Reign’s body pressed against Tiya’s to keep the struggling woman in place. In one slice starting from the base of her neck until the knife touched open air, the bulk of Tiya’s silky hair slipped to the marble tiles.
“Reign,” Mumma screamed, pressing her hands to her mouth. “Please do not kill my daughter.”
Aunt Kavya scoffed at the sentiment, giving Reign an encouraging nod to finish whatever she’d started.
Tiya squirmed, trying to loosen Reign’s tight hold on her.
“You move, and I will push your face into this fire,” Reign said through her teeth.
“Please think of your child. She shouldn’t see any of this,” Bhavin cried, inching closer to the stove, but still staying a few feet away or he might cause Reign to make a deadly move.
“I am thinking of my child,” she said, lowering Tiya’s face so that the fire nearly touched the skin. Shrieks of horror and shocked gasps filled the air as a slightly red area surfaced where Tiya’s skin was closest to the heat. “She needs to see this and so does everyone else.”
“Please don’t,” Tiya screamed, clawing at Reign’s hand.
“Please don’t what?” Reign shot back, looking up from her handiwork. “I warned you about putting your hands on my child. You didn’t listen. Nothing she did to you warranted you striking her so hard that she put a dent in the wall.”
Devesh’s focus snapped to the far end of the kitchen. He flinched when he saw the damage, and his thunderous expression meant he was ready to vindicate his daughter himself.
“You’d better be glad I’m in a generous mood,” Reign said through her teeth. “I cut up a chicken real well. A human should be no trouble at all.”
Devesh gently extracted Leena from Anaya’s arms, and said, “We need to get her to the hospital.”
Reign chopped off every inch of Tiya’s hair, leaving bald patches and splotchy terrain that was horrid to behold. “If my child needs a hospital visit, so will you.”
“Reign,” Devesh warned, but she totally ignored him.
“Who would think a woman as loving and compassionate as your mother would raise such a mean-spirited child,” Reign said. “They’ve given into your tantrums and ugly ways, and now you think it’s acceptable.” She looked at the other women. “And you’re just as bad, pleading for mercy on her behalf and nobody except Aunt Kayva got on her about what she did to my daughter.” She locked a gaze with Anaya and then Mumma. “Don’t expect me to have any mercy for this witch. I’m all out.”
No response.
“Apologize,” she demanded of Tiya, shaking her body so it came even closer to the flame. “Apologize!”
Tiya sobbed into her hands, but didn’t comply. Aunt Kavya moved forward, whacked her on the bottom a few more times and spoke harshly in Hindi.
“I’m sorry,” Tiya screamed between strikes. “I’m so sorry.”
Reign moved away from the stove, allowing Tiya to slide to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably as she joined what used to be her pride and joy. “Try me again, hear?” Reign warned. “And I give you my word that you’ll meet your maker faster than He intended.”
She stabbed the knife into the wooden butcher block, took Kamran’s hand and ran to catch up with Devesh.
“She’s a beast,” Tiya cried, holding a hand to the damaged areas of her face.
Bhavin, Sana, and Neerav all made a move to converge on Tiya.
Aunt Kayva held up a hand to make sure everyone stayed in place, sending a message that no one was to help Tiya behind what she had done.
“You drove her to this,” Anaya said, first to her sister, then to everyone else. “All of you. How long did you think she’d take it and not fight back?” Anaya stepped over to her sister who was holding a trembling hand to her injured face. “You deserved what she did. You should have never hit my niece like that. You’d better be glad she didn’t slice your neck.”
Chapter 31
Reign and Devesh were outside of Leena’s hospital room to hear what the doctor had to say about her condition. The blend of bright blue, taupe and beige walls failed in its effort to make the place more cheerful.
“Ms. Maharaj, as a courtesy, I want you to know that I had to call Child Protective Services.”
“Why?” Reign asked the doe-eyed woman who didn’t seem old enough to actually be a doctor. “I didn’t hit her. Neither did her father. Her aunt did this, and my husband called the police who met us here. We made a report already.”
“It’s mandated when a child has these types of bruises,” she said, sadly.
“Are they going to take my child because of this?”
“It’s out of my hands. She has to remain here until someone from CPS arrives,” she said, looking over the chart. “I put in the referral after the tests came back. They’ll send an in-person response staff member out to obtain the facts to determine what kind of abuse your child has suffered.”
“I understand,” Reign said in a resigned whisper. “Thank you, Doctor.”
“We’ll need to keep her overnight. Your child is lucky that it wasn’t worse,” Dr. Wade explained. “I don’t know how she braced herself for that hit, but it saved her from having a broken arm, ribs—so much more.”
“They teach that in karate class,” Reign explained with a pointed look at Devesh. “How to fall properly, how to absorb a blow. She had tucked her body inward so ….” Reign swallowed around the lump in her throat. “So the impact …” She inhaled slowly. “So … so it wasn’t so great.”
Devesh attempted to bring Reign closer to him. She refused his efforts.
The doctor gave Reign’s shoulder an encouraging pat. “I’ll be back to check on her a little later.”
Reign squeezed the bridge of her nose, then let her head rest against the cold stone pillow that was the hospital wall. “They could take our children away.”
“Is Auntie Tiya okay?” Leena asked, her voice echoing from the hospital bed as Kamran left her side to peer out at them and hear the answer.
Their daughter would still be concerned about a woman who didn’t care one fig for her.
“She’ll be fine,” Devesh replied, glaring at Reign, who didn’t have an ounce of remorse for what she’d done. Kamran nodded and went back to his sister.
Inwardly, he applauded his wife’s efforts, but the fact that she took it to such extremes was cause for alarm. She could’ve easily killed his sister. One slip of her hand and Tiya would have been six feet under, pushing up daisies.
With all the crazy, mean things Tiya had done over the years, he wanted to ring her neck himself. But he never came close to taking her out like Reign had tonight.
“Reign—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she snapped.
“Honey, we need to talk about what happened.”
“She struck our child,” Reign growled, stabbing a finger in his chest with each word. “Hit her so hard she put a dent in the freaking wall. There’s nothing to talk about. You’re forcing something to work that’s never going to happen.” She put her back on the wall again, eyeing the half-eaten tray of food on a nearby cart. “When my child was on the floor screaming, only your mother, Anaya, and Aunt Kavya even tried to come to her aid.” She grimaced as she looked up at him. “But none of those women had any problem standing up for a grown woman who had battered a child.”
“They were in shock,” Devesh defended.
“Really?” she shot back. “They weren’t when I put a hurting on Tiya’s behind. There wasn’t any slow dragging or being”—she crooked her fingers as quotes—“In shock then. So they can kick pebbles because rocks are too strong for them.”
Devesh realized getting Reign to see that her reaction may have been over-the-top was a lost cause. Slicing her hair off? Well, that one he could shrug off. But putting his sister near the fire and nearly burning her face off—yes, that was cause for concern.
“Your mother and father, they love you, they love our children, but they are blind to you
r sister, and they’re also blind to anyone else in the family who doesn’t care for Leena and Kamran.” Reign folded her arms across her chest. “Tiya has never hidden the fact that she hates them. Leena spilling that juice on her only gave her an opportunity to do something she’d wanted to do all along. She’s insanely jealous of you and your children. Hitting our child that hard was deliberate. She didn’t swat her on the bottom. She didn’t pinch her arm. She didn’t have any control whatsoever. And when it comes to someone harming my children, neither do I.” She pulled herself upright. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to focus on my children before Child Protective Services whisks them off to some unknown place and puts them in foster care, compliments of your sister.”
“Reign—”
“Now isn’t the time,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I have a lot of regrets right now, and every one of them is tripping over the other for first place.” Reign locked a steady glare on him. “But know this, there is no way in West Hell or East Jesus that I’m setting foot in that house again with my children. Next time, I won’t even come close to just doing bodily harm. I would succeed to the measure you all aren’t prepared to handle. If protecting our children is not your priority, it damn sure will be mine.”
She swept past him to go into the room where Leena was situated on the bed. Kamran was right by his twin’s side, holding her hand.
“Honey, you and they are my—”
“Mr. and Ms. Maharaj?”
“Yes,” Reign answered, turning toward a woman wearing a white blouse, gray pinstripe pants, and a severe bun pulled to the back of her head.
“I’m Priscilla Jackson with Child Protective Services. The police gave me a copy of the report. It seems a Tiya Singh hurt your child?”
“Yes. My daughter’s care was my first concern,” Reign responded. “Making sure the woman who hurt her was brought to justice was my second.”
“I understand,” she said in a patient tone. “This is the first time something like this has happened?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Ms. Jackson nodded, scribbled something on a yellow notepad. “I did some checking in Chicago, and there doesn’t seem to be any cases of neglect or abuse there.”
“That’s because I’ve never neglected or abused them,” Reign said sourly. “Not even this time.”
Ms. Jackson gave her a patient look. “I understand your frustration, ma’am, but your child was injured by something other than accidental means and was brought in with severe bruises to her body. We have to investigate before we can release your children back into your custody.”
“And we told you exactly who did it,” Reign countered, her tone barely civil.
Devesh sighed. “Reign, please don’t make this difficult.”
“Your sister already has,” she snapped and finally laid eyes on him. “And why isn’t someone from the family here to back up our story? God only knows the lies Tiya told the police.”
Devesh pulled up a text on his screen and showed it to her. “Mumma, Papa, Anaya, Aunt Kavya, and Pranav are here in the ER waiting room. The police are verifying things with them so I can get a temporary restraining order. They won’t let them upstairs just yet,” he said. “A few others are on the way.”
“I’d like to hear what happened in your words, please,” Ms. Jackson said, jotting all of the new information down. “And I’ll have you to know that Ms. Singh has filed a report of assault against you.”
“Of all the nerve,” Reign spat.
“My wife didn’t assault my sister … she …” Devesh grimaced, not knowing how to sum up today’s experience. “merely showed her why she should never lay a hand on Leena again.”
“What happened with your daughter today?” Ms. Jackson said, studying Reign’s tight face for a long moment.
Reign recounted the story, and though Ms. Jackson tried to keep her expression neutral at the point that Reign told of cutting Tiya’s hair, the woman’s eyebrow shot up and her pen stopped scribbling across the page. “Say that again.”
“I cut off all of her hair,” Reign repeated. “I thought it was a small sacrifice for what she did to my daughter. Since I couldn’t break my foot off in her—”
“Reign,” Devesh said, trying to put his wife in check before she said something damaging. He was having enough of a hard time keeping his own anger at bay. Hearing how they ended up here in the hospital from something so minor lent to the fact that Reign was right. There was some deep-seated hatred from Tiya and still some indifference from the rest of his family that he needed to be concerned about. When they left the hospital, he was keeping his promise to clean house. A lot fewer family members, friends, and coworkers having full-time access should put everyone on notice that Reign or his children were not to be trifled with.
Devesh snapped from his thoughts in time to see a slight smile lift the corners of Ms. Jackson’s lips as she looked at Reign, giving her an approving nod and a sly smile.
Chapter 32
Devesh was relieved when things had calmed down after the incident with Tiya. Ms. Jackson had allowed Leena and Kamran to come home with Reign and Devesh under the instruction that Tiya could not be within one-hundred feet of Leena. This new development meant that Tiya and her family had to move from the Maharaj house immediately.
This was unfortunate and untimely in a number of ways. The closing on thee new home that Devesh had picked out was taking a lot longer than expected as the buyers had somehow found out that Devesh was loaded and also that the reason he wanted the place to be in close proximity to his parents.
A simpler solution would have been for Devesh’s family to move into the Maharaj house temporarily and put Tiya and her family in the penthouse. No way was Reign comfortable with giving up their penthouse for Tiya—period.
Problem solved by moving Jay and his girlfriend, Elise, into the Penthouse, then shifting Tiya and her family into Jay’s much smaller first-floor condo.
Even that exception didn’t prove to be enough for Tiya who complained—loudly—that she should have the larger space since they were a family of four, and Jay only had himself and his girlfriend to consider. Reign flickered a gaze over Tiya’s bandaged face and said, “We could put you out on the street. Remember, you’re not our child, we don’t have to do a damn thing to make life easier for you.”
The twins were elated. Now they were now able to spend more time with their favorite family members.
Now Reign and Devesh were living once again in the master suite of the Maharaj home until the closing took place.
Two weeks later, the initial charges against Reign were dropped, but the judge had given her a stern warning.
They were still waiting to hear from Ritu and Savina on whether they would visit Aunt Kavya for the first time in fifteen years. Devesh could only hope that with Tiya out of the picture everything would go smoothly.
Devesh was seated on a panel with Sheryl Underwood, Sara Gilbert, and Sharon Osbourne of The Talk, shifting his focus to Toni Gaytan, an actress who had been aiming for her own talk show, and was sitting in for Julie Chen., “And to make things more interesting,” Toni said with a pearly white smile. “We have a special guest. Someone who can provide an opposing view on interracial relationships.”
Sheryl Underwood shook her head. “No, that’s not what this show is about.”
“Don’t do it,” Sharon warned, visibly uncomfortable before even hearing what Toni had to say.
“Things are going to get pretty hot.” Toni smiled directly at the lead camera and said. “We understand that Devesh Maharaj has avoided this at every turn, but it’s something everyone has wanted to see for a long time. A dust-up between two men who have one woman at the center of their worlds.”
Devesh flickered his dark brown orbs to the front row and saw every ounce of color drain from Reign’s face. Jay’s hand snaked out to grip her arm, holding her steady, but from his heated glare, he was having a tough time getting his own emotions under control.
“Everyone, please give a warm welcome to Dr. Shawn Newsome.”
There was a splattering of applause as some of the audience members looked to each other, trying to figure out what this new development was all about. A man with mahogany skin,a shiny bald head, and a slight build draped in a two-piece suit and Stacy Adams, sauntered down the path until he was in the empty seat that was brought out for him.
“Well, Devesh, this man has been coming at you publicly for a minute. What do you have to say to him?”
Devesh settled back in the chair, gave Toni a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “First, I want the producers out here. Now.”
“We … we can’t. We can’t do that,” Sarah Gilbert stammered.
“They come, or I walk,” he snapped.
Shawn moved forward but Devesh gave him a look that stopped him in his tracks. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” Devesh warned. “You’ve already done too much.”
“We’ll just take a little commercial break,” the blonde whispered in a conspiratorial tone, her smile faltering. “The show doesn’t pay for itself.”
“Oh no, we’re not cutting to commercial,” Devesh warned, firing a stony look at her. “You all did this under the cover of darkness. You need to make it right in daylight.”
A woman with owl-rimmed glasses stepped out, joined by a round-bellied man with a cap over the wisps of hair head.
“Apologize,” Devesh said through his teeth. “You are well aware that there is a major issue between this man and my wife. This man’s been stalking her on Facebook and all other social media. He’s been badgering their old classmates, trying to get them to give him her number.” Devesh stood. “Then you blindside me by having him here? I would not have had my wife anywhere within one-hundred feet of him. I don’t appreciate this.”
“We are truly sorry about this,” the spiky-haired woman said, chancing a glance at the shorter man next to her.
“He waived his appearance fee to be here,” the balding one said. “I apologize.”
“We couldn’t turn that down,” Toni said, seemingly unconcerned at the position that Devesh had taken.
Loving Me for Me Page 22
