Chapter 5: A New Alliance, Old Scores

5

My marriage to Kabir was quickly arranged.

My mother sent the driver for laddoos and called the pandit for horoscopes. The house was suddenly alive, marigolds and jasmine everywhere, staff beaming. News travelled fast across the colony.

Arjun found a moment to speak to me alone as I stepped into the verandah, the bougainvillea rustling in the evening air. A distant auto’s horn punctuated the pause.

"In our previous life, you paid the price for causing Neha’s death. We’re even. In this life, as long as you don’t harm Neha and behave yourself, I won’t go after your family again. Kabir may not be the best match, but he’s enough for you. Forget about me and live with him. Put away those malicious thoughts and stop troubling Neha. I won’t hold it against you for exposing her pregnancy and embarrassing her, since you gave her freedom. But if you don’t change, don’t blame me for being ruthless."

His tone was heavy, like a TV serial villain convinced of his own righteousness. He stood tall, his eyes drilling into me—so certain he was right.

He was condescending, stern, his eyes cold as arrows—just as when he stripped away all pretence in my past life.

In his posture, I saw the arrogance of a man who’d tasted too much power too soon—the arrogance that destroyed my family.

But then, he’d worn designer sherwanis, gold chains, diamond rings, silver cufflinks. I remembered those days—the scent of his cologne, the way Khan Market tailors fawned over him. He was a rising star then.

Now, he wore a faded sky-blue kurta, nothing valuable on him. His shoes were scuffed, hair unkempt. Delhi has a way of humbling even lions.

In our society, half a person’s dignity comes from their appearance. Without it, Arjun was just another man—no longer a storm to fear.

He was like a powerless madman, unaware he now had nothing to bargain with.

For the first time, I felt control. His threats slid off me like rain on glass.

I looked at him quietly. "Not even close."

My voice was soft but cold, final as the toll of a temple bell at dusk.

He sighed, called me by name. "Priya, why must you be like this? The woman I love was never spoiled or uneducated. Neha said your reputation was built by her and Sneha. I suppose you knew about us in the last life, but to marry me, you went along and forced her to her death. Forget it. You were my wife for ten years. You should be content."

I almost laughed—so confident, so wrong. I remembered the pain, the sacrifices, the loneliness. Ten years as his wife, never a partner.

He really was blind and foolish. If only he could see the truth—clear as a Delhi sky after rain. But men like him never do.

In my past life, Neha not only impersonated me, she stole my poems, my veena, my paintings, even my half-finished chess games with my brother. She used them all as her own.

It was betrayal within betrayal—every achievement stolen, paraded before him as hers. Even my favourite raga became her ticket to his heart.

Arjun was deceived, not knowing her real identity, so it was understandable he thought her talented. But after the truth, he still followed her words—wasn’t that just stupidity?

It was almost laughable, his love for a mask, not reality. In our world, men prefer stories to facts.

"Arjun," I stared into his eyes, icy, "my father, my mother, my sister-in-law, my nephew—four lives—can’t be written off as ‘even.’"

I made sure he saw my pain, the fire that kept me alive through ten years of hell.

And the child in my own womb—the deepest cut of all, the one that haunted my dreams.

In ten years, I conceived four times, miscarried four times, and was left barren.

The cold hospital corridors, silent nurses, my mother’s tears—each memory a wound. My womb, as empty as hope.

And he calls it even?

The injustice threatened to choke me. I pressed my lips, fighting the urge to scream.

I sneered, "Yeh hisaab abhi poora nahi hua, Arjun. Ya toh tu rahega, ya main."

I turned away, my heart pounding—knowing the real game had just begun.