BEYOND THE CLOUDS (Completed)

Chapter 58

“Carru, I made a huge mistake.” Shehnaaz cried, clutching on to Kartik’s hand out od despair, while he just looked on to her with understanding. “I shouldn’t have been so harsh on him. What wrong had he done? Had he left me it would have been wrong. But he went ahead and married me, Committed himself to me for a lifetime.” Her wrenching, sobs tore Kartik’s heart..

“What worse could have come out of this? But no, I am such a fool I spoilt it all. It was because of me that he started drinking regularly. I led him to self-abuse and then again snickered at him for that too.” Recalling all of the past few days incident she remorsefully shed tears over her stupidity. Still uncertain of what the situation was she blamed herself for the pain they were both going through.

“Baby don’t beat yourself up. The way you reacted when you came to know the truth, it was an obvious reaction that anybody would have given. Its ok. Even I felt angry at Sidharth when I knew of it. But I am so proud of you Shehnaaz that you have decided not to let other things 'come in between the way you feel for Sidharth” he tried calming her down to the best of his ability.

But the next moment her phone rang and she jumped at it knowing it would be Rana.

“Mam you were spot on” Rana’s breathy voice hit her ears and piqued her curiosity. Before she could speak, he began explaining. “Mam, as u guested, we began tracking Mr. & Mrs. Shukla and finally found something that could be of our interest. They both are missing from their respective homes under the pretext of a holiday. We traced their cell phones even and found out that Mrs. Shukla has been making a lot of calls to certain guy by the name Ombir. He is a bouncer at Club Keno but also has a reputation of being a henchman with a criminal history. He also is missing since a few days by the way” Rana stopped midway, awaiting her reaction but there was silence from her side.

“Mam, are you there? Mam?” he asked

“Yea, yes m listening. What about Sidharth? Where is he?” Shehnaaz asked impatiently

“Mam, Sidharth’s phone had a tracker and we have traced the location to a warehouse in a remote village on the outskirts of a city. I don’t know for certain if we can find Sidharth, but I am taking the search party there I will keep you posted. Don’t worry:” concluding with sharing his info, he was about to disconnect when he heard her again

“Rana, I want to come along” she croaked, trying to steady the quiver in her voice.

“No way Mam, it could be dangerous, we are not certain if they are armed” with a warning he tried to shut her down but nothing was going to stop Shehnaaz from reaching out to Sidharth. She had waited enough.

“Rana, listen, I don’t care what is up for us here, I want to come along” the determination in her voice snubbed out all possibilities of an argument from Rana and he complied with her. “Fine, I will pick you up in 15 mins. We can join the police on the way” he was too exasperated himself with the turn of activities. Even though he knew it wasn’t a good idea to tag her along, he didn’t really have a choice now.

In the next half hour, they were already on their way to the location they had traced. Rana was barking out instructions to all his men and even to her in between his phone calls.

“Mam, Sidharth wouldn’t really appreciate the idea of getting you here, but now that you are coming with us, let me set some ground rules” the authority in his voice surprised Shehnaaz. He was suddenly in charge but she didn’t mind it. She looked at him pensively all ears to whatever he was about to speak.

“Please do not get out of the car at any moment. We don’t know if and how much ammunition they have. And for your own safety please wear this” Pulling out a bullet proof vest from the back seat, he handed it over to her. The sight of the vest made her blood chill. Sidharth could be there, don’t know in what state, fighting these goons and with danger lurking all around.