Episode 8

“So, you still haven’t told us what you were doing there,” Mihir states impassively, staring at Tara who sits across him, ignoring the way Ruhi nudges her shoulder against his to calm him down and warn him to not go too out of line.

Cute.

“Where?” Tara asks knowing fully well what he's talking about.

“At the bureau. You applied to go to Samrat’s house as his personal chef, but as far as I remember you never had that cooking streak in you.” Mihir says, letting out a not so discreet scoff, seriousness quickly replacing it, trying to avoid Ranveer’s favourite movie, Jab We Met, that plays in the background.

The collective gazes focused on her for a change, make Tara nervous, all with her legs clamping together at where she is sitting on the couch, her hands fiddling together.

Mihir resists the urge to smirk.

“It’s – it’s nothing much, just thought that I should, you know, try to…. try my hand at something new –”

“You’re lying,” Mihir comments plainly, cutting the girl’s answer short and the way Tara immediately flushes red with embarrassment, not meeting his gaze, tells him and everyone else that he is right. But that doesn’t mean he’ll continue to make someone uncomfortable.

Raghav won’t let that happen.

“It’s ok if she doesn’t want to tell us anything right now, Mihir. What matters is that Mishti is there in her place and our task is going on smoothly.” He says, voice assertive, and glance concerned, trying to dissipate the tension in the air.

But Mihir shakes his head, not backing away from keeping his point forward. “That is the point, Raghav. You need to understand where I’m coming from. Everything comes back to Mishti. I don’t think that it was by mere coincidence that my sister got sent there instead of Tara.” He says, his scrutinizing gaze fixed at the girl who is still refusing to meet his eyes. “I think the agency knew... I think they knew Tara was there to rob him…..just like us, weren’t you?”

And just like that, Mihir drops the bomb, silencing the already silenced room, making everyone’s jaw drop, including Raghav’s.

The accuser watches as Tara’s eyes widen, her fiddling hands going still, as well as her whole body.

“Were you, Tara?” Mihir presses.

“Mihir….” Ruhi chides from beside him, and so do both the brothers, “Let it be–”

However, the supporters are cut off by a lowly spoken voice. “Yeah…” Tara murmurs, bringing the silence back in the room, shushing everyone up.

But then with a sudden surge of confidence, Tara looks Mihir straight in the eyes, flicking her chin up as she nods, agreeing to the claim. “Yes, I was there to rob him but surely that shouldn't bother you: me being a criminal, because as far as I know, you guys are the same. You just do it under the instructions of the agency while I do it at my own will.” She says sharply, knowing that she has hit a nerve when Mihir glares at her, looking not so intimidating as before, seeming rather disarmed.

Even the siblings trio seem hurt at the jab because Tara knows that they were forced to turn into criminals, but they know that Mihir cornering like this wasn’t right as well. She did it to protect herself.

Mihir clenches his jaw, averting his gaze to the ground not wanting to look the girl in the eyes. “Yeah, that’s not a problem, we are all the same.” And with that he storms off the room hurt visible in his eyes that Ruhi senses immediately, following him outside the house while the two brothers are left gazing at the girl who looks ashamed, to say the least.

“I’m sorry, guys. I – I didn’t want to say that, I know you guys haven’t…I just wanted to – Mihir….I’m sorry.” Tara stumbles through her words struggling to form a sentence, while the two brothers look at each other before forcing a small smile on their faces.

“It’s ok, Tara, we understand. Mihir sometimes can be too stubborn.” Raghav says, putting a comforting hand on the girl’s shoulder, patting it while Ranveer brings back his usual cheerfulness, putting the bowl of popcorn in the girl’s lap, switching on the volume of the movie. “Alright, alright, it’s not every day we get to see this movie, so come on and focus on the T.V. screen!” his voice comes out muffled voice, having already filled his mouth with said popcorns, making Tara let out an immediate smile and Raghav shaking his head at his brother antics.

“You know…it was because of Shahid’s character that this movie became a super hit!” Tara says offhandedly not expecting the way Ranveer would gasp, offended.

“Of course, not, it was Geet’s character! You don’t find people like that anymore.”

“Aww, does our little Ranvi want a girlfriend?” she teases and just like that, things get back to normal, Ranveer and Tara’s bickering echoing in the air, Raghav laughing in the background.

Though the same can’t be said about their little friend, Mishti who is suffering, to say the least.

Because the days that follow the robbery, Samrat watches Mishti like a hawk, narrowing his eyes at her whenever she would do something even as usual as serving him his food, giving good five seconds to analyse the texture and colouring of the dish lest she might have poisoned it.

Sometimes, out of nowhere, he would suddenly stop doing his work, be it on his laptop or attending someone’s call, and would just stare at her – intently – waiting for her to do something, right in front of him. And as much as she doesn’t like the distrust that has rightfully found its place in his eyes, Mishti wants to tell him that no thief robs a man in front of his eyes, and even if she’ll have to do something, which she thinks she’ll probably have to in near future, she’ll not do it in front of him.

Amidst all this though, there is one person who is jumping in joy – yes – Vivek, Samrat’s valet who for some reason has made it his hobby to make Mishti lose her patience like she never has, all with the taunting smirks that he throws her way when Samrat quibbles while eating a particular dish, the smug smiles that crawl their way on his lips when their boss calls Vivek to plate his the food rather than Mishti.

However, as much annoying as his behaviour is, Mishti doesn’t have any right to complain because he is not the one who has stolen the accessory, she is the culprit, and it’s not like Samrat ever lets her forget that even if he only suspects that she is the one behind the thievery.

“Preeti,” the man in questions calls and for a moment Mishti completely forgets that it’s her name now and that she has to answer. Thankfully, she realizes it pretty soon.

“Yes, sir!” she calls and rushes outside the kitchen, the glass she had been holding to get herself a glass of water still in her hands.

Samrat is sitting on the couch and for a change is watching tv instead of typing away on his laptop or having his assistant dictate out his schedule.

“Yes?” she quips, looking at her boss with genuine curiosity. It’s not lunchtime yet, and neither is it the time to hand him one of his infrequent smoothies that he drinks on Sunday.

“Look there.” He says, gesturing with the remote to the tv.

Mishti does as told.

A scene from a movie is playing on the screen.

There’s a man clad in all black clothes, a face mask covering the area beneath his eyes. It’s a thief, Mishti soon realizes. The man on the T.V. snoops through someone’s room, opening and closing the drawers and doing all the things that a thief would do, that she would, that she already has.

Mishti squirms in the spot she’s standing.

She knows what Samrat’s trying to do, knows that guilt-tripping a criminal is one of the rare yet effective methods of making them confess the crime. Mishti and her friends had been taught to resist it all too well.

It hurts is the thing, standing under the constant scrutinizing gaze of the man she had only wished to get to know better; stealing things from the said man’s house and not being able to do anything about it because this what she does, this what is expected of her.

She still can’t help the ache that grows in her chest when she sees the man’s easy face getting all worked up into a frown and his normally calculative eyes turning suspicious as soon as she comes in front of her. Those times make her think if it’d really be better to just confess the crime and let that look surface his face for once and all, the look of hatred and disgust, the one she deserves.

“What’s that man doing over there on the screen, Preeti?” Samrat asks her, his words slow and deliberate as if talking to a child.

Humiliation bubbles inside her heart.

She swallows. “He’s – He’s stealing…. stuff.”

Samrat nods. “He is, isn’t he? Say, is he doing a good job?” he asks further but Mishti doesn’t think she can answer that, not when stinging tears are pooling behind her eyes, gaze unable to meet the man's.

“Do tell, Preeti. I’m waiting.”

“I – I don’t know.” Mishti mumbles head hung low, wiping a lone tear that has successfully escaped her eye by the back of her hand.

“Look at me,” Samrat instructs, but Mishti can't find the courage to look him in the eyes.

"Look at me, Preeti." Mishti with her hazy consciousness notes his voice changing from a harsh tone to exasperated but doesn't act on the instruction.

Samrat exhales a loud breath, getting off his seat in favour of standing up and trudging to the weeping girl. He hands her a tissue.

“Here, clean yourself up and stop bawling like a child.” He says feigning nonchalance but Mishti can hear or maybe it’s just her wishful thinking, an underlying concern in his voice. She gratefully takes the tissue from him.

“Don’t you think I should be doing that? It’s me who has lost my watch worth eight lakh rupees, not you.” Samrat states, his brows inviting a furrow between them. “And I’m just making sure, alright? Only a week since you’ve been employed and suddenly my watch vanishes from its place. But had I really wanted to torment or humiliate you, I would’ve asked Vivek to check your room, but I haven’t done that.”

Mishti hears him saying, herself belatedly realizing what the man is doing. He is clarifying his part, providing reasons for what he just did which was nothing but getting the rightful criminal to admit her crime. The implication has a  lone whimper escaping her lips, one that she uselessly tries to suck back in - because he shouldn’t be the one fumbling for excuses, to sympathize with her and hand her tissues.

She is the wrong one.

The next words have Mishti shutting her eyes tight, preventing the guilty tears from escaping her waterline.

“Listen, I – I don’t know if you’ve done this or not. You probably haven’t –”

Oh, but she has.

“Either way it was wrong of –”

‘No!’ Mishti wants to shout. ‘No, you aren’t wrong. It’s all me. I deserve those words, the hate and mistrust.’

Thankfully, at that moment God listens to her unsaid wish, not letting the man apologizing to her for doing nothing but following his instincts.

It’s a doorbell that interrupts their one-sided conversation.

“Vivek!”

“Opening the door, sir.”

And with that they wait, at least Mishti does, with a bated breath and a hopeful murmur between her lips, because it’s almost time, according to what her brother had told her.

“Sir!” Vivek calls with an excited shout, “It’s your watch, they have found your watch!”