Page 174 of Since You Stole My Heart

Unable to fight herself anymore, Kashvi rested her head against his chest and let out a shaky breath. But the moment she heard Siya sniffle behind her, the fragile comfort Swayam had wrapped around her cracked apart.

She turned to see Siya crying on the couch while Abhay crouched beside her, his one arm wrapped tightly around her as he tried to calm her down.

The sight cut straight through Kashvi’s heart. She pushed herself away from Swayam. ‘It’s the only way.’

Swayam held onto her, shaking his head. ‘No, it’s not.’

His firm refusal made something inside her turn volatile, and she pulled against him. ‘You don’t understand. Dad is threatening to expose me if I don’t sign over the inheritance. If I do it first, he loses that power. He won’t see it coming.’

‘He won’t see it coming because it’s a stupid thing to do,’ Dhruv argued, dragging his gaze away from the laptop screen.

‘It’s the right thing to do… becauseIam guilty!’

The words tore out of her violently as years of buried self-loathing clawed their way to the surface.

The room fell silent afterwards.

Her chest rose and fell as hot tears spilled down her face.

‘You think jail is too much?’ Kashvi asked hoarsely. ‘What I deserve is far worse than that. At least prison would finally let me breathe, because maybe then this suffocating guilt would stop haunting me.’

‘Kash, it’s your father who deserves to be punished. He’s a sick man who wants to destroy what’s left of his family.’

‘I’ve already done that with my own hands,’ she whispered, lowering her eyes.

The memory of that day was burned into her mind. She still remembered her father’s voice through the phone, the screech of metal when they crashed, and her mother’s final words telling them to hold on.

Kashvi went on, shame crawling over her skin. ‘If I hadn’t listened to him, Maa would have taken us to Jiju’s house. She would still be alive, and Dad would be out of our lives for good. But I burned it all down.’

As a child, she had wanted her father’s love so badly that it ended up costing her everything.

‘Kash, baby, you need to listen to me carefully,’ Swayam insisted, gently cradling her face.

Her vision blurred with relentless tears as she tried to push him away. She couldn’t bear his comfort when she felt rotten to her core, but he only pulled her deeper into his arms.

One arm wrapped firmly around her while his other hand settled protectively at the back of her head. The steady rhythmof his heartbeat drowned out the noise in her mind, and she clutched at his shirt as her sobs finally broke loose all at once.

Swayam held her through the tremors shaking her body. ‘Shh, I’m here, baby. Just tell me this. Did you know what would happen when you closed her eyes?’

‘What?’

‘When your father told you to close your mother’s eyes, did you understand it would cause an accident?’

She shook her head.

‘Did you do it to make the car crash? Did you know it could kill your mother?’

Kashvi recoiled at the question. ‘No! I didn’t know that would happen.’

‘You were six, baby,’ he said, gently stroking her hair. ‘A child can’t understand what something like that could lead to. But your father did. He knew exactly what he was doing when he manipulated you into it.’

Denial burst out of her, tangled with despair. ‘You’re wrong. I’m the one who listened to him.’

‘Exactly. You were a child who trusted her father and did what he told you to do.’ He gently wiped her tears with his thumbs. ‘He tricked you into carrying his shame and guilt for years. Don’t let him get away with that.’

Behind her, Siya spoke to Abhay in hushed whispers, and Kashvi tensed every time her sister sniffled. Fear twisted like aknife in her gut. She couldn’t bear seeing hatred for herself in Siya’s eyes.

Dhruv said something quietly to Siya before walking over to Kashvi. ‘What exactly did Dad tell you to do?’