Treacherous Souls

VII. "You are taking the couch."

(A month later)

Kabir Rajput

The Rajput Family wasn't afraid of any other family. We were powerful enough on our own, but there was this one gang that could really outrun us in the future.

The Red Blood.

The plan we made to prevent that from happening was really simple; I just had to marry Manasvi Shankar, who was going to get the gang as her inheritance, and convince her to give up the leadership of the gang to us. Of course, Manasvi didn't know that I had married her for her inheritance.

I wasn't completely wrong for playing this dirty game, because this was what people in our circle usually did, and I didn't feel even an ounce of guilt when Manasvi's mother told me to take care of her only daughter. I had replied in affermative at that time, but I couldn't care less if she died in a pithole somewhere. Call me cruel, but that was who I was and I was not going to change anytime soon.

"Did you talk to your parents about not having our honeymoon?" Manasvi asked from beside me. We had just finished all the exhausting, holy rituals of the wedding, and were on our way back to the Palace.

"Yeah! They said they don't mind." I shrugged, trying to play it cool but only I knew how much I had to convince Mumma not to just book the tickets to wherever.

My parents wouldn't have bothered about our honeymoon if the marriage had happened according to their wish, because my three brothers who were already married for quite sometime had not been to their honeymoons too and my parents knew they wouldn't budge so they let them be, but since this wedding was according to my wish, they had pestered me a lot until I had firmly denied and said that we both wanted the same.

"Cool!" She muttered, and went back to gazing out of the window.

Sitting in this heavy, exorbitant sherwani for two hours straight was proving to be extremely tough and I had no idea how my wife was sitting so calmly in that lehenga of hers. I was almost sure the weight of her attire was double than mine, and that was excluding the number of jewels she wore.

Since this was a Royal wedding, her finger nails and toe nails were painted red by the alta, and the dark colour of her mehendi proved to be a stark contrast against her white complexion. Her neck was bedecked with different, royal jewelleries which were picked by my mother and her face was full of makeup done by the world's most famous makeup artists.

To say she looked beautiful would be an understatement, but I wouldn't tell that to her. We wouldn't want any development in our relationship now, would we?

"Sir, we are here." My driver announced, pulling me back from my stupor, and I looked beside me to see Manasvi had already gotten out of the car.

'It's good that she didn't expect me to open her door or something.'

The driver opened my door and I went to stand beside my wife, who was looking around with awe.

Rajput Palace looked beautiful in the morning, but it looked exceptionally beautiful in the night, and now that it was decorated like a newly wedded bride, nobody could steer their eyes away from the ancient palace.

Several lamps were lit on the way to the palace and the cobblestoned pathway was covered with flower petals that were thrown on me when the wedding procession had taken off from here. We could hear the water being sloshed due to the continuous flow by the fountain in the middle of the path, disrupting the serene silence this dark night was providing.