“I did so much for her! I doeverythingfor her!” Her voice was hoarse, her words making no sense. “I keep her safe! They never understood her! They didn’t deserve her!”
Coughing, the sound wet now, I felt my hand touch something.The broken leg of the fragile table against which she’d initially tumbled. Picking it up, I rose to my feet, while staying right beside Diya, and swung wildly, made no contact. “You killed everyone,” I managed to cough out.
“She doesn’t need anyone else! She just needs me!” A disembodied voice in the darkness.
Using the sound of her voice to pinpoint her location, I swung again. A fleshythwackof sound.
Shumi screamed and kicked out, but I somehow managed to avoid it this time. She was coughing now, yelling. “You ruined everything! I won’t let you take her!”
I swung while she was ranting. The contact was solid. A thunk followed by a thud that was her body falling to the floor. My vision hazy and my balance shot, I crashed to the floor on my knees and got my hands under Diya again. “Come on, baby.” Blood bubbled in my mouth. “We’re gonna make it.”
I began to drag and pull, and with each wrench, felt another spurt of blood down my back. I blocked it out, focused on Diya.
My light.
My one good thing.
My salvation.
I would not let her die. Not my Diya.
The taste of wet iron filled my mouth.
Chapter 76
Shumi
“Do you love me, Shumi?”
“Of course I do, Bobby.” Shumi laughed. “You’re my husband!”
Bobby, so handsome with his dark hair and that stubble on his jaw, his upper body bare as he stood by their bedroom window, turned to look at her. “Sometimes, I’m not so sure. I feel like you’re just out of reach, no matter how hard I try.”
“Oh, hush now.” Shumi kept her voice soft, affectionate, because she did truly like him a great deal. “You know you were the only boy I ever wanted—having you love me is a dream come true.”
In many ways, that wasn’t even a lie. Without Bobby, she’d never have been able to stay so close to Diya, continue to keep her safe as she had since the day she’d first met the baby who’d laughed and grabbed at her hand, and who’d always loved her even when her own mother couldn’t.
Shumi’s mother pretended, but she wasn’t a good actress. Shumi had figured out as a very small child that she meant nothing to her, was just a mouth she fed to keep up appearances. But it hadn’t mattered because she had the Prasads, who’d always been kind to her. Then had come Diya, this tiny and bright light who had toddled after Shumi and who had always wanted to play with her.
DiyalovedShumi in a way no one had ever loved her.
To stay close to that love, Shumi had been more than happy to stick tight to Bobby. He was handsome, and sexually, they were more than compatible. It was no sacrifice to have a hardworking and good-looking husband who took his time making sure she was always satisfied.
Ensuring it stayed that way was an easy matter.
She rose from the bed and walked to take his hands as the moonlight filtered in through the window. “I adore you, you know that,” she murmured, looking up at him with the big doe eyes that always did him in. “I’m just…you’ve seen how my mum is. I think sometimes I get scared of how much I love you.”
She swallowed hard. “Please don’t stop loving me. It would destroy me.”
“Jaan, meri jaan,” he said, enfolding her in the warmth of his arms and holding her with that endearing gentleness of his; sometimes, she wished he’d be a little rougher, a bit more exciting, but in the grand scheme of things, it was a minor complaint.
“I could never stop loving you,” he told her. “I tried so many times over the years when we were younger—I thought it was just proximity, that we’d grow apart. But it was and will always be you. My Shumi.”
Kisses pressed to her temple before he slid his hand to her abdomen. “Any news?”
Shumi shook her head, her face downcast. “Got my period again.”
“That’s okay. We’re young.” He nuzzled at her. “And it’s so much fun trying, isn’t it?”
