11
Kirit
Present day
Present day
Somehow Kirit Patil had always known the worth of fate. Fate wasn’t destiny. Destiny was the assorted pieces of ourselves tied up in a cloth pouch that we hung on a stick and slung over our shoulder like a hobo. Fate was what we did with those pieces when we unpacked that pouch and chose which pieces we reached for and which ones we hid away.
His pouch had come with dead parents, a legacy of land that bore gold, and his million-rupee face. At eighteen he’d learned that his face would be where his fate and destiny met. His uncle’s movie producer friend had seen him at a party and decided he was perfect for the magnum opus he’d been waiting to make for years. One look at Kirit and his search had ended. He’d found his humble prince who would fall in love with the daughter of the man trying to overthrow his father. India’s answer to Romeo and Juliet, complete with costumes and war scenes to rival Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra. Only because it was India, instead of Liz Taylor, the star had to be a man with a god’s face and a saint’s eyes.
Back then, the body wasn’t treated like the ticket it was now. Not that it would have changed anything. If they’d needed a six-pack, Kirit would have given them the best six-pack a human being could sculpt. But in his day, muscles were the realm of villains. Physical strength was for those not capable of intellect and charm. An ideology Kirit couldn’t help but subscribe to.
Mehra-sir’s vision had taken five years to make, but by the age of twenty-three Kirit had a new name and the title of superstar that would stick for the next two decades. But he hadn’t let it go to his head. He had watched from afar as his colleagues in the film fraternity fucked everything that moved. They spent all their time high or high-handed. Kirit didn’t do that, because he didn’t come from the gutter. His family had been growing sugarcane and supplying their great country with sugar even before the British turned their sweet bamboo into a printing press for their coffers.
He had no memory of his parents, and his uncle had only developed an interest in him after he had become a star and the Patil coffers had needed some debt correction. Kirit had corrected the debt, taken over the lands, and made gold there the way he had mined it on the silver screen.
In other words, when life gave him sand, he ground it down to silt and planted a forest in it. And yes, he was proud of all he’d done. The only sin he’d ever been guilty of was a little bit of hubris. A fact that, ironically enough, he was also proud of.
“Does your daughter have any idea what a bastard you are?” Asif Khan said over the phone. He had the kind of guttural twang that made Kirit’s skin crawl. It wasn’t snobbery. It was an appreciation of the finer things in life and being deeply disturbed by filth. And Asif Khan was toxic filth.
“You’re making a huge error bringing my daughter into this. She has nothing to do with this.” Being an actor and a politician meant he could make his voice do just about anything. Now he made it at once blasé and menacing.
“You’re right. You know how your police force clears out the area when you’re going to carry out one of your ‘encounters’ where you butcher my men under the guise of police duty? You know why they clear out the public, don’t you? It’s because bullets don’t know the difference between enemies and friends. Between guilty and innocent. You’re the one who deserves to die. Your daughter’s the innocent bystander who’s going to get shot.”
“You won’t touch her.”
Asif laughed. “Oh, I already did. She’s all soft like a rasgulla. You know how no one can eat just one rasgulla, right? I can’t wait for another taste. I will touch her in so many places, you won’t recognize her body when I’m done.”
The bastard was pressing his buttons, much like Kirit was pressing his. Kirit’s tone stayed as calm as his heartbeat. “This is the last time I’m offering you this, Asif. I will look the other way if you get on the next plane to Dubai, or Pakistan, or wherever the hell you want to go and hide out. As long as it’s for the rest of your life.”
Asif grunted in that horribly uncouth way. “You smug bastard. I’m going to enjoy ripping your life into shreds.”
“You’ll never find her.” Because Rahul would die before he let Kimi come to harm. That much Kirit had made sure of.
“You hadn’t thought I’d find out about your grand scheme to get the evidence from Jennifer Joshi’s husband either. But I did, didn’t I? Even for you that was fucked-up beyond words.”
Asif was right about collateral damage. Kirit hadn’t meant to hurt Nikhil Joshi. “I’m not the one who handed the evidence to the cops, Khan. Why don’t you go after the person who did?”
Asif laughed so hard he went into a coughing fit, the ugly medley of sounds making Kirit sick. “Still trying to save your little princess and throw an innocent woman over the cliff in her place?”
“She’s hardly innocent.” Nikita Sinha had ruined everything. If she hadn’t become involved with Nikhil Joshi, they would not all be under threat from this bastard again. The human condition was a pain in the arse sometimes.
“Well, your machinations aren’t going to work. I know that Nikhil Joshi and his shiny new family are leaving the country today. If I hadn’t wanted to let them leave they’d be dead. But they’re not the ones who deserve to die. You’re the one who double-crossed me. And I had promised you that your daughter would pay for it if you did.”
“I’ve already made you an offer. Take it or leave it. But we will find you, and this time the bullets will do their job.” In the meantime, he had to make sure Kimi didn’t try something stupid.
Asif’s cool tone matched his own. “You don’t go into my line of business if you’re afraid of death, chutiye. You better say good-bye to your princess. I’m not leaving this earth without her by my side.”