Divulging Remorse ✔

Chapter 37

Riya looked at her withered father. Zar Wali grew more wrinkled with each day; looking as though he had too much skin to cover his wilting frame. She remembered her father looked a powerful man when he had thick black hair, always fully dressed in persona. Now, though, his head was replaced with thinning grey hair and he never seemed to get out of his checked pyjamas, even when he wanted to go out for walks sometimes. He wasn't working anymore, nor was meeting his friends for fancy luncheons or brunches. Perhaps, he'd cut off ties with his professional and private elite circles, because he wasn't a "respectable" corporate anymore? 

She knew he'd lost about some millions when Agha Jaan had asked him to quit his bank job and stop investing in the tightly-packed interest laden enterprises. Why would such a money-driven man meld immediately over his father's command? 

A cigar-pipe hung between his fingers, his gaze solely at the wall behind her, he asked, "Why did you meet him?"

"I felt like doing so." She was in one of those moods where no one should be messing around with her. Even then, she was pretty level-headed.

This certain talk between father and daughter should have been done years ago, but now was the time it was happening. More like, she forced it to happen. She wanted to know why this man had been messing up lives and himself. 

He was sceptical, "Don't you trust your father, Riya?"

"I trusted you just enough, that's what went wrong." Her voice was low but sharp and pinching. 

He clasped his hands together as a line appeared between his brows, "Are you involved with the intelligence? You turned him in." 

Was he asking her? Or was he just making his own self-satisfied by voicing his insecurities out loud? 

"What do you think, Baba?" 

"Let's talk it out, child. I dreaded this day, after all." He placed his cigar-pipe away on the table and laid back in the recliner. 

It seemed to Riya as if she was a little girl and her Baba was going to tell her his childhood stories from the Valley of Swat. The hide and seek with his brothers on hills and playing marbles near the lakes. He'd always boast about how he was the best horserider among his siblings. 

Nothing of that sorts, today, though. It was all shackles and detrimental. 

He began, rather proudly, "I was Panther's man. I funded his illegal businesses in return for millions of profit."

She looked him in the eye, "Was?"

"Yes, I severed ties with him because Agha Jaan wanted me to stop earning haraam."

She wanted to ask the reason for this easy mellowing, but let him continue. 

"The run-and-hit case that I had accused Moutasim of, was indeed a planned murder. The victim was a banker who'd got suspicious of Panther, so he'd ordered me to get rid of him." 

Another revelation. A shock was now her new friend, it came and went every few days with something else. With each jolt, she was growing immune to unbelievable truths being unveiled. It was impossible to believe them, yes, but she stopped taking it upon herself. It wouldn't do any good except make her weak. She didn't know how many more tirades until these kinds of sessions would be over from her life. 

One thing though, Riya still couldn't get past the fact that the name "Panther" being mentioned over and over for the past two days was, in fact, someone very close to her. "For how much, Baba?"

"He threatened me, I could lose all my stakes if I hadn't done it."

"How much?" She pressed him to open up.