Specks Of Love They Hate...

Ten

Vednath Rajan looked at the Thakkar family's finances and was overcome by an urge to throw the file back to his assistant's face. It was as clean as the Thakkars were dirty. He still remembered the meeting he'd had with his predecessor.

The IAS officer posted here before him had told him to be wary of this family and the opposition party. He had told him that they had gotten him transferred. At first, he'd been doubtful, even high ranked officers can be corrupted by the ruling party to work against the opposition, but his harmless questions had been answered by such arrogance from Jaiman Khosla, that he had genuinely gotten interested. And Atirek Thakkar's visit to his home had only made him more determined. Between these two, and Raghav Thakkar, the younger politician of this family, he knew that he had to start from him.

But he had also played a game, by telling Atirek that he was going to go after his brother, Raghav. He had assumed that the shady businessman with ties to the underworld would make at least one wrong move, which would give them a starting point.
But the asshole had done nothing new in their defence. Instead, he had gone after his daughter.

He pushed away the useless file and asked his assistant to leave him alone. He pinched the bridge of his nose. In order to seem unaffected, he hadn't reacted when Atirek's man had shown him his daughter's pictures. His daughter was a strong, proud girl. She looked defiant even in the photograph. But Vednath  now realised, that he had made a grave mistake, by letting the man take away the proof. If only he had those photos, he would've been able to launch an official investigation into her kidnapping. But now, he could do nothing but wait. His best chance was that Atirek would realise that taking her wasn't going to help him. But he couldn't sit quiet.

He called his assistant in.
"Yes, Sir."
"I want to launch an investigation into Raghav Thakkar."
"But Sir, you said that it was just a ruse. To get Atirek to slip up."
"I know what I said." He snapped. "But Atirek had hidden everything clearly. Maybe a ruse isn't enough to get him to come out."
"But you yourself said, that preliminary investigation showed that Raghav is clean. He has no ties to the family business and he doesn't even stay in his family home but stays with his grandfather and that you suspect that his name has been dropped here, only to facilitate the current ruling party in the upcoming election, only five months away."
"But he is a politician. It's easier to start an investigation against him, than a private businessman. And even if he is as clean as everyone thinks, then too, Atirek isn't going to be able to ignore this attack on his family."

The assistant, Rishabh, looked at the sombre man quietly.
"Sir, are you sure there's nothing we can do to get Vanya back?"
Vednath closed his eyes.
"She will be fine. She is strong, just like her mother."
"But these people are clearly dangerous, if they resorted to such means. Maybe we should just return that land to him and get Vanya back."
"No." Vednath abruptly got up from his seat. He walked over to the window. "Just the fact, that he took my daughter, proves that he has something to hide. And since he doesn't know what I'm capable of, he isn't going to kill her."

Rishabh found himself getting annoyed at his boss.
"But they might still hurt her!"
"It has already been done, Rishabh. But now he knows that I won't back down. This is when if we push him just a little, he might snap and make a mistake. And then, when we finally capture him, we will have enough proof and charges to put him away for life." He smiled softly. "Like I said, my daughter is strong. I'll be damned if she isn't giving him hell right now."

************

"What the hell is your problem?" Atirek was pissed now. It had barely been three days since his men had kidnapped Vanya Rajan and she was already strutting about his home like it was hers.

"I got you your stupid books, what, now you don't want to study?" He snapped at her.

He had only let her roam about freely, because one, she gave company to his mother and he'd seen her this relaxed after a long time. And second, because his father had gone out of the country for a few days. He had sent his men after his father, but he had ditched them somewhere in Noida. The only good thing was, that after making a few calls to the more dark sided colleagues of his, he had managed to get someone else close to the international airport. But while he was now sure that Danish wasn't in India anymore, he still had no idea where he went and for what purpose.
This, along with Vednath Rajan's persistent enquiry into Raghav, was setting him on edge. On top of that, his daughter had been bugging him to let her play games on either his phone or laptop like a silly child.

"But I'm borrrred!" She pouted at him.

He looked at her strangely, trying to watch for any signs of mental breakdown. No sane person would be this fearless when living in their kidnappers home.
"What are you looking at?" She snapped at him, pulling up her t-shirt in a defensive manner.
"Please." Atirek felt his face turn warm. He had just been staring off into space, but she thought of it as something else. "I have no interest in ogling you, Ms. Rajan. I was merely concerned about... something. By the way," Atirek frowned at her. "Why are you wearing my sister's clothes?"

Vanya smirked at him. "I was sitting with your mom yesterday, when your sister called her on a video chat. You never told me she's a doctor!"
Atirek stared at her blankly. "We're not friends."
"So, anyway," Vanya just disregarded his words. "She saw me wearing my old clothes, and she must've felt bad, because then she told me that I could have any of her clothes while I was on a stay here."

"On a stay?!" Atirek was afraid to pop a vessel at that. This girl was infuriating not only because of her behaviour, but also because of her tongue. "What do you think this is? A vacation?"

He stood up from his seat and walked around the table, to the easy chair Vanya had deposited herself on.
His lips twitched into a satisfactory smirk, when he saw her tense up.
"I don't know what this is." He gave her credit, her voice still maintained its strength. Even though her body screamed weakness. "Its just that your mum told her that I was here as your father's guest."

"So you thought that you were really an esteemed guest, huh?" He casually placed a hand on the arm of her chair and leaned closer to her. "Do you want me to offer you some special treatments?"

Vanya gulped hard. She felt his warm breath fan over her face. He smelled of aftershave and cigarette, and his square jawline, set in a hard line, made him seem even scarier. Her heart hammered inside her chest due to fear of having finally set him off.
His dark eyes on hers and their proximity only made her realise that apart from the whole conflict of interest thing she and him had going on regarding her father, she was also a girl, and had much more to worry about while being captive.
"Can- can you please step back?" She said in a low voice.
Atirek heard her and then only noticed their closeness. He pulled back immediately. This was his common tactic for interrogation. But he had forgotten that Vanya was a girl and her reaction only proved that he had scared her.
Even though this was what he wanted, he didn't want it this way. He had dealt with female colleagues and enemies, even in the criminal aspect of his work, but it had somehow been different. They were trained professionals, they knew interrogation means and the cost of upsetting the interrogator being death or torture. Sexual escapades were the least of anyone's concern.

He looked at the girl in front of him. She was clutching her hands in her laps, her body on hyper alert. Clearly this naive person had thought only what a regular girl would, in such situation.
"Leave." He told her, in a cool voice.

She didn't need to be told twice.
By the time Atirek walked around his table, to sit down, the little chicken was already gone.

.
Author's note:
I guess this is a shorter update, but well...
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