The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(96)

Dense smoke obscured the entire right-side corridor where they crouched. Arnav sprinted, taking cover behind the pillars, waiting a few seconds at each, knowing a stray bullet could find him.

Flames leaped out of the doors. Pia or Tara might be on the other side of any of them. He stood, suspended in indecision, when his radio crackled to life.

“Avi, I don’t see you. Naik said you’re trying to get inside.”

“Where are you?” Arnav asked Tukaram.

“The gate,” Tukaram said. “I’m helping arrest those running out. Mhatre sir is with me. Did you find Tara?”

“No.”

Mhatre’s voice floated in. “Inspectors are taking the left corridor now.”

Arnav faced the flames lapping out of the open doorways, the constable at his rear. He attempted to get into one room after another, the towel tied over his mouth. He saw no signs of life till he ran down two flights of basement stairs. Someone moved in the first room he entered, and he pointed his gun at the man, shouting a warning. The constable shone his flashlight, catching the bloodied human figure.

An elderly bald guy seated on the floor looked up with a bundle in his arms. “Take her. She hit her head.”

Arnav’s instinct was to rush in and check, but he kept his gun trained at the suspect.

“Show us her face.”

“She needs help . . .”

Arnav cocked the gun. “Her face. Now.”

The constable pointed the flashlight at the pale face.

It was Pia. This was not how he’d imagined meeting his own child for the first time. She had a bruise on her forehead. At a gesture from Arnav, the constable took her from the bald man’s arms and confirmed she was breathing.

Arnav’s relief was short-lived. Beside the man lay Tara, her face pale, her body soaked in blood—clad only in a blouse and petticoat. What had she risked to rescue Pia? Terror choked his throat as he switched on the radio, but he took a shaky breath and requested aid in a calm, measured voice. He checked the bald man for weapons but found none.

He ached to pick Tara up and hold her, but she lay in a pool of her own blood—he might injure her further. His hands trembled as he searched for the source of Tara’s bleeding and held his fingers to her throat. A faint pulse. She was here, but barely.

His family—battered and bleeding. He hadn’t been able to prevent them getting hurt after all. He caught that thought and smothered it. Tara would be well.

Around them the firing had paused.

As a horde of men led by Mhatre barreled in, surrounding Tara, Arnav reached for his unconscious teenage daughter, stroking the hair away from her forehead, checking for other wounds. He was never going to be parted from her, or her mother, again.





CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE


TARA

This was not the family reunion Tara had pictured. Pia. Arnav. She woke with their names on her lips.

Based on the hum-swoosh of machines and the regular beeps, she wasn’t doing too well. When she was not able to rise, or move her hands, her fears were confirmed. But she had no time for that. She asked the nurses hovering about her bed for Pia. They called her attendant, and there he was. Arnav, bleary-eyed, bruised.

“Pia?”

“They’re stabilizing her with fluids—she inhaled a lot of smoke and bumped her head. She’ll be fine.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“They have sedated her. You must rest.”

“What are you not telling me?”

“Pia is all right, I promise. You’ll be OK soon, too. I’m here. Sleep.”

“Who was it? The jackal?”

“Sleep now. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Arnav resembled a beaten-up thug, not a police inspector. Fresh dressings on his arm, his face, his throat. He looked different, but her addled brain couldn’t place it.

“Did you get shot again?”

“Don’t worry. Get better, please?”

“Your mustache?”

He had shaved it off. The change made him look shorn, vulnerable, like a soul in need of comforting. She struggled to reach out, but her arms did not cooperate.

“You noticed?”

“Why did you . . . ?” she said.

“Someone once said it makes me look handsome. I could even act in the movies, you know. There’s more to a man than a mustache.”

A lazy Sunday in bed years ago came floating back, like a dream long forgotten.

“Yes,” she said. “It is easier to kiss you now.”

Arnav leaned over, but she felt as if he were kissing her with a mask on. The caress of his lips, the light scratch of his dressings on her chin seemed far away, receding. Arnav rushed out, as if possessed. Didn’t stop when she called him. What was he hiding from her?





CHAPTER NINETY


ARNAV

Arnav wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. If he slept, in his dreams Tara would laugh her soft laughter, run her fingers through his hair. He could feed her, laugh at her moans, nuzzle her neck. He didn’t know whether he’d be able to do those things again.

Since last night, he’d alternated between Tara in intensive care and the room where they tended to Pia—rushing the medications the nurses needed, waiting for doctors’ updates. Pia hadn’t opened her eyes. Maybe she wished to remain asleep, like him.