Ahanay peered through the gap in the curtains at the face of his wife, wanting to be his ex-wife, crumpling in anger like paper and shouting loud protest slogans taken straight out of the freedom movement of India. From the third floor of his office, he felt more distant from her than ever, yet not strange. If anyone had the audacity to do this, it would be her. He was more angry at her for wanting to do this with that thug beside her. Was she actually going to divorce him for that motherfucker?

"Did they eat?" Ahanay asked, noticing how thin and small she appeared. "Do they have sufficient food and water?"

"Yes Sir, arrangements had been made by your wife at one restaurant nearby," his assistant emphasized on "your wife" sardonically. "But we took care of all that. We have cut off your wife's access to her credit card."

"Why the heck would you do that?" Ahanay got up in frustration, banging the table and shaking the pride of his assistant. "Renew it!"

"I don't think that will be possible. With all due respect sir, I don't think you should---"

"With all due respect Sharad, find a fucking way out and get my wife her card," he said, sending the assistant scrambling to the door. "Wait. Where are they going now?"

"Uh- home, sir."

"Whose home is she going walking hand in hand with that asshole?"

"Uh . . ." The assistant was more disoriented and at a loss for words not because he didn't have a concrete answer, but rather, he had never heard Ahanay swear this much in his professional life. He had always been cool and composed at the table, even at the most difficult deals. And this wasn't the first protest that they had witnessed, many had broken out before this like little sparks of fire from NGOs and corporations alike, extinguishing at a negotiation where the charitable organization benefited more than the aggrieved people. His assistant knew that Ahanay had come to dislike this profession after years of witnessing the corruption and would have nearly given up on it if it weren't for his ex-girlfriend, Priya.

"She's sitting on his motorbike!" Ahanay paced up and down, watching his wife take a seat behind Ohas. "She needs to come home, now. Our home."

"I don't think---"

"Then don't think. Bring her to me right away!"

* * *

Naina hit the ATM so hard that it rattled like a toy. "Ugh! That asshole blocked my card! I can't believe he did that. He said such sweet things giving this to me just last week. Now where will I stay? I was going to use this money to book a nice, 5-star hotel room."

"Excuse me, miss," a voice, belonging to a suspicious-looking man in a neat suit intervened, saying the most baffling words to her and Ohas. "You can have this."

"Your card? Why, are you a fan of my protest?" Before Naina could fling her hair back in pride, the man's face contorted into disgust.

"You should put an end to that right away, it is causing a lot of trouble to sir. I have never seen him this worried."

"Sir? Did Ahanay send you?" Both Naina and Ohas became alert, Ohas stepping in front of her.

The assistant cleared his throat. "Well, that doesn't matter. You can have this."

Shoving Ohas aside, Naina came forward and her lips twisted into a cruel smile. "Why? Does he feel sorry for me? I don't want it anymore!"

"Where will you stay then?"

"She'll stay at my house," Ohas said, intertwining his fingers with hers as he gripped her hand firmly, not allowing Naina to pull back. "I don't have much room, but we can share a bed like we used to."

Naina's eyes widened at that and an involuntary squeak as if someone had stepped on her toe escaped her lips, "What?"

"Wow. Sir would definitely not like that," the assistant said, quickly noting this down in his little diary.

"He wouldn't?" Naina said aloud, in deep thought. Then she grinned. "Of course, he wouldn't! You tell him that very carefully, that I, his wife, am going to spend the night at Ohas' place today."

The assistant nodded vigorously, taking down the line and reading, "Naina, the CEO of Kapoor and Sons' wife, is going to sleep with another man tonight."

"That's not what I said---"

"Noted." The assistant pocketed his diary before Naina could snatch it.

As he went scurrying away, Naina freed her hand from the clutches of Ohas and said, "You didn't mean that, did you? Share uh the bed?' 

"We used to before."

"When we were kids! Little damn kids!" Naina burst out in frustration, running behind Ohas who took long strides on the street. "Let's get a hotel room somewhere here for me. You loan me some money, I'll pay you back. Hey! Are you listening?!"

Ohas wasn't, since he didn't have the patience to listen to what he considered a time and monetary waste. So both of them ended up in his one-bedroom apartment, Naina as alert as a rabbit trapped in a cage with a wolf. But to her surprise and relief, he simply moved in and out of the bedroom, arranging pillows and bedsheets and spreading them on the floor.

"Oh, thanks! I get the bed to myself!" She jumped on the bed, the cot creaking as if it had never supported a human before. As she lay there, she scanned his room and marveled at how neat it was. Albeit dark like a bat's dungeon, everything was plain and neat. Except for his jeans that hung behind the door with his pockets used as a pen stand which contained a few loose pens, a screwdriver, and a toothbrush.

"Now that I think of it, how much do you make in a month?" Naina asked, rolling on the bed to lie near the edge so she could peer down at him. He lay there with his palms crossed over his torso, his eyes shut, but his muscles stiff. He was far from relaxed for a person sleeping, he seemed tensed at her nearness. "I know you own some chawls here and there to boss people around, but I really don't know how much you make. What if all this while you were one of the richest and I should have focused on killing you?"

Before Naina could take back her teasing remarks, Ohas held her wrist and jerked her forward so she tumbled down and landed on top of him.

"Why, you don't want to kill that bastard anymore?" He snaked his hand around her waist, pulling her so close against him that she could see little icicles in his cold, cat eyes.

"You made me divorce him. How can I-I get close to him to kill him now?" She managed to say, struggling against his hold, but he swung his leg over her and put an end to her little kicks.

"You never wanted to marry him."

"Yeah . . . Yeah, but I didn't even get to kill him. You came in between!" She punched his chest, but it didn't hurt him. Being close to Ohas like this felt so wrong. She was not only highly uncomfortable, but her thoughts kept drifting to Ahanay. It drifted so far to him that she wished her thoughts alone could hold and carry him back to her.

"In between? You should have stayed with me where you belonged."

"Who are you to say belong- hey---" As she tried struggling, Ohas flipped her over on the bed so she was trapped underneath him. Fear arose at seeing his giant body hovering above, if he pleased, he could do anything right now. The thought was as frightening as it was irritating to her, making her struggle harder. "You shouldn't have tricked me into divorcing him!"

"You were never going to kill him," he bellowed, grabbing both her wrists and pinning them above her head as she twisted and squirmed like a mermaid entangled in a fishnet.

"I would have killed him. You don't know!" She fired back, her strength radiating in her thundering voice and flashing eyes. At this position, red sirens were blowing all over her head and she wondered at what point in her life had Ohas become so low with her. He had never touched her growing up, only protected her from all evil. Now, he had turned into someone so grotesque that she needed protection from him. As she doubted her friendship and considered ending everything right then, Ohas asked,

"Do you love him?"

"What?" Her voice was smaller now, caught off-guard. At his long stare, she finally shook her head. "No. Of course, not. Are you stupid?"

"Don't lie," he warned, staring straight into her soul and pressing her wrists further that she felt pain shoot from the top to the end of her body as she fought with her own self to not show her pain.

"Well." She closed her eyes, her eyebrows knotting in painful frustration. "What can I do about it now? If I love him? I need to still get our home back. That's more important than anything silly like love."

Within seconds, she felt the weight of his body disappear and when she opened her eyes, seeing his defeated body lying on the bed with his eyes closed in forced anger and hurt, she got the answer to Ahanay's question. Yes, she loved Ahanay. More than her best friend or any friend or anybody in this world.

To ease the tension in the room, she laughed awkwardly. "Wow. Who would have thought you would let go of me so easily? Did you meet some civilized girl who put you in your place?"

She received no response to that, so she climbed back on the bed, into the silence of the night and found herself drowsily murmuring, "I hope you find someone, Ohas. You deserve someone who cares and protects you the way you protect your people."

But the silence lasted only for a few hours as the CEO of Kapoor and Sons came speeding up the lane, in the middle of the night, drawing everyone out of their apartments to view the grand spectacle.

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