He turned back to Maria sharply. “Where’s Abhimanyu?”
“He left early, sir,” Maria replied. “He mentioned having an early morning meeting at the office.”
Yes. Abhimanyu and Rajat did have a client meeting scheduled that morning. Had Mishti gone to the office instead? Had anyone there seen her?
He dialled Abhimanyu immediately.
“Bhai, the meeting went well,” Abhimanyu said cheerfully.
“I don’t care,” Karan cut in. “Is Mishti there?”
There was a brief silence. “Mishti bhabhi? At the office?” Abhimanyu asked, confused. “Was she supposed to resume today?”
Karan’s jaw tightened. So Abhimanyu didn’t know either.
“Check her cabin,” Karan ordered. “Ask security if she came in today.”
Before Abhimanyu could respond, Rajat took the phone. “Karan, what’s going on? Mishti isn’t at home?”
“No,” Karan said, pacing the room. “She’s not here. Look for her at the office. If she’s there, inform me immediately.”
He disconnected the call and continued pacing, anger and unease colliding violently inside him.
He tried calling Mishti again, but as expected, her number was still unreachable. Frustrated, he was about to shove the phone aside when he thought he saw her name on the phone notifications. He instantly opened his phone again. And he was right. There was a WhatsApp notification from Mishti’s number.
His breath hitched. She had messaged him? When? Why a message instead of a call?
He opened the chat thread with shaking fingers. A single voice note stared back at him, nearly ten minutes long, sent three hours ago.Three hours.And he was only seeing it now? What the hell! He had been asleep then. Completely unaware. Something about this felt deeply wrong.
He was about to press play when Maria’s anxious voice echoed from the temple room. Karan hurried there and found Maria standing near the idol, pointing toward a neatly wrapped parcel placed in front of the idol. It was roughly the size of a book with his name written on it, along with Mishti’s Mangalsutra.
Karan’s heart pounded. She would never remove her Mangalsutra. This meant no less than her heartbeat to Mishti, and she taking it out, keeping it here like this didn’t give him a good feeling.
First, the unheard voice message. Now this.
The gift and her mangalsutra lay in the very space where Mishti prayed every single day. He picked it up with unsteady hands, along with the gift, and turned away, heading straight for the stairs.
With every step toward his room, he started connecting the dots. Her missing bag. The message. The Mangalsutra. This gift left behind. It all only meant one thing.
She was gone. Not just stepped out. She had left. Without telling him where. Without giving him a chance to stop her. And God help him, all he wanted in that moment was to find her, to reach her, to bring her back home.Back to him.
Once inside his room, he shut the door and finally pressed play on her voice message, and there it was… her voice.
“Karan…”
There was a pause, as if she was trying hard to say what she had in her heart.
“Karan… I know I shouldn’t be doing this. I know how much you hate it when I defy you. I defied you yet again. But this is the last time.”
He shut his eyes for a second, his jaw tightening.
“I am sorry,” she continued. “Sorry for leaving without telling you. Sorry for choosing this path without asking you. But if I stayed, I would only hurt you more. And that is something I can no longer do.”
He moved blindly toward the bed and sat down, holding the phone in his hand, letting her voice and her words sink in.
“After knowing what my father did to you… to your family… I could no longer live under the same roof as your wife without being consumed by guilt. I cannot bear to watch you hate me the way you did, nor can I ignore the pain that surfaces in your eyes every time you look at me.”
Her voice faltered, just slightly.
