Bound by Hatred (The Singham Bloodlines Book 2)

by MV Kasi

  Anika got up from her chair. “I need to use the restroom. I’ll be right back,” she said.

  Sabitha got up from her chair as well. “I’ll come with you.”

  “That’s not needed, Sabitha. Trust me if you were to accompany me for all the restroom breaks, you’d be spending a significant time there.”

  “That’s okay. Let’s go.”

  “God, I miss having a girlfriend to talk to. There’s not many my age at the Singham Mansion. There’s just Malini, but she’s always so sensitive about every little thing. It gets exhausting to talk to her. And my sister, Myra, has started to complain about her falling asleep during her classes because I’m keeping her awake to talk to her during her nights. And Abhay… well, let’s just say there is very little talking involved when he sees me. His excuse is that he finds me even more irresistible with the bump. As if!” There was a dramatic eye roll.

  They reached the ladies’ restroom.

  “Wait outside in the hall. We’ll only take a few minutes,” Sabitha told hers and Anika’s bodyguards.

  Once inside, Anika continued to talk across the bathroom stalls.

  Sabitha smiled as she heard her excited chatter. After she dried her hands, she checked her phone for any messages while Anika adjusted her maternity dress and continued talking.

  Suddenly Anika fell silent.

  Sabitha looked up from the phone and froze. Four armed men stood inside the ladies washroom and one of them had a gun pressed to Anika’s head.

  The rest of the three pointed their guns at Sabitha. Sabitha wanted to attack them immediately, but she stopped when she saw Anika watching her with terrified eyes.

  Sabitha instantly knew that the men were Senanis. They were not sent by Neelambari to attack Anika. In fact, these men were after Sabitha.

  Sabitha also knew that the men wouldn’t harm her. However, they would have no qualms about hurting Anika.

  “Come with us quietly or we’ll shoot her in the head right now,” said one of the men.

  Sabitha looked at Anika and held her eyes. “You will be fine, Anika. We’ll get out of this situation and you’ll be back at the Singham Mansion soon. Just remain calm. Okay?” she said softly.

  Anika trembled, but she nodded her head.

  “Follow behind us and if you try to speak or alert anyone…” the man let the unspoken threat linger in the air.

  Sabitha’s hands itched to whip out her knife, but she controlled herself. As expected, one of the men grabbed her handbag and removed the gun from it.

  She followed behind them calmly. When she didn’t see either the Singham men or her men, her suspicion grew. Someone had informed the Senanis that she and Anika were at the washroom. Not only that, but they managed to somehow distract the men keeping guard.

  Sabitha and Anika were taken to the backside of the restaurant rather than the parking lot. Two SUVs with tinted windows were waiting for them with the engines running.

  When the men tried to separate Anika and her, Sabitha resisted. “I want my cousin in the same car.”

  “You don’t have a choice. We are the ones with the guns here,” one of the men snapped at her.

  “Put us in the same car and I will come without protest. Don’t fight me on this,” she told him softly with menace in her voice.

  The rest of the Senani men looked at each other uncertainly and shifted uncomfortably. But the man who was probably the leader of the group didn’t budge.

  “I think we should listen to her and do as she says. She’s going to be sir’s—” one of the men told him.

  “No! I’m in charge here. Not this bitch. Get in!” the leader said and knocked the butt of a gun on her head.

  On instinct, Sabitha caught his throat with both her hands and began to crush his windpipe. He began struggling and tried to pry her hands away from around his neck, but she didn’t budge.

  “Stop!” said one of the men standing around. It sounded like a plea rather than an order.

  She continued to squeeze the throat until the man slumped. She glared at the men who were pointing their weapons at her but watching her warily.

  “Put this man in the other car and bring my cousin here,” she ordered.

  Hesitating only for a few brief seconds, they did as they were told.

  She saw that Anika looked relieved when she was brought into the car and made to sit next to her.

  Over the next few hours, as predicted, the car headed towards the Senani lands.

  It stopped in front of a farm house. Sabitha observed everything with a grim look. She noticed how the place was decorated with flowers and other things indicating a wedding was going to take place.

  While Sabitha and Anika were taken inside, Sabitha also noticed a makeshift wedding dais that was built in the front lawn.

  As soon as they reached inside the farm house, she saw him.

  Revanth Senani.

  He was dressed in wedding attire.

  He came towards her in purposeful strides. When he caught her chin, she didn’t flinch even though she was expecting him to hit her.

  “Who hurt her?” he demanded, his eyes falling on the bruise on her forehead.

  There was silence.

  “Tell me right now, or by God I’ll burn you all alive!”

  “Sir—” the leader of the group who had kidnapped Anika and Sabitha came forward. “She was causing trouble and not listening to our instructions and resisting—” Before he could finish, Revanth Senani shot him multiple times.

  “Get the body out of here and get the place cleaned up!”

  Revanth Senani’s men scrambled to follow his instructions.

  “I have already told you that I didn’t want to marry you,” Sabitha told him in a quiet yet firm tone.

  His nose flared with anger. “You don’t have a choice this time. Either cooperate with me or I will personally cut open the baby out of my brother’s murderer’s stomach and send it to the Singhams as a souvenir.”

  Sabitha looked at Anika who was holding her stomach protectively with a terrified look.

  “How do I know you won’t harm her or the baby even if I agree to marry you?” Sabitha asked.

  “I give you my word,” Revanth Senani snapped.

  His promise meant shit to her, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

  “I’ll give you my word, too. Send her back to the Singhams and I will marry you as soon as I get the confirmation she is with them.”

  Revanth Senani’s eyes flared with rage. The next instant, he slapped her hard. It was done with enough force for her to lose her footing and fall onto the floor.

  “Don’t try to use your cunning tricks with me again!” he shouted. “You think I don’t know that the moment I let your cousin go, you will attack me like a bitch and fight me until death?”

  “Don’t hurt her!” Anika shouted as a couple of men held her back.

  Revanth Senani glared at her. “Take that bitch away and throw her in one of the rooms. Wait for my order as to what to do with her.”

  The men dragged away Anika as she continued screaming not to hurt Sabitha.

  Sabitha’s cheek throbbed where Revanth Senani had hit her. She looked at him with loathing. “If you anyway plan on hurting my cousin and her baby, why do you think I would cooperate with you?” she asked calmly.

  He bent towards her and gripped her hair painfully and dragged her to her feet. She didn’t protest or try to escape his hold. “Because, my dear soon-to-be-wife, I know that you would delay her death by as much time as possible, thinking that the fearless and undefeated Singham brothers would burst in as the fucking saviors. But guess what? Before your fucking lover gets here, we would be married, and I would have fucked my wife closing the alliance.”

  Sabitha was silent.

  “How can you think my people will accept you after this?” she asked quietly.

  “You will convince them. Or there will be an even worse feud than before.”

  Sabitha saw huge holes in
his logic. But looking at his crazed eyes, she knew he was way past listening to any reasoning or logic.

  She recalled Anika’s trembling form and her stomach where an innocent life was sheltered. She even recalled Anika’s excited chatter about her baby. And Sabitha especially recalled with painful detail how it felt to lose a child.

  Slowly, she let the numbness settle over her. “Alright, I will marry you and do as you say. I’m holding you to your word of not harming my cousin.”

  At her defeated tone, Revanth Senani didn’t look victorious. He slapped her again.

  “You should be proud to be a Senani bride! Not resign yourself to it!” he shouted into her face.

  She couldn’t even reply as her mouth and lips felt swollen and numb due to the pain.

  He dragged her to the dais and pushed her down and then sat next to her for the ceremony.

  “Sir, we have clothes and jewellery prepared for madam,” someone next to them suggested.

  “Not needed!” Revanth Senani snapped. “I want to get this done as soon as possible.” He looked at the priest. “Continue! Finish it in quickly or you’ll face my wrath,” he said.

  The priest looked terrified and hurried though the ceremony.

  Sabitha remained numb throughout the ceremony.

  She remained numb when she was made to sign the official documents registering the marriage, making it legal.

  She even remained numb when she was dragged into a bedroom that was decorated for a wedding night.

  CHAPTER 45

  Dev was seated in a large conference room with Abhay and rest of the team. Various images were being displayed on the slides projected.

  “Stop,” said Dev.

  He looked at the man’s face on the projector screen. And then, he turned to look at Abhay.

  Abhay was also looking at the screen with a stunned look.

  “I think we should use this one,” said Dev.

  “This almost looks like—”

  “Grandfather. Yeah, I know. Our grandmother had always said that he did look a lot like Abhimanyu Singham.”

  The image on the screen was the result of the simulations based on the childhood pictures of Rana. The image on the screen showed how Rana would look at the age of twenty-five.

  “Yes, we should use this,” Abhay confirmed to the investigators.

  The investigative teams were now re-directed to work on finding the orphanage where the child who was with Raidu had been sent to. Dev and Abhay had asked them to temporarily shelve the investigation on finding the identity of the person who shot Raidu.

  “Bring us the identities of men who resemble this picture,” Dev told the lead investigator. “But like we already said, have more people look for that orphanage location first.”

  The man nodded. “Yes. Technically it shouldn’t take us long. The list has only five names on it. But since the records are going to be twenty years old…”

  “I don’t care how much money it’ll take to speed up the process. We need to see a quick turnaround. This is the top priority,” Abhay stressed once again.

  Dev was about to give more instructions to the team when Abhay’s phone rang.

  Abhay frowned when he looked at the screen and the immediately, his entire body tensed.

  “What happened?” Dev asked.

  “They have Anika and Sabitha.”

  Dev’s heart jolted in fear. “Who are they? Neelambari and her men?”

  Abhay looked at Dev. “No, the Senanis,” he said and placed a call.

  Rage erupted within Dev. The bastard Revanth Senani must have been the one who took them. But how did they manage to take Sabitha that easily? He knew she wouldn’t follow behind the Senanis calmly.

  Immediately, the answer came to his mind. Anika. The bastard Senanis must have used Anika as leverage.

  “Tell me they are okay or the fucking Senanis will all burn,” Dev declared.

  Abhay looked similarly enraged. “I know it must be Anika who sent the location of where exactly they had been taken. So they must be okay for now.”

  While Abhay made arrangements to fly to the Senani province, Dev called Dhruv. Dhruv told him Sabitha had not taken him as a bodyguard that day. Instead, two of her other men went along.

  Dev already knew who was with Anika that day as her bodyguards. Which meant, one of Sabitha’s men had betrayed her.

  “Did you call the Senani head to let him know of your decision?” Abhay asked as they drove to the location where their plane would be awaiting them.

  “No. Not yet. I wanted to warn you first. I’m not going forward with the alliance.”

  Abhay nodded. “I didn’t expect you to,” he said. “Then why the hell did the Senanis decide to strike before they even knew of your decision?”

  “Because of Revanth Senani. Sabitha had told him of her decision.”

  Worry and fear tore through Dev’s heart as he thought about what could happen to Sabitha.

  Please let her be alive.

  He kept chanting those words in his mind. But Dev knew the woman he loved, quite well. She was not the kind to take any kind of defeat or attack, lying down. He prayed hard for her to be the one to come out of this alive and as a winner.

  Anything else would simply destroy him.

  CHAPTER 46

  Sabitha looked at the room she was dragged into.

  “Take off your clothes,” Revanth Senani commanded.

  When Sabitha didn’t move or say anything, he came towards her. He watched her with a cold look for a few seconds before ripping her shirt.

  “If you don’t want to do it yourself, I will be more than happy to help you with the rest,” he hissed out.

  And then, he pulled his long, wedding shirt over his head, baring his upper body. “Two minutes,” he warned. “If you are not lying on the bed, naked and waiting for me, it will not end well.”

  Sabitha’s heart thudded. She went towards the bed and stood next to it and began to shed her clothes calmly. Her hands trembled slightly as she undressed.

  Get a grip on yourself, Sabitha’s mind commanded. You are stronger than this. It’s just a body. Skin and bones and flesh. What’s the worst thing that can happen to it? It’s not like he can violate your mind.

  Sabitha closed her eyes briefly and then opened them again to focus.

  She was Sabitha Prajapati. A leader. A fighter. A survivor. She was capable of withstanding anything.

  She shed the last of her clothes and placed them neatly next to the bed.

  Her so-called-husband was already naked, but luckily his attention was on a small bag placed on a table in the room.

  Revanth Senani was poking a syringe into his arm. She didn’t know what exactly it was, but she knew it had something to do with the abnormally large bulging muscles with veins running all over his body.

  Removing the needle from his skin, he watched her. “This will keep me pumped up for a week. The Senani heir will be in your belly by then,” he promised.

  Sabitha couldn’t stop the disgust from showing on her face. Her eyes slid over his nude body. “With such small family jewels, I doubt if that’s possible even after a decade,” she taunted softly.

  He had unusually small testicles which she guessed as a side effect of some kind of testosterone or steroid shots. She prayed the other side effects also impacted him.

  At her softly uttered taunt, Revanth Senani’s dead eyes clouded with anger. He walked towards her and stood in front of her.

  The sudden blow to her face was not unexpected. Even though she had braced herself, it still hurt.

  “You are a rude bitch. I let your behavior slide before. But now… as my wife, you need to exert more control and watch every word you say to me.”

  Sabitha’s cheekbone hurt where he had punched her. Before she could touch her tender eye with her fingers, he held her arm in a painful grip and dragged her towards the bed.

  Another strike knocked her on top of the mattress. Before she could catch her br
eath, hands wrapped around her throat, choking her.

  Dark spots appeared in front of her and Sabitha was sure she would pass out, but the grip loosened suddenly. She coughed and gasped as she drew in air.

  “Sabitha,” she heard Revanth Senani say quietly, while he ran his finger on her chin to wipe away the blood that was trickling from her split lip. “I don’t want to hurt you like I do with my other women. Because believe it or not, I actually love you.”

  When Sabitha didn’t move or respond to his insane declaration, he sighed.

  He crawled on top of her and kissed the corner of her eye gently. “You made me do this to you,” he said. “Why couldn’t you have simply agreed to marry me? Why did you have to betray me, too?”

  She closed her eyes, not wanting to see his face.

  He slapped her again. “Look at me when I talk to you!” he shouted.

  But Sabitha kept her eyes firmly closed. The blows to her face kept coming and along with them came the apologies and his rants.

  Sabitha knew that the man on top of her might violate her body soon. She braced herself for it. Or rather, she was resigned to the fact.

  The only thought that kept her going or reaching for her weapon was that even if a hundred men violated her, she would not be impacted. Because only her body would be taken.

  Only Dev Singham had the ability to penetrate into her heart and soul. He was the only one who could light up her world and burn together when their bodies joined.

  No one else could or will ever be able to so with her.

  Unlike the violent man who had forcibly married her and was hurting her, Dev was always fierce yet gentle with her. He took from her as much as he gave back. With Dev, she had always felt safe and secure, cherished and loved, desired and wanted.

  Images of Dev’s hooded predatory looks along with his melting smiles flashed behind her eyes.

  “My beautiful gypsy,” Dev had lovingly called her sometimes.

  She even loved how he said her name or called her ‘baby’ in an endearing way.