by M. V. Kasi
Ajay broke the silence. “We’ll hire some private security with guards who will be outside the house 24/7. We’ll have to just limit our walks and outings for the next few weeks until that bust happens.”
“No, Ajay. That’s only going to make Anika miserable.”
“I want her safe, more than anything, Sia.”
“Me too. But not at the cost of her well-being. And how can we trust the guards? They’ll change shifts and come up with excuses on why the people we vetted cannot be with us always. It’s easy to buy loyalty with money.”
“Sia, the guards are only going to be outside. We won’t let them in. I can—”
“So, is Anika never going to play out in the open?”
“It’s only until it’s over. Only three more weeks. “
“We don’t know when it will be,” said Sia. “What if we find nothing at Citizen’s hotel? We are planning on alerting the police and possibly getting some video footage. What if something goes wrong?”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“Jay... Sia...” Jyotika interrupted hesitantly. “Can I suggest something?” she asked.
Sia didn’t reply. She simply nodded.
“Sure Jo,” said Ajay.
“Do you both mind if I take care of Anika until everything settle’s down? She can stay in my house. It’s as huge as your house with lawns and open spaces. My parents and grandparents will have constant vigilance on her. They loved her when she was with us the first four weeks of her life.”
“No, Jo,” Ajay said immediately. “That’s not an option. We want Anika with us. We can’t—”
“Jyotika is right,” Sia interrupted Ajay.
“What?”
“Anika’s safety is critical at this point.”
“I think so too, Sia. But we can’t stay without Anika. Especially you. Sometimes you still wake up every few hours in middle of the night to ensure her breathing is normal!”
“We don’t know how long this whole thing will take Ajay.” Sia answered instead. “We can’t afford to be selfish right now. I prefer to keep Anika safe while also let her be free. Her well-being is important too.”
Ajay didn’t reply for the longest time. He simply stared at his wife’s face. She had a blank but determined look that he recognized. Nothing was going to change her mind.
Everything inside him rebelled, even if he knew it was the most logical thing to do.
“Okay. But no one outside Jo’s family and us should know that Anika is not with us,” said Ajay.
Harsha and Jo nodded. Sia was silent. And then she got up, “I’ll pack Anika’s things for you to take. I prefer if you take her when no one is watching the house. The police checked the outside already.”
Sia began to pack a large suitcase. Ajay joined her to help. They both didn’t talk while they quietly, put each and every item into the suitcase.
Thirty minutes later, the four of them along with Anika stood inside the enclosed parking garage. Hugging her close and kissing her, Sia handed Anika to Jyotika. “Please take care of her,” she said softly.
“I will,” Jyotika replied reassuringly.
Ajay didn’t speak for several seconds. Then taking a deep breath, he finally relented. “If we have missed packing anything, I’ll bring it later,” he said.
Soon, Harsha and Jyotika left with Anika.
Sia went straight to bed. She lay down holding a small baby sock in her hands.
Ajay joined her a few minutes later. He didn’t say anything and simply lay behind her and held her.
Her body began to tremble as she cried softly. “God. I miss her so much already. Sometimes I wonder whether all this is really worth it. Especially if it is keeping her away from us,” she said.
He kissed her ear as he held her tighter. “It is worth it. She will understand when we tell her why we had to leave her for a while. It was for her safety.”
Sia didn’t respond. Her body shook with emotion. Possibly heartbreak.
He felt devastated too. But he knew he had to hold it together for the sake of his wife. He held her until her body stopped trembling and she slipped into an exhausted sleep.
* * *
The next morning, when Sia woke up, she felt empty.
The cradle next to her was laid bare with missing bedding and Anika’s favorite toys. Her heart felt like it was being ripped out.
She must have been crying because Ajay woke up and turned her towards him.
“Baby, Jo and her family will treat her like one of their own. And you can see her on camera every day.”
“I know,” she whispered. When Jyotika had seen them return from the park, her gaze had fallen on Anika first. Her body visibly relaxed when she realized Anika was safe.
Sia wondered why she couldn’t be like Jyotika. Sweet and giving.
Jyotika would also probably have a big heart to be able to forgive a person like her uncle.
If she were more like Jyothia, then Anika would have been safe and with her.
But unfortunately, she was still messed up beyond the thought of any kind of forgiveness when it came to her uncle.
He was a pedophile and a possible child trafficker. The fact that she held him responsible for distancing her from Anika only added to the hate she held against him.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
It was D-day. Sia felt both anxious and restless.
“We already have the surveillance in place, Sia. The idiots practically use default camera settings in that hotel. We hacked into it and have covered every angle. So just relax.”
She simply nodded even though Ajay’s words sounded confident.
But two hours before the event, they received bad news.
“What’s wrong?” she asked after Ajay finished speaking on the phone to Harsha. His face looked tensed.
“The cameras. They turned blank even though there is no power outage. And even if there was one, a hotel that big always has a backup.” Ajay stared at the information on his phone. “I’ll have to head to my office to find out what’s happening,” he said.
She just remained still. “You think that they are onto us?” she asked.
“No. Not us, specifically. But they might have done something as precautionary measures. But no matter what, the police will get a tip and be notified in the next three hours to raid that place. So things would proceed according to the plan.”
“Getting video proofs is critical here, Ajay.”
“I know. That’s why I wanted the overhead cameras to work along with sending in Varun.”
Sia frowned. “I’m not sure if it’s safe enough for Varun to be in there if they are onto us.”
“I agree. That’s why I’m going to check with a few others on what’s going on in there.”
He hurriedly began to thrown on a t-shirt and pulled up his pants. “Get ready and come with me. I’m not comfortable leaving you here by yourself,” he said.
Sia shook her head. “No. I’ll be fine. I think I’ll just be a nervous wreck if I’m outside. I’ll just stay home and catch on my sleep if possible. You know I was awake most of the night.”
“Sia, I’m not sure—”
“Ajay, I have a car. I’ll drive to your office if I really need to.”
Ajay sighed. “Okay. I’m going to keep you posted, no matter how this turns out. And if we find out they are onto us, I’ll ask Varun to pull back,” he said.
Combing his hair with his fingers, he grabbed his wallet and car keys, and hurried outside.
As soon as the door closed behind him, Sia dialed Varun’s phone, feeling guilty as hell.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, with guilt and nervousness still churning in her stomach, Sia was ready to go.
Her phone began to ring, causing her to jump. When she looked at the screen, she saw Ajay’s number displayed on the screen. She let it continue to ring, until the call eventually got cut. Hopefully, Ajay would think she was sleeping like she had told him.
She also saw that her phone was filled with text messages.
Baby, are you sleeping? Call me when you get this message. I hope you are not worrying too much.
Baby, we are still trying to find the glitch in the system. We think they turned off the security footage in the entire hotel for today. I’m not too sure about Varun going in there without us knowing for sure.
As she read through the messages, she was wracked with further guilt. But she knew he’d go crazy if he knew what she was up to.
It was a huge risk on her part to go ahead with her own plan for that day, but she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t take any chances of losing the opportunity to catch those monsters red-handed. When she had spoken to Varun about it, he felt the same.
Leaving behind her phone, she picked up another temporary one and placed it inside her purse.
It was showtime.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Varun walked towards the exclusive hotel where his assignation awaited.
His stomach felt sick, thinking about what he would be forced to do. Over the next few hours, he had to pretend to participate in one of the most deviant acts, without resorting to the violence that lurked inside him.
It was going to be very hard. Especially because, most of the nights, with every nightmare that plagued his sleep, a greater need burned somewhere in the darkest corners of his mind. The kind that made him question his own humanity.
He wanted to rip apart the limbs and tear open the stomachs of the monsters that destroyed the innocence of children. He especially wanted to cut off the extremities that touched the children.
Each night, he cut himself deeper, to lay rest to some of those dark urges. The only thing that stopped him from cutting even deeper was the possibility of seeing devastation on Jagadish Naidu’s face, when he would lose everything.
Varun couldn’t wait to see that bastard in jail, where he would watch his entire world drift slowly and mercilessly from him. Just like all the innocent victims who were devastated by his perversions. Jagadish Naidu needed to know what it meant to be in pain. To suffer, and to be in desolation.
Sia was right.
No quick bullet from either of them would deliver the monster to the hell he deserved. By catching him in the act and providing proof to the world, he would lose the very reason he lived for. Respect and admiration from the fawning public.
Revenge.
That word was solely responsible for preventing him from blowing his own head during the past two years. When Sia uttered that word to him, he clung to it. That was the only word that held some kind of sanity, and gave him a purpose to live.
Donning the mask that he carried in his hand, he approached the back entrance of the hotel.
He came across a man wearing a security guard’s uniform. He knew he didn’t have to talk. He simply took out the RFID Key card from his back pocket and flashed it towards him.
There was exclusive access card for the event. With Ajay’s help, they were able to configure the setting of all the accesses to one single master key card.
As soon as he scanned the key, there was a beep and the light turned green as expected. There was also a mandatory retina scan that again turned green. All the required information was pre-fed into the database by Ajay and his friend.
“This way, sir. You will be escorted inside.”
Varun nodded in response and walked towards the opulent hallway of the hotel. There, another uniformed man wearing a similar mask such as him, waiting inside. When Varun reached him, the man nodded and led him deeper into the hotel. After navigating through several pathways, they arrived in front of an innocuous looking door. The man opened the door and indicated inside.
Varun walked in, and then stopped short as the sight that met his eyes nearly made him drop to his knees. It was the first time in his adult life he was witnessing evil in its true form.
The men in front of him didn’t have a soul, a conscience, or even an ounce of remorse or compassion for what they were currently doing.
They were snatching away the innocence of several small children who were in various stages of undress. Some of those children couldn’t have been more than six years old. There were also half-naked terrified children, hunched over and held in cages on one side of the room, surrounded by masked men.
Varun felt a thick suffocating rage spreading quickly through his body, replacing every feeling, every emotion, and every last thought that crossed his mind. All he saw was the need to wreck vengeance on those monsters.
“I’m going to kill them right now with my bare hands,” he growled.
“Varun,” Sia’s soft voice cut through his rage. “Please listen to me,” she implored through the concealed headphones. “I know this is not going to be easy. But we need to record them and catch them red-handed.”
“I just can’t, Sia,” he gritted through a clenched jaw. His fists tightened to the point of pain to the sides. “I want to—”
“Please, the police should be on their way. Just distract them, and help us incriminate them. Please!”
He didn’t reply. Taking a deep breath, he walked towards the main seating.
“What would you like to have, sir?” a server asked as he held out a small tray with a notepad.
“I don’t drink.”
“I meant, what would be your choice for the evening, sir,” the server elaborated, causing Varun to clench his fists to stop himself from knocking the masked server’s teeth.
“Children,” he spat out.
There was a laugh behind the mask. “Sir, all our stock here is under aged and classify as children. You need to be more specific.”
“Male. Twelve to fourteen years,” Varun replied curtly. He needed a child that was old enough to understand and also maybe play along with him.
The server nodded and left after making a few notes.
Varun scanned his surrounding from under the mask. He turned his head slowly, because his mask held a tiny recorder within it. It also had an in-built facial and voice recognition software that displayed a person’s picture alone with their name and some of the public data.
The recorder was from Ajay. The facial recognition in-built glasses were from the hacker, Mafiaboy. Sia had paid a fortune to the hacker for it through an anonymous bank account.
The hacker must have figured out that what they were doing must be illegal. But being young and also dabbling in illegal hacking, he readily offered. He was extremely skilled, and mostly relied on technologies that were already developed. He apparently simply cloned the existing technologies and added his own touch to them.
Varun continued scanning the room. Amongst various soft conversations, there was one voice the recognition software alerted to.
Judge Sundaram Saini.
The main kingpin who had organized the event. A few feet away from him, was another man with a stately posture and distinctive grey streaked hair. Varun recognized him immediately. He didn’t need the voice recognition software.
The sudden increase in his heart rate was the indicator.
The grey haired man held a boy on his lap. Unlike other children, the boy wasn’t crying or struggling. He was watching the man with a hypnotic look. Varun almost broke down when he recognized himself in that boy.
There was a time during his childhood when he hadn’t believed in monsters. Until he was seven, he was brave enough to sleep on his own or go wherever he wanted. But later, he met a man, and realized that monsters did exist. And that they weren’t ugly creatures that hid under the beds or closets. They lived among humans, destroying innocent lives.
Varun’s body shuddered as he recalled some of the atrocities done to his fragile seven year old body by the very monster in front of him.
But now, he wasn’t helpless. He knew that to defeat a monster, he needed to become one. Even though his skin crawled at what he would be forced to do, he knew that there was no other way.
Taking a deep breath, he walked straight towards the h
ell, where he found the lowest depths of human depravity.
“Ah, welcome.” said a slightly drunk voice of the judge. The judge was laughing at the attempts of a sluggish and obviously drugged little boy trying to squirm away from his lap.
Bile churned inside Varun’s stomach when he heard the judge’s laugh. He couldn’t get over the judge’s picture with his family that included several grandchildren.
The therapist that Sia had forced Varun to speak with had told him that most people who sexually abused children weren’t mentally ill. They often led normal lives, and were married, and even had sexual relations with their spouses.
Varun wondered how the judge’s family would react to the current video recording.
Tearing his eyes away, he looked at the man seated next to him, the one he hated the most in the world. That man didn’t enjoy tormenting his prey. He preferred to employ more nefarious methods to lure them into a false sense of security. It was quite obvious to most sane adults that the way Jagadish Naidu was touching and fondling the child on his lap didn’t bode well. Varun recalled being in a similar position with the same monster during his childhood — but the adults around him weren’t sane.
“Pity, we couldn’t get a lot more of the younger ones for our guest’s enjoyment,” the judge remarked.
“More children missing around the same timeframe would definitely raise eyebrows. Even if they are orphans.”
That very conversation was enough to get them arrested.
Varun shook his head, choking back the fury as he felt some kind of blackness settling over him. He wanted to lose control and kill the two men in front of him.
A small sobbing sound broke through his thoughts.
“Sir, your request,” said a masked uniformed man. He was accompanied by a boy completely hunched over, trying to calm the sobs escaping him.
“I think we have enough,” Sia’s voice broke through Varun’s torturous screams in his mind. “Get out of there Varun. You don’t have to do anything else.”
Varun ignored Sia. Until the police arrived and rescued the children, he refused to leave them in the hellhole.
