Between a chasm deep beneath which there is nothing but an undiscovered abyss and a bottomless swirl in the middle of the ocean, where would you choose to take a leap in to?
A question very similar was running in Sanskar’s mind, as he sat in front of his laptop. His penthouse once again lost in its pitch darkness that the faint light casted by the laptop screen made him look a pale ghost. In his right hand was the amethyst pen drive the soul of Maheshwaris, the last step of his revenge journey and in his left hand was the newly discovered microchip, that might throw him in to the middle of a brand new quest altogether.
He was not sure, which should be contended first, his revenge or his curiosity?
On one hand he wanted to know what Kavi had intended to hand him, what was the secret he had overlooked but then again that part was the old Sanskar Maheshwari, that guy wanted to do many more things as well. The new one, SK feared; feared what new shock would be thrown at him. He was afraid that perhaps it may alter his tracks, he was too late for that was not he.
‘Shit!’ He snapped to no one in particular before finally putting down the microchip. This was not what he had waited five years for, it was Durga Prasad’s down fall. After all he had all the time in the world. He would open the pen drive first and then see what this chip was all about. If it was ever something that would change his course of action, he could step back.
As he inserted the pen drive, Ragini called him. Even in her sweet and calm tone he could hear the hidden excitement.
‘What’s up?’
‘You tell me,’ Sanskar said idly as the password protected message popped up.
‘Cracked the password yet?’
‘You crack the passwords you don’t know.’ He told her. ‘I might be the only one who knows Durga Prasad’s password.’
‘How?’ Ragini sounded interested.
‘He told me,’ Sanskar said shortly as he typed the three words, with no spaces.
SwaraSanskarMaheshwari
As the information started to load, he let out a low whistle.
‘People should give up broken dreams, or they might hunt them down one day.’ He said then.
‘Or they should hunt them before their chase begins,’ Ragini suggested. In the darkness Sanskar raised his eyebrows. Who dragged whom in to this battle, again?
*
Swara was getting frustrated with herself. Her memory from the point where she handed over the pendent was absolutely blank. What was happening to her? The only fact that confirmed that Ragini was indeed kidnapped was the fact that her pendant and Ragini both were nowhere within her sight, or else she might have settled in to a view where she had dreamed the whole thing up.
Sighing to herself she looked at the spotless mirror of the dressing table she sat in front of. Out of his affection for her DP uncle had allowed her to dress in a Bengali bridal. The deep red of the fabric smudged in to her pastel complexion perfectly. Her eyes were lined with dark and thick kohl and her lips highlighted with the soft crimson. The supple gleams from her jewels and elegantly set hair only added to the image.
What miss matched was the look in her eyes, the slight moisture that veiled them and the empty expression her features had arranged in to. Something quite similar to that chasm and swirl thought of Sanskar’s was running in her mind too. Lakshya was distanced, than he was before. Their relationship had suffered strains even before it was established. Indeed beyond the marriage a chasm laid just for her.
She had given up the soul of Maheshwaris that was trusted to her. Although she was sure that for the kidnapper it meant nothing but a precious stone, her heart trembled at the thought. What would be DP uncle’s reaction when he comes to know? There laid her swirl also waiting wickedly.
There were voices outside her room.
Had the groom’s party arrived?
But no, something was amiss; there were no laughter, no celebration or music. There were voices, just loud irritating voices.  Then suddenly the door was thrown open. There, at the threshold stood her mother, or a very pale version of her.
‘Shona,’ she said slowly.
Although she had not requested, Swara stood up robotically and her mother with a hand cold as ice caught her wrist leading her in to the hall that had been decked up for her marriage. As they approached the crowd parted, whispering to each other and exchanging looks behind her back.
As she descended the stairs Swara automatically glanced at the entrance. She could see DP uncle and some others standing there. But there was no welcoming them, no Laksh as for that matter.
In a moment she was in front of the man she considered her father for ages. He looked at her in an empty sort of stare, but there was no anger however.
‘Shona,’ he said as she approached and before she would touch his feet. He seemed to distance himself from her. ‘Where is the pendant?’
She watched him, in painful silence.
‘You haven’t lost it have you?’ He asked once more.
‘I…’
‘When Laksh told me you have a secret agenda, I slapped him,’ he informed her then. ‘Durga Prasad Maheshwari never raised a hand on his children before, but for you I slapped him. How could I believe that I would make such a big error in my judgment?’
‘No uncle I wasn’t…’
‘I was sure you wouldn’t give up my trust for anyone just until I worked out who you did it for…’ The old man gave her a wistful look. ‘After all it was I who gave you the first push in that direction right? It was I who turned your thoughts that way…’
‘I didn’t…’
‘You would choose me against anyone, perhaps even against Lakshya but not against Sanskar.’
Swara felt her throat go dry as the words processed in her mind.
‘Sanskar?’
‘How long have you two being conspiring together?’ He asked her calmly. ‘Did you know from the moment he set foot in my house that he was playing us? That he was the chairman of Karma and Co? That he was SK?’
She did not say anything now. His speech had left her speechless. Instantly her mind conjured up a vision of Sanskar, his face lit up with that goofy smile, pestering her for a bedtime story or singing some foolish nursery rhyme…that Sanskar was a lie? Then she remembered the voice that sent shivers down her spine at the charity gala, that man who danced with her, that mysterious man who kept saving her from all sorts of problems so that she could finally be his sacrifice in the climax, that antagonist was her best friend? That was the real Sanskar?
‘The walls of Maheshwari Empire would never have fallen,’ Durga Prasad continued. ‘If the attack came from the outside, but the Trojan horse was inside the fortress, the Trojan horse was you!’
With tears blinding her and threatening to spill over her vision she looked at Durga Prasad. He looked weary, broken and strangely dead. She had killed his confidence. She had made him bow forever.
‘I knew Sanskar would come up with such a game, after all it was I who taught him. But I never thought…never imagined you would be his pawn…why? I brought you up to be a queen! And you end up at his feet? How could you?’
Now the pieces of the jigsaw were finally fitting in to place, but that completing image was shuttering her insides. How could not she see it once?
‘Do you have any explanation left?’
There was a pause, as he looked up at her in hope of an answer. She shuddered as she realized there was still a fragment of hope in his eyes, that somehow miraculously she would prove herself innocent.
‘I didn’t give it to Sanskar.’ She said.
With a twitch in the corner of his mouth Durga Prasad took out a photograph from his coat pocket, and threw it at her feet. There it was, the photograph she sensed was taken, the moment she gave that kidnapper the pendant. But it was taken from an angle which casted light in to their faces, hers and Sanskar’s.
‘Fine, he had kidnapped Ragini,’ Swara said desperately.
‘What are you saying Swara?’ A voice joined in, behind Durga Prasad’s shoulder.
Ragini stepped in front and Swara’s eyes captured the astonishing image. She was dressed in a perfect Marwari bridal and looked like a goddess with her innocent expression of confusion. ‘I was out of town for a competition!’
It took her a moment to find her words.
‘Ragini you got married?’
‘Yes,’ another voice answered. ‘She married me.’
Her eyes started to burn, unable to tolerate the vision granted to them anymore.
‘Laksh?’ Her lips murmured.
‘It was the Gadodias who saved us from the crisis you two planned to sank us in to,’ said Laksh. ‘As you know Swara, nothing comes without a price. And this…’
He pointed at their supposed to be wedding Mandap, which was empty at the moment.
‘Is the price you have to pay for the game you played with us…!’
*
Everyoe who sets fire think that they could control it, but do not realize until the fire has consumed them, how wrong they are.
His grip broke the glass, the sharp pain that shot through his palm and the thick drops of blood that appeared did not ease his suffering, Sanskar was practically being suffocated in his own guilt. As he tried to calm his breathing, beads of perspire gathered in his forehead. What had he done? He had let the fire of hatred consume him to an extent where even the reason of his revenge did not matter. All he was on about was destruction, making his own family suffer that he even backtracked finding out what Kavita wanted to tell him. She was the one he was trying to give justice to and he ignored her message.
Oh had he not!
If he had opened the microchip first, then none of this would have happened. Then he would still have time to help them, avert this horrific fate. He would have known how misguided his frustration was. He would not have been so broken again.
With blurred eyes he looked at his bleeding hand.
‘You deserve far worse Sanskar,’ he muttered to himself. ‘You deserve to bleed till you die.’
*
It says in Mahabharata that the blind king Dritharashtra, refused to be given a divine sight, so that he could witness the battle of Kurukshastra. Now, in the darkest hours of his life Durga Prasad understood why.
Knowing the brothers he brought up to be the strength of each others are fighting for their blood was one thing, witnessing it firsthand was another. Witnessing it and then realizing it was his actions that had caused the entire scenario is completely agonizing.
He remembered Swara denying again and again, weeping as she fell at his feet. Trying to win back his trust, saying she did not know that she was cornered in to this… But how could he be foolish enough to trust her against the solid evidence? When he could understand after all why she must have done this?  
He was the one who turned Swara in to his elegant, compassionate, strong yet vulnerable queen. He was the one who made her realize that Sanskar was her pillar; he was the one who made her submit to him in her younger days. And now Sanskar had used the same sword he had handed him in the brighter days to behead his ego. Swara, his child, had betrayed him.
As many business empires even the Maheshwaris ran on their shares at stake. Durga Prasad had clear twenty five percent under his name. Although no one single person held more a majority that would not have ensured his chairmanship, his authority.
That was where the secret of Maheshwaris came in. There was a set of shares under the names of different people, bought even a long time ago. Individually they held no value, but together they would be thirty percent and with their aid the chairman of Maheshwaris would have fifty five percent’s solid unyielding majority in the stakes.
But they would submit only, only the one who knew about them. Only the one who had access to their information, being the possessor of the pen drive which had their information. It had their names, contact information and everything that would ensure them that the one approaching is the rightful envoy of the Maheshwaries. They would vote for that person only, the person they were sure that Durga Prasad Maheshwari had supported by handing over the pen drive, the soul of Maheshwaris.
And Swara, she had given it to Sanskar!
Had Ragini not found out about this earlier and informed her father, Sanskar would have overthrown Durga Prasad from the board of directors. The Gadodias had some shares under their name, merging them, Durga Prasad had thirty percent at the moment, so even if Sanskar manages to get hold of all the minority secret share holders, he would not be able to outturn them.
Durga Prasad stared at his dark study; he was alone after a long time. Once more in a crisis... Although his new daughter in law had managed to hold his fortress walls, he did not know how long it would be. Sanskar was venomous, after all that was how he raised him. He was ruthless when he avenged. If he was alone that might have been his downfall, the impulsiveness that tend to taint his wit but no he was not alone. The counter part that would submerge his impulsiveness was with him. The cool and calm, always all seeing, Swara.
He would not be able to withstand their joined forces, the venomously cold king and his blazingly sharp queen.
As he realized the pit he had fallen in to and the broken faith of his finally started to cut in to his resolve a sharp pain short through Durga Prasad’s heart. After all what can a man do, when his own children are set out to ruin him?
*