She drew a valid point after all. I heave a weary sigh. "Alright, give me a day to compose and collect myself...I need to strengthen my inner courage to face baba again."
◆◆◆
The next day I apprised Rachael of my weighty decision to finally visit baba. She informed me Vladimir would be driving us to baba's home. I had entreated her for any other way to reach babas destination instead, yet to no avail.
But mister Dimitri Molotov's explicit orders were for Vladimir or any of his cousins to escort us. Grigori, Serge and Yigor were not present at the time. So the task was left for Vladimir to enact. I was certainly not pleased with this decision.
The drive would be a long one, around three hours. Thankfully Rachael would be accompanying me on the trip, otherwise I would decline from going. I couldn't endure remaining in the same vehicle with Vladimir.
Mrs.Agnelli prepares and packs up a lunch basket for us. We couldn't risk attending any restaurants along the way. It was much too perilous for us to be seen by potential enemies lurking in disguise.
Bilal had implored to accompany us. However, I wouldn't relent to his whining. I desired not to witness baba forcibly preventing Bilal from departing along with me. After all, he did express vehement displeasure over my contact with Bilal.
The drive elapsed by under a heavy awkward silence. I reclined in the spacious back seat of the jeep with Rachael besides me. In the drivers seat, Vladimir kept his undivided attention on the road ahead.
He didn't spare a single fleeting glance in my direction. In all honesty I think I was more grateful than bothered by this. He must have finally grasped the fact that I had no interest in him.
We arrive in baba's driveway at perfect timing. It's mid afternoon and Naheed would be at the spa, getting her feet massaged. My demonic step-siblings would be partaking in after-school extracurricular activities.Baba would be home by now from his early morning to afternoon shift. The only other inhabitant at home besides him, would be my paternal grandmother.
"So.." Rachael turns to me with an awkwardly forced smile. "This is it..are you sure you don't want me to accompany you inside?"
"No.." I shake my head in decline. "I need to face him on my own."
She nods comprehensively. "Alright, dear...good luck."
With a newfound yet delicate vitality, I exit the jeep and trudge towards the front door of baba's house. A dwelling where I never felt at home. A place full of miserable memories.
Exhaling, I reach up and ring the doorbell. The few minutes elapsing by serve only to increase the sudden apprehension uncoiling within me.
Perhaps I shouldn't be doing this. Just at the last minute when I've nearly pivoted around to abscond, the door opens.
There stands my paternal grandmother. Her confounded expression morphs into complete outrage as she barks. "You!"
"As-Asalaam aleikom grandma." I voice tremulously.
"How dare you?!" She bellows with sudden unconfined anger. "How dare you arrive with your dirty presence at our door?!"
"Please grandma, don't say that..please.." My lips quiver as my eyes gloss over. "I swear I can explain everything right now..please just let me.."
"There is no need to explain! You adulterous girl!" She gives an indignant huff, raising her chin derisively. "Your filthy behavior was witnessed by many of Imran's friends when you ran off with those kafir white men, AstighfirAllah! Then you dared to drag my son into court, humiliating him even more! This is what we get for sheltering you after that dishonourable Benafsha passed away! Like mother, like daughter, the both of you are tramps!"
I commence weeping."Please don't say such about my mother..please let me explain..let me see baba."
"Oh?" She raises a mocking brow, face twisting sordidly. "Alright, let's see how Asad greets your dirty presence then?"
She swivels around and calls out threateningly. "Asad! Asad! Come here and see what trash has piled upon our doorstep!"
Her maledictive words puncture at my heart like molten needles. This was unraveling as more difficult of a situation than I had prepared for. Perhaps baba would hear my truthful appeal.
Within seconds I overhear baba's grumbling voice. "What are you on about mother?"
Nervousness strangles my throat as I feel my stomach drop. I was certainly unprepared to facing baba's wrath and I only realize it now.
When baba appears in view, his irritability modifies drastically into rage as his eyes land on me.
My mouth becomes glued shut, I was unable to utter a single word. Instead I was anticipating of what he would do now that I was in his presence.
I await with my gaze downcast as bitter seconds elapse by. Then his voice emits coldly. "Mother, you summon me over to only cause me more grief than i'm already in."
Immediately I glance up with my heart clenching in shame. He's refusing to look at me now, instead levelling his gaze on my grandmother.
My grandmother provides another indignant huff. "Forgive me, my son but I have only requested that you get rid of this garbage from the doorstep."
He looks over at me with eyes ablaze scornfully. "Leave..Or I will do something and you'd regret ever having stepped foot on my property."
I shake my head in a disheartened condition, my eyes overflowing with tears. "Baba pleas-"
I'm obstructed mid-sentence as the air crackles with the noise of violence. Before I can register what's happened, my back collides against the ground.
Completely stunned, my hand brushes against the newly formed wound on my bottom lip. The iron taste of blood seeps into my open mouth as agony signals it way to my mind.
In repleted disbelief I look up into baba's eyes. How could he raise his hand against me so brutally?
"Don't you dare call me that!" He vociferates, trembling fists clenched at his side. "You are dead to me! You hear?! Dead!"
"N-No, please.." I begin weeping openly, shaking my head. I staggeringly arise to my feet and keep my glistening gaze trained on him. "Let me explain, baba let me-"
"You shameless ingrate!" He bellows with renewed fury, raising his hand up threateningly for another blow.
"Whore!" My grandmother taunts.
"Baba don't hurt me !" I cry out immediately, concealing my face from the impending abuse.
Seconds pass and the anticipated blow never arrives. I lower my arms and blink open my eyes. Nothing but an alarmed gasp emits from my abused mouth.
An ivory masculine hand has clamped around baba's lower arm, halting it mid-air. My gaze locks with frigid blue eyes the color of a frosty winter sky.
Baba sports a shocked expression as he questioningly looks up at Vladimir's towering frame. I can't help but entreat. "Vladimir, please let my baba go."
A low disapproving growl emits at the back of Vladimir's throat, jaw clenching. He narrows his eyes, aligning them with baba and begins in a deadly calm voice. "There would have been severe implications of what you've just done..if it weren't for the fact that you are my father inlaw.."
"Vladimir!" I shout through my tears. "Leave my baba alone! He doesn't know..leave him alone!"
"Vladimir, do as Sanam says." I overhear Rachael's panic stricken voice from behind me.
A sinister cold smile graces his lips, making him appear vampiric as he gazes down at baba. Few seconds pass before he warns icily. "You're quite fortunate that I dignify and respect familial elders.."
Then he retracts his hand from baba's arm, leaving baba stunned and fearful. Without wasting another second, Vladimir grabs my waist and drags me back towards the jeep.
I'm unable to stall him, I allow myself to be pressed against his hard chest. He frightens me right now, reminding me of the old times when he'd bare his wrath at me.
He has me sit in the front passenger seat next to him. I wordlessly obey as I strive to keep further tears from falling. Rachael chooses to remain silent instead of objecting.
I could sense she too is diffident of Vladimir's acrimony right now. Then I remembered even his uncle Dimit
ri would feel at unease.
I notice the knuckles of Vladimirs hands whitening as he grips the steering wheel. He was striving hard to keep his rage in check. He could have certainly harmed baba.
Vladimir was truly psychotic. I felt helpless against him. Am I forever resigned and lost to this criminal world of the Mafia?
Please don't think about it! Please don't think about it! Please don't think about!
I will myself to whisk away the dismal thoughts of baba and my grandmothers slander. It hurt beyond belief within my heart as if it's been slashed into smithereens.
Yet I wanted to cry so badly, I wanted to drown completely in my sorrow till I went blind. The only issue is somehow I sensed if I did that, the demon that sits besides me would drive back.
He would exact revenge against baba. I couldn't allow Vladimir to harm my father. That was highly impossible, no matter what baba has said to me or physically abused me.
I wasn't aware that an hour had passed during the drive when Rachael's voice slices through the stressful silence, disrupting my depressing thoughts.
"Vladimir, please drop me off at the corporation." Rachael orders sternly. "There is an issue at the office that needs to be dealt with immediately."
His eyes remain focused on the road ahead as he frowns deeply. "It's dangerous and uncle will be displeased if I relent to your request..you may arrange for anyone else to deal with whatever the issue is."
"Oh my goodness!" Rachael exasperates her annoyance. "Just drive me to the corporation! It's heavily guarded, I was there yesterday and uncle didn't object at all!"
"Sorry sis." Vladimir answers gravely. "Not happening."
"How dare you?! I'm your older sister! Don't treat me like Katherine!" Rachael growls furiously. "I'm dialling uncle right now!"
A few seconds later, mister Dimitri Molotov is on call speaker mode. He permits Rachael to go under the condition that either Vladimir, Serge, Grigori and Yigor pick her up when she's ready to depart from official matters. Vladimir is displeased by such decisions but he wordlessly decides to obey.
"Whatever happened today.." Rachael begins softly, as she pats my shoulder before exiting the vehicle. "Atleast we tried, and that's all that matters. I'll let mister Mirza know. Just don't think too much about it."
I'm incapable of responding to that, my heart sinks further from the onslaught of thoughts regarding baba and grandma. A furious headache pounds my head and my throat becomes clogged again by a difficult lump.
Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry...
Another hour must have passed by when I could help it no longer. My eyes hurt like a dam ready to burst forth. Their cruel words ringing through out my mind.
Don't think, don't think, don't think...
"Can-can you pull over?" My voice emits cracking. I was striving hard not to weep infront of him.
Looking away from the road, that sharp blue gaze of his adjusts on me. Yet his eyes soften at my miserable condition and his velvety deep voice imbues with concern. "What's wrong?"
I look away and stare down at my clammy hands.
"I'm thirsty and-and tired..may I lay in the back seat?..please."
He doesn't respond to my request for a minute or two and I wonder if I've angered him. But then I notice the jeep slowing down and it eventually comes to a full stop. I glance out of the window, we have pulled over at a very secluded road. It's beginning to drizzle out softly.
Instead of driving on the routes Vladimir took us to get to baba's, he had now switched to other ones. It was all for safety reasons. Mister Molotovs words echo through my mind. It was my fault that his alliances were now at war with him.
"Go ahead." Vladimir whispers softer than the breeze that I almost didn't hear him.
I exit from the front passenger seat, my legs feeling like heavy blocks of marble. The pain within my bruised bottom lip grew stronger along with the thoughts of baba's ire. I trudge towards the back of the jeep and enter clumsily.
Soon enough the dam of tears disintegrates and I begin weeping in the palms of my hands, hunched over the lunch basket and picnic sheet.
"Sanam?" Vladimir's voice intrudes firm with ever growing concern.
Before I can stop myself from sobbing, he's already in the back seat alongside me. I'm gathered into powerful arms, my face pressed up against the crevice between his neck and solid chest.
The potent fragrance of his surrounds my body like a viper, enthralling and dangerous. My senses buzz with an odd sensation, edging near the precipice of an abnormal euphoria.
What's going on with me ? What is this feeling ?
Never in my life was I ever so confused, so weakened emotionally and so distraught of body as I was right at this moment. This always occurred whenever he touches me. This was a traitorous act by my body.
Yet right now I was way to weak in mind, body and soul to shove away at him. My family has completely shunned me. My world seems bleaker than ever before. Desiring to distance myself from the seedy world of the Mafia only drew it closer to me
"Shhh.." He whispers, smoothing down his hand over the back of my hijab concealed head, drawing me closer.
After a few minutes I sniffle, shaking my head. "I've dishonored him, but it's not even my choice..I had no choice.."
"No, you haven't." He remarks fiercely.
My weeping transitions to a mixture of hiccups and muffled sobs. "I'm not-not m-modest anymore..."
"Nonsense." He replies, voice sharpened like an edge of a steel sword, stabbing at my guilt. "You don't need him to tell you that when he's spared no time to hear you out."
"B-But he's right.." I cry quietly, my body trembling against Vladimir's. "I'm not modest now..."
Suddenly he lowers his lips near my concealed ears, the cool minty breath of his teasing at the side of my cheeks. I freeze in his arms, my mind whizzing to a cautious alert.
He commences in a subdued tone, each word brimmed with zealous ardency. "You're one of the most modest girls I've been truly blessed to know."
My eyes widen at his earnest response. I remain frozen against him. Such a response from him only seemed surreal.
While continuously stroking at my head and back, he maintains. "You have no inkling of how precious you are."
My sobs have decreased into vapid short breaths. Does he actually mean this? I'm confounded at such words from a man who has loathed my existence just a few months earlier.
"You deserve to be treated with the utmost care.." He murmurs, deep voice laced in passion yet barely above a whisper. "For you are delicate as a flower coated in morning dew of innocence.."
I remain listening to him, only realizing now how nicely poetic his voice can sound. This is such an unconcealed state of emotions surpassing between us.
"A girl like you should be cared for..nurtured..doted on..and spoiled into full bloom of her potential." He proceeds with words that cause a strange warmth to spread through out my body.
"Notice.." His vocalizes with a slight spark of amusement. "I didn't say spoil you rotten, now did I ? Do you think you could be spoiled rotten?"
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