Divulging Remorse ✔

Chapter 31

He snapped his finger in her frozen face. She sat there, motionless as the clock ticked by. He was talking to her, explaining something, but she was in a delusion.

He touched her hand, stirring her a little and with a jerk, she pushed her chair back and started to leave. This whole thing was mad. It really was. 

Two years ago, the world mourned his death. She hadn't been quite able to forgive herself off for it and now, he would march up in a crisp suit, all looking dashing as a NIB officer, just like that, out of nowhere? It wasn't cool at all. 

"Ms Jahangiri? Please don't get personal issues in the way. There is a much serious issue to resolve already."

He said calmly as she walked past the table. Personal?

She got angry, rage rose within her like it used to. Before she could explode, he insisted her to take a seat and began giving the much-needed explaination, though she didn't ask for it, it was obvious she was waiting.

"We suspect that Younus Hadad has an involvement with the criminal world." 

She paused twirling a loose thread on her woollen off-white sweater and looked up at him. She had some thoughts about Younus earlier, which Moutasim was now confirming. 

He continued, "The recent murder case that you've been working on-"

She snapped a sharp look at him again, "How long have you been keeping an eye on me?" Her voice was barely a whisper, she was almost on the verge of crying. 

"We have to focus on this case, Ms Jahangiri."

His consistent "white-collar" behaviour was irritating her. She wanted to clap his face between her palms to shut him up from talking all legal. It wasn't quite suiting him, over-lapping with his gangster image still surviving in her memory. Instead, she decided to sting some cuts. 

"Excuse me, but I am Mrs Moutasim Ali Khan." 

For a moment, his face tightened and their eyes locked. Despite the intense, awkward air that circulated around them, he brushed it off, as if she hadn't said it at all. 

"Do you know you've been deliberately held back from collecting evidence to null the case?"

He didn't wait for a response. "We also highly suspect the attacker that night was the criminal, stopping you from investigating deeper." 

She glanced at the sky, the early hours of the evening were slowly crawling in. She knew he was trying hard to contain himself because she was almost failing miserably. It was overwhelming for her how after everything, he was still there to get her out of the mess she had pushed herself in, he was there for her. All over again. 

But, why was he telling her things she already knew? She had enough common sense to grip those facts.

"I want you to quit working for Hadad."

"Why would I do that for you?" 

"Not for me, for the justice that needs to prevail. It's about time. Don't you think?"

She felt a hint of sarcasm in his tone. Her heart fluttered at the mention of justice, she looked away with a straight face. The guilt had hit her in bigger force than it had been previously hitting, until now when he was actually sitting in front of her. It was huge. A lump was forming in her throat.

She wanted to cry, but how would she meltdown in front of him? That would absolutely prove that she'd missed him. Doing that was out of the question. She just stared at him talking, scribbling something down on a piece of paper to make her understand. 

For a brief moment, he looked up.

He sighed and looked away. "Riya?"

It was the first time he had called her name after returning from "death". 

"Let's keep this purely professional, okay?"

No, it wasn't okay. She wanted to scream, pull her hijab off and throw everything that was on the table, not that there was much on it. She wanted to break that glass vase on his head until he stopped acting so poised and in duty. 

He was Moutasim Ali Khan. He was a criminal, wasn't he? Everyone believed that for years! Even when he was long dead, people remembered him as the ultimate rotten egg in their rather 'respectable' khandaan.  

Over the years, it gave her an odd satisfaction for doing him wrong. "Serves him right," she had pacified her otherwise restless conscience once he was charged guilty by the judge for the hit-and-run case. That satisfaction which she had realised later, was false. It was a weapon to coax herself that she'd done wrong to a wrong person, but does that justify a bad deed? Never. That reason she used to cling to, was gone. He was a good man, so, she ought to do good to him right? 

He was dead. He had blown himself up and Riya was the sole witness of it all. How could he turn up like a blow of hot air just another fine day and expect her to keep it professional?

It was getting too out of hands for her swirling mind to accept that he was back, safe and sound and rather with much power than he had before. 

He was a freaking NIB agent, a detective; she had to agree though, he was a very good one at that. For years, he had been undercover, as Panther's and various other mafia gangs' beloved player, only to bust them all. 

He and his team had been successful in putting the weaklings behind bars, but Panther was one hell of a demon. The globally wanted mafia lord would always find an escape when the officials had thought they've won against him. No. They couldn't do it before, they were still working now, no hopes of when the war would end. 

In a flash, she was out of the bustling restaurant and in the parking lot, looking for her car. Just as she spotted it, she fished for the keys when an SUV reversed with a screech and halted in front of her. The black tinted window rolled down dramatically, revealing a bald head and then Drake's sober face. 

Her eyes widened. The opposite back door opened and in popped Moutasim, reaching for the door her side, he pushed it, "Get in!" 

She started walking towards her car. So, he left Drake as my bodyguard? This is why she'd been seeing him around often. She remembered in an instant, It was Drake who had driven her home after that attack night in the office. Moutasim had been there all along. He was never gone. This was taking so much an effort to register this.

She realized the car was moving at a pace similar to her's with the door still opened. She paused and threw an exasperated look at his face. 

"Leave me alone." 

Moutasim's face broke into a devilish grin, "The royal arrogance never dies, does it now?" 

Riya really wasn't up for the bickering in the middle of a street with someone who had just come back to life. 

"Moutasim, you can't have your way every bloody time."

With that, she jerked opened her car door and slid in, driving away in conflict. 

She needed to collect her thoughts. Today, was an exceptionally over-dose of drama.