cup of coffee?"

She contemplated for a moment then nodded slowly, "In that case you're buying."

"And what made you come to that conclusion?" He questioned not hiding his surprise.

She shrugged, "If you do work for the RAW then my hard-earned money fund you. Therefore you owe me." He didn't try very hard to hide his amusement from then on.

The diner had a good apple pie and Mishti had two slices. Agent Sharma didn't have anything choosing the nurse a cup of black coffee throughout their entire conversation. She explained everything from the beginning with Mallishka 's entrance to the hotel to the news of her death and how she gave the file to a dumbfounded Shakti the next day before hastily quitting her job at the hotel and leaving Germany a few days after.

She scattered the crust on her plate with her fork, "I had to leave. Every night I just kept seeing her face and remembering how scared she looked. How determined she was. I couldn't look at that place the same anymore."

"Believe me I get it," Agent Sharma said with a dejected look of his own.

Mishti looked at him, "Agent Sharma-,"

"Please call me Ruhaan," He corrected with an easy-going smile. She hated how easily she blushed from a simple smile like a naïve teenager. A side effect of her dormant love life. He was a pretty good-looking guy. There was a gold band on his finger so she made sure to leave her thoughts at just admiration.

She nodded, "Ruhaan, what exactly is going on? I know what I read sounded pretty illegal but if you're here then it must be pretty serious."

Ruhaan inhaled bracing himself for the amount of information he was about to dump on her. The diner was thankfully empty save a bored waitress more occupied with her phone than them far away near the stools.

He flicked his thumb against the rim of his coffee mug, "Ronobir Chatterjee isn't the magnanimous philanthropist everyone sees in the media. He's a criminal with ties that run too deep into everything bad you can imagine. Weapons, drugs, prostitution, you name it. I've been trying to build a case on him for five years yet nothing has stuck because he's far too smart not to leave dirt on his trail."

"Mallishka called him the worst man in the world," Mishti recalled.

Ruhaan laughed humorlessly, "That doesn't even begin to cover it. He's ruthless and has no qualms about hurting anyone to get his way." He couldn't help fiddling with his wedding ring. She noticed.

"I knew Mallishka," He started hesitantly, "She was my sister-in-law." Mishti's eyes widened at the confession then felt a wave of sympathy towards him. Sure, she'd been plagued by the event, but Ruhaan had lost his family.

"How did she end up with him then?" She questioned softly.

"Mallishka had always been a wild child compared to her sister, my wife Arohi," Ruhaan explained with a faraway look "We hadn't heard from her in a few years when she resurfaced six years later working for him in some vague capacity. She loved it; the lavish parties, the exotic holidays, and everything else he plied her with. It was around the same time I started to notice patterns in his businesses and certain activities linked to weapon trades. No one believed me at the agency because he's too smart to leave any visible breadcrumbs but I saw it all."

Mishti took another forkful of pie, her attention rapt at his tale, "I reached out to her and she of course denied everything. I showed her the patterns but she still refused to believe me. I made a case to the agency but got shot down by my superiors multiple times. I know he's got a good number in his pocket. The last time I spoke with Mallishka she told me to stop calling her."

A bitter look graced his handsome face. "Next thing I hear from Shakti that she died mugged in Germany and got some girl to give him papers about Trident international."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Mishti said hoping her voice didn't betray pity. She knew exactly how it felt and hated it. No one needed pity. She needed him to know that she understood his pain and ire.

"just another thing that bastard took," Ruhaan growled. She didn't ask what else he'd taken before.

"How do you know he killed her?"

She couldn't help but ask. "From all indications with the police, it did seem like a mugging gone wrong. How are you so certain?" it was a theory Mishti doubted given the sheer coincidence but she needed to be certain due to the scale of the accusation being leveled.

He glanced at her sharply, "because he always cleans his messes that way. It's never overtly violent or flashy unless he wants to send a message. You saw him the next day. That's how he operates to make sure there are no loose ends." She recalled his brown eyes and how they seemed to burn into her skin. His two hefty bodyguards looked capable enough to grab a woman and slit her throat. She shivered at the thought.

Mallishka had said that she wanted to do something good for once. Getting that proof to Ruhaan was her last good deed.

"I checked up on the companies and Trident is linked to Ronobir's company Grey. Shouldn't that be enough proof to take him down?" She questioned innocently.

Ruhaan shook his head, "I'm afraid it's not that easy. Trident was sold to another conglomerate months before that deal, it just wasn't announced yet so technically nothing is tying him to it. Plus its one thing to write down a list of guns and another to find them. The buyer doesn't even exist on paper, it's all up in the air. Not to mention that no one at my agency seems to even care about pushing this further unless I bring hard-hitting proof. But for something like that I'd need a man on the inside." The frustration in his voice was evident. Nailing Ronobir had escaped him time and time again. Anyone else in his shoes would have given up but Ruhaan was fueled by obsession, justice, and more recently revenge.