He found Jaskirat leaned against the wall, trying to get into his tux jacket, a pained grimace on his face.
“What are you doing?” Uzair shot to his feet. “You’re going to reopen your wounds!”
“Help me put it on,” Jaskirat said, in a tone that brooked no argument.
Frowning, Uzair helped him reluctantly. Some of the wounds on Jaskirat’s back had barely scabbed over because they kept opening every time he moved. “Why?”
“If I’m right and Dhruv doesn’t fuck up, we’re about to get rescued,” Jaskirat said.
Uzair’s heart jumped to his throat. He racked his brain, trying to remember who Dhruv was before finally remembering the stony-faced older guy who followed Jaskirat around and bossed his security detail. Some kind of right-hand man? Head of security? Something along those lines.
“And why do you need to put on your tux for that?” Uzair said. “Will Dhruv faint if he sees you bare-chested?”
“Appearances are everything,” Jaskirat said, his eyes hard and distant. “He can’t see me as weak. He can’t know that I’m injured—that I have been whipped.”
“I thought he was your right-hand man or something?”
“He is.”
Uzair looked away, feeling a jolt of sadness. What a lonely existence it must have been if Jaskirat didn’t even trust his right hand…
“How do you know it’s your people and not someone else?” Uzair said, trying to fix his own clothes. It was a lost cause.
“The timing is right. It’s been ten days, enough time for the traitor to relax and come see me personally without being afraid of being followed— or so they would think. Dhruv was supposed to have everyone in the family followed 24/7. As soon as someone behaved suspiciously, he would have tailed them until they brought him to our location.”
Uzair stared at him. “It was a trap? You organized the whole thing?”
Jaskirat smiled grimly. “You give me too much credit. But it was a possibility. I discussed it with Dhruv and he knew what to do if I got kidnapped.”
It came to him slowly. “You wanted to lull them into a false sense of security after you were so lenient with Aarav. That’s why you let him live.”
“Yes,” Jaskirat said. “I knew Aarav wasn’t the only one plotting against me. There was someone else acting independently from him. Someone more subtle and cautious. I wanted to draw them out.” Jaskirat smiled. “Sometimes inspiring too much fear can be detrimental. By letting Aarav live, I made myself look more merciful than I am. That made them less cautious.”
“Great plan,” Uzair said, glaring at him. “And what if they killed you? Weren’t you scared at all?”
“I knew they wanted to kidnap me more than they wanted to kill me. Our attackers were trying very hard to avoid shooting me anywhere vital. They wanted to take me alive. If they wanted to kill me, I would be dead.”
The sounds of gunshots sounded a lot closer now.
Uzair tensed up, watching the hatch with his heart in his throat. What if Jaskirat was wrong and it wasn’t his people?
What if he was right?
When the hatch opened, it was Dhruv’s square-jawed face squinting down at them. “Jaskirat?” he said uncertainly.
Uzair breathed out and looked at Jaskirat. He was a little unsettled when he saw that all emotion was gone from Jaskirat’s face. His face hardened, his eyes turning cold and unreadable, his posture straightening. He said something in Italian, his voice not loud but distinctly unimpressed.
Dhruv was clearly uncomfortable. His tone was apologetic as he replied, and then he threw down the ladder.
Biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from saying something, Uzair watched as Jaskirat confidently walked to the ladder and climbed it, as if his back wasn’t still a mess. He must have been in a great deal of pain, but his face betrayed nothing. Dhruv probably had no clue that his boss was holding himself up with sheer will.
Uzair climbed the ladder after Jaskirat, his hands shaking as it hit him:
It was over.
Everything was over.
He hauled himself up onto the floor above and looked around, momentarily disoriented by the brightness and noise. The first thing his gaze focused on was the body on the floor. A fresh corpse with a bullet in his gut. It was one of the men who normally brought them food.
Bile rising in his throat, Uzair wrenched his gaze away and looked around. They still seemed to be underground, judging by the lack of windows.
He exhaled when he finally saw Jaskirat speaking to Dhruv down the corridor. Dhruv nodded, handed Jaskirat a gun, and they walked away together.
Uzair stared after them unseeingly for a moment, not understanding. Were they leaving him behind? Jaskirat didn’t even glance back at him.
His stomach in knots, Uzair followed after them slowly, not sure what else to do. He kept his eyes firmly on Jaskirat’s nape, to avoid looking at the bodies littering the floor.
They ascended the stairs to what Uzair assumed was the first floor of the building: bright sunlight was coming through the windows.
In the middle of a luxurious living room, Garve was bound to a chair, with two men guarding him.
When Jaskirat saw his cousin, his blank expression didn’t change. Uzair had no idea if he was surprised or not as he stared at Garve. At last, he said something in Italian, his voice quiet.
Garve glared at him with such venom Uzair was taken aback. Garve had seemed like such a quiet, unassuming guy. He was the last person on his mind when Uzair had contemplated who could be behind their kidnapping. He had thought it might be Pranav, who had expressed bitterness and envy toward Jaskirat, not the guy who had seemed more concerned with his phone than power games. Showed what he knew.
Sneering, Garve spat out something, and the only word Uzair could understand was “bastardo.” It hardly needed a translation.
Jaskirat looked at Garve for a moment.
Then he lifted his gun and shot him between his eyes.
Turning to Dhruv, he said something, completely ignoring the corpse of his so-called relative at his feet.
Uzair swallowed, Raizada’s words suddenly echoing in his ears. He’s a high-functioning sociopath. He’s the type of person who can casually pull out a gun and shoot all of us at the table and then go back to his dinner.
He hadn’t really believed it then. But now…
Uzair stared at Jaskirat’s profile, hating how badly a part of him still wanted his attention.
He was free.
He shouldn’t need this man anymore. He didn’t need him anymore.
He was Uzair Jan Baloch, a grown-ass, self-sufficient man, not the clingy, claustrophobic mess he had been for the last ten days.
He repeated that as a mantra as Jaskirat’s people cleared the mansion and got into black cars.
For a moment, Uzair thought he had been forgotten entirely, but then one of the goons none-too-gently grabbed his arm and shoved him into one of the cars. It wasn’t the car Jaskirat was in.
It was fine. Fine.
He didn’t need him anymore.
------
Jaskirat closed his eyes as he listened to Dhruv’s report.
The road that normally seemed flawless now felt like the bumpiest ride he’d ever experienced. Every jolt of the car was like torture—and he knew a thing or two about torture. It didn’t help that he was leaning back against the seat and the fabric of his tux was aggravating his wounds. But that was his normal posture and anything else would be noted by Dhruv as unusual.
It was jarring how taxing this inability to relax was after ten days with his guard down. He’d gotten too comfortable. Dangerously comfortable.
“You’re sure Garve was working alone?” he said.
“Almost certainly,” Dhruv answered. “I had all the family members tracked, as you ordered. No one behaved suspiciously but Garve. Well, there’s that thing with Reyaansh, but it’s not relevant.”
Jaskirat opened his eyes. “Reyaansh? What about him?”
Dhruv snorted. “Looks like he has another boytoy on the side. I’ve listened in to some snatches of his phone calls and they were pretty damning. No wonder he wasn’t all that freaked out over his boyfriend’s disappearance.”
“He wasn’t?” Jaskirat looked out the window at the passing scenery. “That’s odd. I thought you reported that it was supposedly a… love match.”
“That’s what my source in Boston said,” Dhruv said with a shrug. “I didn’t investigate it myself. Maybe he was wrong. Or maybe Reyaansh’s feelings didn’t last. I’ve always been sceptical about this supposed love when he’d always had one-night stands in the past. Do you want me to investigate it myself?”
Yes.
“No,” Jaskirat said, quashing his inner voice ruthlessly. The less he knew, the better. He shouldn’t feed this… little attachment he had developed for Reyaansh’s boyfriend. If he ignored it—and him—it would die, as all things did.
Dhruv continued his report, focusing on the new deals and financial reports this time.
Jaskirat listened only with half an ear. His back bothered him more than he would have liked—but Dhruv’s information was somehow more aggravating.
Reyaansh was a fucking idiot if he was cheating.
His own anger surprised him. He usually scoffed at the notion of cheating. A person’s body belonged only to said person, and the concept of betraying someone if one chose to share their body with someone else had always seemed bizarre to him.
But he knew other people weren’t built like he was. Raj would probably be upset if he found out.
Even if he does find out, it’s not your place to tell him. Stay out of it.
Stay away.
He’s not yours to take care of.
He never was.
----------
When they arrived at the villa, it was evening already.
Jaskirat gritted his teeth as he got out of the car stiffly.
“You all right, boss?” Dhruv said, frowning.
Jaskirat shot him a cold look. “Of course,” he ground out. Hopefully the wounds hadn’t opened again and blood hadn’t seeped through his tux yet. Judging by the fact that Dhruv was already turning away, Jaskirat looked better than he felt.
The sounds of the cars parking behind them made him stiffen.
He wanted to look back. Just to make sure his orders were carried out and Raj hadn’t been forgotten. But of course his orders had been carried out. They always were.
Jaskirat didn’t turn around.
He watched Reyaansh emerge out of the villa. His stern face changed very little when he saw Jaskirat, but when he looked at something behind him, there was clear relief in his black eyes.
Jaskirat’s lips curled into a derisive smile. How touching. So apparently his stepbrother did care about his boyfriend’s well-being even if he was cheating on him. Truly a love story for the ages.
Giving him a curt nod, Reyaansh marched forward.
Jaskirat strode toward the house, ignoring the burning pain in his back. He had no desire to watch them kiss or something equally nauseating.
“I’d be more careful, boss,” Dhruv said, catching up to him. “You might shoot your leg.”
Jaskirat gave him a blank look before realizing that he had his finger on the trigger of his gun. Slowly, he took the finger off and turned the safety on.
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