“Oh, Mishti,” he stood from his chair, clearly enjoying every second of this. “In my story, the climax is already crystal clear.”
He paused deliberately, waiting until both of them looked at him.
“The hero kneeling,” he continued, “ring in hand, asking the heroine for a happily ever after.”
Karan watched Rajat, despite himself, waiting for the punchline. But Rajat dragged the suspense out shamelessly before finally delivering it.
“And that’s where the series ends,” he said. “Straight into a cliffhanger.”
He lifted an imaginary banner in the air.
“Season two coming soon.”
Mishti laughed heartily this time.
“Imagine doing that,” Rajat added, grinning. “Leaving the hero hanging and clueless about the heroine’s reply. Making him wait an entire season for an answer.” He winked. “Worth it, isn’t it?”
Mishti turned her head slightly and looked at Karan, who was frowning now, his irritation directed squarely at Rajat, though it was clear the situation itself had begun to grate on him.
“Totally worth it,” she said, without hesitation.
That was it.
Karan straightened in his chair, authority snapping back into place.
“Both of you, get out. I have work to do.”
Rajat chuckled under his breath as he moved toward the door. Mishti followed with the first aid box tucked securely in her hands.
Once the door closed behind them, the cabin fell silent again. Karan sat back down, staring at his laptop without immediately opening it. His eyes drifted to his knuckles instead, where the bruises were bandaged now.
For a long moment, he did nothing.
Then he forced his attention back to the screen, though the faint memory of the pain he saw on her face while tending to his bruises still lingered far longer than he wanted it to.
***************
One Month Later
Another month passed in almost the same routine. For Karan, the days followed the same structure. The office. The meetings. Trying hard to ignore his wife at home. But he was not blind to what Mishti was doing in between.
Although work kept her busy. Mishti was trying hard to find some clue that would help her understand why his hatred for her family ran so deep and so personal.
Once, she casually asked Abhimanyu if he knew anything about Karan’s past dealings with the Goels. He gave her a polite smile and brushed the question aside. Another time, she tried Rajat, hoping at least now he might loosen his tongue. But he had the same reply to her. That Karan would be the best person to clear her doubts. She understood then that both men knew everything, and neither would ever tell her.
What surprised Karan, however, was that she did not push them. She did not corner them. She did not press or provoke. She simply absorbed the silence and moved on.
But Mishti, by now, had realised that something big had happened in the past and it had shaped Karan to what he was now.
Once, Karan even caught her checking old client records, past collaborations and internal reports, trying to see if KW Capital had ever worked with the Goels. She was looking for any connection between KW Capital and the Goels. Any overlap. Any business trail that could explain the bitterness he carried. She found nothing. And she never would.
Karan had made certain of that long before she ever thought to look. Whatever history existed between KW Capital and her family had been deliberately erased from every accessible record. No paper trail. No archived transaction. No whisper left behind.
Eventually, Mishti shifted her focus completely to the Trinity project and started putting together simple observations for Karan’s team to decide on the takeover. She spent her days studying the company’s numbers and reports, trying to understand what was not being said openly.
Today, the final meeting at the office was the one she was leading, where she had to present all the progress she had made so far on Trinity.
Every seat in the conference room was occupied. Karan sat at the head, as always. Rajat and Abhimanyu flanked him on either side. Kanika and the remaining board members were settled across the table, along with a few senior team members who had worked closely with Mishti over the past weeks on the Trinity watch.
