When He Finds You

by UD Yasha

  When He Finds You

  A Siya Rajput Crime Thriller

  UD Yasha

  Also by UD Yasha

  Where Are They Now (A Siya Rajput Crime Thriller Book 1)

  Finding Her (A Siya Rajput Crime Thriller Book 2)

  The Bones Are Calling (A Siya Rajput Crime Thriller Book 3)

  Copyright © 2021 by UD Yasha & Udayan Adhye

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover copyright © 2021 by UD Yasha & Udayan Adhye

  For tai and Sourabh,

  you two are goals in every possible way.

  Thank you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Kishore Zakkal sat up on his bed and smiled at the woman sleeping next to him, admiring her beauty while wondering how much he would enjoy strangling her. He had thought about it after she fell asleep every night for the past two years.

  Yet, somehow, he had controlled the urge. If anyone else would have been privy to the extent of his desire to wrap his fingers around her neck, they would have probably driven themselves mad. The sheer endurance had been staggering, even according to Zakkal himself.

  But that’s what this has been all about.

  Zakkal had always set high standards for himself, and so far, he had been consistently raising the bar. It was as if his gaze had pierced through the cool night air, because the woman opened her eyes.

  She flashed him a wide smile.

  She looks so gorgeous despite just having woken up.

  Zakkal sent a hand through her soft and curly black hair, letting it linger just above her neck before stroking her hair again. His fingers tingled and he felt heat emanate from his face.

  I’m so close.

  Zakkal gulped hard. He mentally counted to three. The tension in his mind thawed.

  ‘I thought I heard you get up,’ the woman said and started looking for the watch next to their bed. ‘I have packed some breakfast for you in case you don’t get a chance to eat while you’re working tomorrow.’

  That’s what Zakkal loved most about her—how much she cared about him. He also found it amusing that she called what he did work. Of course, she had no idea why he was going out.

  ‘Of course, dear. Thank you,’ Zakkal said, leaning forward and kissing her forehead.

  ‘Be back soon,’ the woman said with a raspy voice and then pulled her duvet to cover her naked body.

  Zakkal started for the door. He turned around to catch her staring at him with a grin that lit up his world. He smiled back, still wonderstruck at how beautiful she was.

  Zakkal gave her a firm nod of his head as he battled the urge once again. He had been getting good at it as the days had rolled by. Of course, he had found solace elsewhere. There was no way he would have been able to not cave into the temptation otherwise. Pulling into a thin sweater, he smiled to himself, wondering what would have happened if he had not.

  He shook his head as if he was telling himself that nothing was impossible for him. He had gone five years without killing anyone while he was in prison. The desire to see women whimpering, pleading and afraid just seconds before they thought he would kill them had kept him up every night. Of course, killing them right there at that moment was not his intention. Never. But they didn't know that.

  Why do women always jump to conclusions?

  A cool breeze lashed against his face as he drove at a meagre thirty kilometres per hour on the empty roads of Pune City. Sunrise was still a while away.

  The urge to not kill his lover, the woman he had been living with for the past two years, could only be controlled in two ways. The first one included what Zakkal had done for most of his life—kill another human being instead. He picked targets whom no one would miss. Most of the time, it had been women.

  But the first person Zakkal had killed was his father. His nails clawed into the hard plastic of his car’s steering wheel as he raged when he thought about his old man.

  He counted to three once again and let the anger glide over him.

  But something strange had happened to him after escaping from Yerwada Jail. Zakkal had quickly realized that the act of killing only went so far when it came to quenching his thirst. He was surprised when it had first happened. Why did I not feel completely happy when I had abducted a woman and then killed her slowly?

  Ultimately, he had figured out the reason—Naina Rajput and her daughters, Siya and Radha, were his greatest desires. Very little mattered to him apart from them. He had fancied Naina Rajput the most for all these years. As he thought about her, the years for which he had held her captive flashed in his mind. Those were the glory days. But then he was caught by Siya, and his time with Naina had run out.

  Zakkal had never thought he would see Naina again. After all, he had instructed his protegee, Ranjit Kadam, to kill all the women he had abducted. But he had somehow kept Naina Rajput and some other women alive for five long years when he was in prison. Something else had also changed during that entire time. Siya had visited him in Chamber Number Twelve of Yerwada Jail, looking for clues to find her mother. In the midst of it all, Zakkal had taken a liking for Siya. Zakkal could not help but notice that Siya looked exactly like her mother when he had first abducted her.

  And that had gotten him thinking about what if…what if he could tell Siya himself of how breathtakingly beautiful she was. Now, that was all he could think about, even when he stalked, abducted and killed other women.

  They were just practice gigs for his most important show.

  Given how much Siya, her mother and her sister meant to Zakkal, he had realized, almost by accident, that the best way to control the urge to kill his lover was by watching the Rajput ladies.

  And that night, his urge had grown into a fulminating fire-spitting monster that was hard to tame. Realizing how his body shivered, Zakkal knew there was only one way to pacify the beast inside him.

  Zakkal hung left from the main road and veered into the parking lot of a residential building. A sticker on his windshield had let him enter it without the security guards stopping him. For them, he was one of their own. The one to be protected; not one from whom anyone needed protection. The wheels turned to a stop once Zakkal was
in his designated parking spot. He stepped out of his car and pulled a cap over his head.

  Siya Rajput had gotten him twice. That’s why he had decided to be more cautious round the clock since he had escaped from prison. Despite being on the twenty-first floor, he didn’t use the elevator to get to the apartment he had rented using some fake papers. Even though he had visited it every week without fail for the past two years, the air inside always tasted stale. He didn’t care though. Once inside, he rushed to the large floor-to-ceiling window of the living room.

  Watching the city from high above was a calming experience. He needed that stability before doing what he had planned. It was as if feeling calm made his anticipation leap higher. He closed his eyes and took a moment to prepare himself for the adrenaline and oxytocin that was about to race through his mind and body. Zakkal smiled again. This time it was wider. He felt his body quiver. Gratitude was flowing through him.

  Once ready, he set up the telescope, aiming it at a house that was not more than three kilometres away. But the strong lens made it seem like he was inside the house.

  And then he saw her.

  The curls of Naina Rajput’s hair first caught his eye. His heart thudded against his ribs as he thought about how he had stroked it every night for ten years while she fell asleep. He inhaled deeply again, almost as if he could smell her despite being so far away.

  And if that was not enough to make Zakkal’s day, something even better happened. Siya was sleeping right next to her mother. She opened her eyes when he focused on her. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought she knew he was watching both of them.

  Even from afar, he marvelled in the gaze of her green eyes. The distance made him appreciate her even more. She was so sweet and had the most beautiful eyes he had seen, even better than her mother’s. He had lost his breath when he had first seen her all grown up two years ago—the day she came to visit him at Yerwada. Every day since then, he had longed to look back into those eyes.

  To feel even closer to her, Zakkal’s hand rummaged inside his pant pockets for a gift that Siya had given him. It was one earring from the pair that she had given him in exchange for information on her mother. The earring itself belonged to Siya’s mother. Siya had carried it into Yerwada Jail in her underwear.

  This way you’ll smell us both, she had said to him while taking it out from her pants.

  A few months ago, he had sent one earring from the pair back to Siya as a gift on her birthday. He held the other under his nose and inhaled as he watched Siya now, playing out various scenarios in his mind—all that he hoped would come true.

  Very soon. I know that day isn’t far.

  But he knew he had to wait.

  The best things happened to those who were patient. He knew this better than anyone else. He had waited two years for this moment ever since escaping from Yerwada. And all the training he had put his mind through by not harming his lover and learning self-control was going to be useful.

  He watched Siya for another hour even after she closed her eyes and fell asleep. As the first rays of sunlight poked through the cloudless sky, he retreated back into the living room, knowing it was time to act.

  Chapter Two

  One hundred and ninety-seven days. That's how long it had been since Zakkal had sent me an earring from the pair I had given him. With every day that had passed since I had received it, I had not been able to stop thinking about what Zakkal was planning. I had a nagging feeling that he had been watching us.

  I had made sure that the security at our house had been upgraded. Four more security cameras had been added and all the locks had been changed. But still, somehow, I always felt that Zakkal was not too far away.

  Maybe I was overthinking it. But from what I knew of Zakkal, sending me the earring was not just about reminding us that he was somewhere out there. It was more than just a taunt. It seemed that the act was a mere warmup for the bloodshed he had planned. I hated to think about this because I knew Zakkal wanted me to feel this fear. He was a master of playing mind games. But I also knew that that was also the way I would get him eventually. That’s how we had safely gotten Maa back.

  My mind shook back to the present moment when a bolt of lightning lit up the sky.

  ‘Are you all ready, everyone?’ Maa said, sounding excited as she walked out of the kitchen. ‘I’m bringing out our most loved rainy-day food.’

  That moment served as a reminder of everything right. I smiled. Our family was finally together. If someone had told me two years ago that my mother would be with my sister Radha, her fiancé Rahul, and me after all these years and we would all be having a cosy meal in the evening, I could have not felt happier.

  Yet, somehow, it felt like something terrible was just around the corner, waiting to disrupt the semblance of normalcy that our life now held. I was not used to feeling happy, because of what had happened to all of us.

  I took the plate of bhajis from Maa as we stepped out onto the veranda. I could not stop myself from putting one in my mouth. The first one always tasted the best. We settled on the chairs in our veranda that overlooked a small garden.

  Almost on cue, the sky roared and the pattering of raindrops echoed on the awning of our veranda. Then, the smell of the bhaji—an Indian delicacy of different vegetables mixed in a batter and fried to be served hot—wafted in the air. Mixed with petrichor, it was the perfect fragrance. Our dog, Shadow, a stray we had adopted almost three years ago, ran inside as the rain got heavier and he smelt the bhaji.

  In the past six months, Maa had taken up gardening as a hobby. That’s why our veranda now had flowering plants hanging from the awning. They had added to the charm of the entire place. More than anything, I was happy to see Maa getting more normal by the day which seemed like a miracle as she had been held captive for sixteen years by a serial killer.

  There were few places on earth better than our home’s veranda in the Monsoon. Even when Maa had been kidnapped, the veranda was the place where Radha and I would talk endlessly about everything that made us happy. It had been with us through all the tough times. Now that our family was finally together, what he had been through almost seemed unreal. I took a moment to think about dad. He was no longer with us. But we knew what had happened to him and that had played a huge role in all of us finding some sort of closure.

  I set the plate of bhajis on an empty chair as I remembered I had to strain the tea on the stove. By the time I got out, the rain got heavier and was soon a constant buzz.

  Of course, all of that made the tea and the bhajis taste even better. All of us sat silently, taking in the atmosphere. I loved the early phase of the Monsoon when the rain was still not harsh. By the fag end of the rainy season, I would always get tired of the muddy outdoors and the damp air. But late-June was a wonderful time to enjoy the rains.

  ‘Check this out,’ Radha said with a wide grin on her face as she leaned forward while holding out her smartphone.

  We had been discussing matters related to her and Rahul’s wedding for the past couple of months. The wedding had been scheduled for the last week of December, and with less than six months to go, the preparations were in full swing.

  ‘Yeah, I love what the designer has done with the sleeves,’ I said. Radha was showing me the lehenga she was going to wear for the sangeet—an event where both the bride and grooms’ sides would dance and sing songs.

  ‘Believe it or not, that’s my choice,’ Rahul said and winked.

  Radha punched his shoulder, letting out a laugh. She said, ‘The pattern—‘.

  The bell at our main gate chimed.

  The breeze bringing in the drops of rain suddenly felt colder. I noticed I was tightly gripping the seat of my chair. A thin layer of sweat coated my hands. I inhaled sharply.

  Stay in the world of crime and hang out with dark minds long enough, and you start developing an intuition for when everything is going to come crashing down. At that very moment, I felt like my intestines were being ti
ed up in a knot. Because of my constant fear that Zakkal was going to come for us, I had recently been trying to squash that intuition. But right then, as I sat in the silence that followed the chime of the bell, I knew all those times had just been my fear acting up. This is the real deal.

  I pulled out my smartphone and opened the app that let us check the feed from the various CCTV cameras installed around the house. I checked the one at the main gate.

  ‘Who’s it?’ Rahul said, getting up from his chair.

  ‘Don’t go, wait,’ I said as the app refreshed.

  ‘Who is it?’ This time it was Radha. There was an edginess to her voice. Zakkal really had us in his grip.

  ‘It’s a woman. I don’t know her,’ I said in a low voice, looking at the female figure on my screen.

  I pressed a button on the screen that let me activate the microphone on the camera.

  ‘Who are you?’ I said.

  The woman looked confused for a flash, wondering where the voice was coming from, before realizing what was happening.

  ‘I’m here to meet Siya Rajput,’ the woman said. ‘My name is Meena Kiran.’

  The tone of her voice sounded strange but the name seemed familiar. Where have I heard it before?

  ‘What’s this regarding?’ I said. ‘I’m Siya Rajput.’