10-01-2026, 05:27 PM
Chapter 2: The Price of a Husband
The voice on the phone was a serpent’s hiss in her ear, chillingly polite. “Listen carefully, Mrs. Nair. Your husband’s life depends on your silence and your compliance. Do not speak. Just listen.”
Anitha’s blood turned to ice. Her grip on the phone tightened, knuckles bleaching white against her dusky skin. The festive sounds from the living room; the children’s laughter, the television; muffled, becoming distant, surreal.
“You will take an auto to the address I will text you. Come alone. Tell no one. If we see a security officer tail, if you alert anyone, Commissioner Ravi’s service revolver will be the last thing he ever feels. Do you understand?”
A soundless whimper escaped her throat. She managed a choked, “Yes.”
“Good. You have thirty minutes. Don’t disappoint us.”
The line went dead. A second later, her screen lit up with a text; coordinates for a location in the industrial wasteland north of the city, near the old docks. The phone slipped from her numb fingers, clattering onto the dressing table, disturbing a pot of kumkum.
“Amma? Are you ready?” Meera’s voice called from the hall, bright and oblivious.
My children.
The thought was a lightning bolt of pure terror, cutting through the paralysis. It galvanized her. She couldn’t fall apart. Not here. Not now.
“Just a minute, mole!” she called back, her voice miraculously steady, a teacher’s calm forged in a furnace of panic. She scooped up the phone, her mind racing. She had to get out. She had to go. But she couldn’t leave the children without a story.
She walked into the living room, her smile a fragile, practiced mask. “Sharada Amma, I’m so sorry, an emergency has come up at college. One of the hostel girls is very sick, and since I’m the staff member on call for the evening…” She let the lie hang, wringing her hands with a plausible show of flustered concern.
Her mother-in-law, seasoned by a life of her son’s unpredictable hours, clicked her tongue in sympathy. “Always something, alla? Go, go. The children are fine with me. But your big party?”
“I’ll go straight from the college, if I can,” Anitha said, already grabbing her everyday purse. She knelt, pulling Arjun and Meera into a fierce, breath-stealing hug, inhaling the scents of baby shampoo and payasam on their skin. “Be good for Grandma. Amma will be back soon.”
She kissed their foreheads, her lips lingering, imprinting the feel of them. It felt like a goodbye. She tore herself away before her composure cracked.
The auto-rickshaw ride was a nightmare of noise and jolting movement. She sat frozen in the back, the shawl pulled tight around her shoulders despite the evening heat, as if it could shield her. The city transformed from festive neighborhoods to grim, sprawling industrial yards, the air growing thick with the smell of salt, oil, and decay. The driver, a wiry old man, eyed her in the rear-view mirror; a beautiful woman in a fine cream-and-gold saree going to a place like this. But he asked no questions. In Chennai, some questions were too expensive to ask.
The auto stopped at the rusted gate of a derelict warehouse complex. The text had instructed her to walk the rest of the way. Her sandals whispered against the broken concrete as she passed under a flickering, sickly yellow lamp. Shadows loomed, monstrous and sharp. A side door to a smaller, newer-looking annex was ajar, a slash of white light cutting across the grimy floor.
She stepped inside.
The contrast was jarring. The room was an opulent, air-conditioned cave carved out of industrial decay. Thick Persian carpets covered the concrete floor. A massive, ornate teak desk dominated the space. The walls were lined with expensive-looking, violent art; mythological scenes of demons being slain, but the depictions were brutal, gory. The air smelled of expensive cigar smoke and a cloying, heavy perfume.
Behind the desk sat a man who could only be Narasimha Reddy.
He was in his late fifties, built like a bull, with a thick neck and powerful shoulders that strained against his tailored silk kurta. His face was broad, with a close-cropped grey beard and sharp, pitiless eyes that took her in with a slow, appraising sweep. A heavy gold kada glinted on his wrist. He exuded not the calculated, weary power of a corporate raider, but the raw, land-owning authority of a feudal lord; a man who believed people, like cattle, were assets to be used.
“Ah. Mrs. Nair. Punctual. I appreciate that in a woman.” His voice was a deep, gravelly rumble, his Telugu accent thick. He didn’t rise.
Anitha stood rooted to the spot, her heart hammering against her ribs. She said nothing, her training as a teacher to stand silent and observe.. kicking in through the terror.
Reddy gestured lazily to a large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall to his right. “Your husband is a busy man. Always poking his nose. Look.”
He pressed a remote. The screen flickered to life. It showed a grainy, night-vision feed of a dark, concrete room. In the center, tied to a chair, was Ravi. His uniform shirt was torn and dirty, his head lolled forward, but as the camera zoomed in, she could see the steady rise and fall of his chest. He was alive. Alive.
A sob clawed its way up her throat. She choked it back, her hands flying to her mouth.
“He’s alive. For now,” Reddy said conversationally, as if discussing the weather. “His continued health depends entirely on you, ammayi.”
“What do you want?” The words scbangd out of her, raw and desperate. “Money? We have some savings, my jewelry”
Reddy let out a short, ugly laugh that held no humor. “Money? Do I look like a petty extortionist?” He leaned forward, his eyes boring into hers. “Your husband has been a persistent irritant. A moral crusader. He doesn’t understand the… nuances of our city. He tried to interfere in a business transaction. A large one. A golden one.” A cruel smile played on his lips. “He must be taught a lesson. And you are the teaching aid.”
He stood up, moving around the desk with a predatory slowness. Anitha instinctively took a step back, but there was nowhere to go. He stopped too close, invading her space. She could smell the cigar smoke on his breath, the heavy musk of his cologne. His gaze traveled over her, lingering on the sindoor in her hair, the gold of her thali, the fall of her saree over her hips. It was not a look of desire, but of ownership, of appraisal. Like she was a prize cow at a market.
“There is a man. Sanjai. You know this name, I think. Your husband certainly does.” He circled her slowly, forcing her to turn, to feel trapped. “He is a… romantic fool. Like his father. He has a weakness. A taste for what does not belong to him.” Reddy stopped in front of her again, his voice dropping to a suggestive purr. “For women who wear the marks of other men. For tradition that is… already spoken for.”
The implication washed over her like sewage, cold and vile. Her stomach heaved.
“You want me to… to spy on him?” she whispered, the horror making her dizzy.
“Spy? Such an ugly word,” Reddy chuckled. “I want you to get close to him. Very close. He is hosting a fundraiser tonight. You will go. You will draw his eye. You will let him draw you in. You will learn everything about a shipment of gold arriving on the MV Kalyani at Kattupalli port next Thursday. Dates, times, security details, who is on his payroll at the docks. Everything.”
“I’m a collegeteacher,” she said, her voice trembling. “I can’t.. I don’t know how to do this!”
“You are a beautiful woman,” he stated, as if it were a simple fact. “And you are desperate. That is all you need to know.” His hand came up, and she flinched, but he only traced the gold border of her pallu where it lay on her shoulder, his finger rough against the silk. “He will look at you, and he will see what I see. A loyal wife. A good mother. A woman of virtue.” His eyes gleamed with malicious intent. “He will want to corrupt that. It is his sickness. And your husband’s… punishment.”
The full, grotesque plan unfolded in her mind. It wasn’t just about information. It was about humiliation. Using her, Ravi’s proud, traditional wife, as a pawn to exploit Sanjai’s weakness, and in doing so, twist the knife in Ravi’s soul. It was psychological warfare of the most intimate kind.
Reddy’s gaze dipped lower, past the thali, past the fall of her pallu. The cream silk of her saree was dbangd in the traditional manner, but the pleats had shifted during her frantic journey, and the precise tuck at her waist had loosened. The natural slit of the saree’s wrap, usually modestly concealed, now revealed a glimpse of her midriff.. a sliver of smooth, dusky skin that glowed like warm honey in the harsh office light. The delicate curve of her waist, the subtle, deep shadow of her navel.. it was an accidental, devastating exposure of vulnerability.
His eyes darkened, the lecherous appraisal sharpening into something more possessive, more hungry. He saw not just a tool, but a trophy. Her beauty wasn’t the flashy kind he usually surrounded himself with; it was deep, rooted, real. It was the beauty of hearth and home, of fidelity and culture.. everything he had spent a lifetime crushing or corrupting. To possess it, to defile it, would be a power greater than any shipment of gold.
“Why me?” she breathed, her voice barely a whisper. “You could use any woman. A model, an actress…”
“Any woman?” Reddy interrupted, his smile vanishing. He took the final step, closing the distance completely. His large, meaty hand came to rest heavily on the exposed curve of her waist, his thumb pressing into the soft indentation just above her hip bone. The touch was searing, proprietary. Anitha stiffened, a violent shudder of revulsion tearing through her. Every instinct screamed to wrench away, to slap that brutish hand, but the image of Ravi, broken and tied to a chair, flashed before her. She stood frozen, enduring, her eyes squeezed shut, tears of shame and fury welling beneath the lids.
“No,” Reddy murmured, his voice a low, rough caress that felt like a violation. His thumb stroked her skin, a grotesque parody of tenderness. “Not any woman. It has to be you. Ravi Nair’s pious, perfect wife. The teacher who scolds the corrupt. The mother of his children.” He leaned in, his breath hot and foul against her ear. “He took something from me. Now, I will take something from him. And I will make you give it to his enemy first.”
He let his hand slide, tracing the line of her waist, before finally pulling back, leaving a phantom brand of disgust on her skin. He savored the sight of her trembling, humiliated, yet still standing with that infuriating, elegant poise. “You will do this. You will make Sanjai believe you are his. You will get the information. And when it is done…” He let the sentence hang, his meaning clear in his gloating eyes. The mission was just the beginning. Her true price would be extracted later, by him.
He walked back to his desk, a king returning to his throne. “Now, go to your fundraiser, Mrs. Nair. Wear this same saree. Look dutiful. Look virtuous. Look… tempting. Remember,” he pointed a thick finger at the screen, where Ravi’s slumped form was still visible. “Every word you say, every move you make, we are watching. He is living on your performance. Do not fail.”
Anitha stumbled back, then turned and fled from the opulent room, back into the decaying darkness of the warehouse. She ran until the cold night air hit her face, then doubled over, retching, though nothing came up. The feel of his hand on her skin crawled like insects. The image of Ravi, helpless, burned behind her eyes.
She stood in the shadows, gasping, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. The fundraiser. Sanjai. The gold.
Her world had narrowed to a single, horrifying objective. The warm, loving woman from the morning was gone, locked away in a prison of fear. In her place stood a strategist of survival, her grace now a weapon, her modesty now bait, her love now a chain that bound her to a monster’s game.
With shaking hands, she straightened her saree, tucking the pleats back into place with mechanical precision, covering the skin Reddy had touched. She pinned her pallu, adjusted the jasmine in her hair.. a flower now symbolizing not celebration, but a funeral for her old life.
She hailed another auto. Her voice was a hollow monotone as she gave the address of the Leela Palace.
The game had begun.
The voice on the phone was a serpent’s hiss in her ear, chillingly polite. “Listen carefully, Mrs. Nair. Your husband’s life depends on your silence and your compliance. Do not speak. Just listen.”
Anitha’s blood turned to ice. Her grip on the phone tightened, knuckles bleaching white against her dusky skin. The festive sounds from the living room; the children’s laughter, the television; muffled, becoming distant, surreal.
“You will take an auto to the address I will text you. Come alone. Tell no one. If we see a security officer tail, if you alert anyone, Commissioner Ravi’s service revolver will be the last thing he ever feels. Do you understand?”
A soundless whimper escaped her throat. She managed a choked, “Yes.”
“Good. You have thirty minutes. Don’t disappoint us.”
The line went dead. A second later, her screen lit up with a text; coordinates for a location in the industrial wasteland north of the city, near the old docks. The phone slipped from her numb fingers, clattering onto the dressing table, disturbing a pot of kumkum.
“Amma? Are you ready?” Meera’s voice called from the hall, bright and oblivious.
My children.
The thought was a lightning bolt of pure terror, cutting through the paralysis. It galvanized her. She couldn’t fall apart. Not here. Not now.
“Just a minute, mole!” she called back, her voice miraculously steady, a teacher’s calm forged in a furnace of panic. She scooped up the phone, her mind racing. She had to get out. She had to go. But she couldn’t leave the children without a story.
She walked into the living room, her smile a fragile, practiced mask. “Sharada Amma, I’m so sorry, an emergency has come up at college. One of the hostel girls is very sick, and since I’m the staff member on call for the evening…” She let the lie hang, wringing her hands with a plausible show of flustered concern.
Her mother-in-law, seasoned by a life of her son’s unpredictable hours, clicked her tongue in sympathy. “Always something, alla? Go, go. The children are fine with me. But your big party?”
“I’ll go straight from the college, if I can,” Anitha said, already grabbing her everyday purse. She knelt, pulling Arjun and Meera into a fierce, breath-stealing hug, inhaling the scents of baby shampoo and payasam on their skin. “Be good for Grandma. Amma will be back soon.”
She kissed their foreheads, her lips lingering, imprinting the feel of them. It felt like a goodbye. She tore herself away before her composure cracked.
The auto-rickshaw ride was a nightmare of noise and jolting movement. She sat frozen in the back, the shawl pulled tight around her shoulders despite the evening heat, as if it could shield her. The city transformed from festive neighborhoods to grim, sprawling industrial yards, the air growing thick with the smell of salt, oil, and decay. The driver, a wiry old man, eyed her in the rear-view mirror; a beautiful woman in a fine cream-and-gold saree going to a place like this. But he asked no questions. In Chennai, some questions were too expensive to ask.
The auto stopped at the rusted gate of a derelict warehouse complex. The text had instructed her to walk the rest of the way. Her sandals whispered against the broken concrete as she passed under a flickering, sickly yellow lamp. Shadows loomed, monstrous and sharp. A side door to a smaller, newer-looking annex was ajar, a slash of white light cutting across the grimy floor.
She stepped inside.
The contrast was jarring. The room was an opulent, air-conditioned cave carved out of industrial decay. Thick Persian carpets covered the concrete floor. A massive, ornate teak desk dominated the space. The walls were lined with expensive-looking, violent art; mythological scenes of demons being slain, but the depictions were brutal, gory. The air smelled of expensive cigar smoke and a cloying, heavy perfume.
Behind the desk sat a man who could only be Narasimha Reddy.
He was in his late fifties, built like a bull, with a thick neck and powerful shoulders that strained against his tailored silk kurta. His face was broad, with a close-cropped grey beard and sharp, pitiless eyes that took her in with a slow, appraising sweep. A heavy gold kada glinted on his wrist. He exuded not the calculated, weary power of a corporate raider, but the raw, land-owning authority of a feudal lord; a man who believed people, like cattle, were assets to be used.
“Ah. Mrs. Nair. Punctual. I appreciate that in a woman.” His voice was a deep, gravelly rumble, his Telugu accent thick. He didn’t rise.
Anitha stood rooted to the spot, her heart hammering against her ribs. She said nothing, her training as a teacher to stand silent and observe.. kicking in through the terror.
Reddy gestured lazily to a large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall to his right. “Your husband is a busy man. Always poking his nose. Look.”
He pressed a remote. The screen flickered to life. It showed a grainy, night-vision feed of a dark, concrete room. In the center, tied to a chair, was Ravi. His uniform shirt was torn and dirty, his head lolled forward, but as the camera zoomed in, she could see the steady rise and fall of his chest. He was alive. Alive.
A sob clawed its way up her throat. She choked it back, her hands flying to her mouth.
“He’s alive. For now,” Reddy said conversationally, as if discussing the weather. “His continued health depends entirely on you, ammayi.”
“What do you want?” The words scbangd out of her, raw and desperate. “Money? We have some savings, my jewelry”
Reddy let out a short, ugly laugh that held no humor. “Money? Do I look like a petty extortionist?” He leaned forward, his eyes boring into hers. “Your husband has been a persistent irritant. A moral crusader. He doesn’t understand the… nuances of our city. He tried to interfere in a business transaction. A large one. A golden one.” A cruel smile played on his lips. “He must be taught a lesson. And you are the teaching aid.”
He stood up, moving around the desk with a predatory slowness. Anitha instinctively took a step back, but there was nowhere to go. He stopped too close, invading her space. She could smell the cigar smoke on his breath, the heavy musk of his cologne. His gaze traveled over her, lingering on the sindoor in her hair, the gold of her thali, the fall of her saree over her hips. It was not a look of desire, but of ownership, of appraisal. Like she was a prize cow at a market.
“There is a man. Sanjai. You know this name, I think. Your husband certainly does.” He circled her slowly, forcing her to turn, to feel trapped. “He is a… romantic fool. Like his father. He has a weakness. A taste for what does not belong to him.” Reddy stopped in front of her again, his voice dropping to a suggestive purr. “For women who wear the marks of other men. For tradition that is… already spoken for.”
The implication washed over her like sewage, cold and vile. Her stomach heaved.
“You want me to… to spy on him?” she whispered, the horror making her dizzy.
“Spy? Such an ugly word,” Reddy chuckled. “I want you to get close to him. Very close. He is hosting a fundraiser tonight. You will go. You will draw his eye. You will let him draw you in. You will learn everything about a shipment of gold arriving on the MV Kalyani at Kattupalli port next Thursday. Dates, times, security details, who is on his payroll at the docks. Everything.”
“I’m a collegeteacher,” she said, her voice trembling. “I can’t.. I don’t know how to do this!”
“You are a beautiful woman,” he stated, as if it were a simple fact. “And you are desperate. That is all you need to know.” His hand came up, and she flinched, but he only traced the gold border of her pallu where it lay on her shoulder, his finger rough against the silk. “He will look at you, and he will see what I see. A loyal wife. A good mother. A woman of virtue.” His eyes gleamed with malicious intent. “He will want to corrupt that. It is his sickness. And your husband’s… punishment.”
The full, grotesque plan unfolded in her mind. It wasn’t just about information. It was about humiliation. Using her, Ravi’s proud, traditional wife, as a pawn to exploit Sanjai’s weakness, and in doing so, twist the knife in Ravi’s soul. It was psychological warfare of the most intimate kind.
Reddy’s gaze dipped lower, past the thali, past the fall of her pallu. The cream silk of her saree was dbangd in the traditional manner, but the pleats had shifted during her frantic journey, and the precise tuck at her waist had loosened. The natural slit of the saree’s wrap, usually modestly concealed, now revealed a glimpse of her midriff.. a sliver of smooth, dusky skin that glowed like warm honey in the harsh office light. The delicate curve of her waist, the subtle, deep shadow of her navel.. it was an accidental, devastating exposure of vulnerability.
His eyes darkened, the lecherous appraisal sharpening into something more possessive, more hungry. He saw not just a tool, but a trophy. Her beauty wasn’t the flashy kind he usually surrounded himself with; it was deep, rooted, real. It was the beauty of hearth and home, of fidelity and culture.. everything he had spent a lifetime crushing or corrupting. To possess it, to defile it, would be a power greater than any shipment of gold.
“Why me?” she breathed, her voice barely a whisper. “You could use any woman. A model, an actress…”
“Any woman?” Reddy interrupted, his smile vanishing. He took the final step, closing the distance completely. His large, meaty hand came to rest heavily on the exposed curve of her waist, his thumb pressing into the soft indentation just above her hip bone. The touch was searing, proprietary. Anitha stiffened, a violent shudder of revulsion tearing through her. Every instinct screamed to wrench away, to slap that brutish hand, but the image of Ravi, broken and tied to a chair, flashed before her. She stood frozen, enduring, her eyes squeezed shut, tears of shame and fury welling beneath the lids.
“No,” Reddy murmured, his voice a low, rough caress that felt like a violation. His thumb stroked her skin, a grotesque parody of tenderness. “Not any woman. It has to be you. Ravi Nair’s pious, perfect wife. The teacher who scolds the corrupt. The mother of his children.” He leaned in, his breath hot and foul against her ear. “He took something from me. Now, I will take something from him. And I will make you give it to his enemy first.”
He let his hand slide, tracing the line of her waist, before finally pulling back, leaving a phantom brand of disgust on her skin. He savored the sight of her trembling, humiliated, yet still standing with that infuriating, elegant poise. “You will do this. You will make Sanjai believe you are his. You will get the information. And when it is done…” He let the sentence hang, his meaning clear in his gloating eyes. The mission was just the beginning. Her true price would be extracted later, by him.
He walked back to his desk, a king returning to his throne. “Now, go to your fundraiser, Mrs. Nair. Wear this same saree. Look dutiful. Look virtuous. Look… tempting. Remember,” he pointed a thick finger at the screen, where Ravi’s slumped form was still visible. “Every word you say, every move you make, we are watching. He is living on your performance. Do not fail.”
Anitha stumbled back, then turned and fled from the opulent room, back into the decaying darkness of the warehouse. She ran until the cold night air hit her face, then doubled over, retching, though nothing came up. The feel of his hand on her skin crawled like insects. The image of Ravi, helpless, burned behind her eyes.
She stood in the shadows, gasping, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. The fundraiser. Sanjai. The gold.
Her world had narrowed to a single, horrifying objective. The warm, loving woman from the morning was gone, locked away in a prison of fear. In her place stood a strategist of survival, her grace now a weapon, her modesty now bait, her love now a chain that bound her to a monster’s game.
With shaking hands, she straightened her saree, tucking the pleats back into place with mechanical precision, covering the skin Reddy had touched. She pinned her pallu, adjusted the jasmine in her hair.. a flower now symbolizing not celebration, but a funeral for her old life.
She hailed another auto. Her voice was a hollow monotone as she gave the address of the Leela Palace.
The game had begun.
![[+]](https://xossipy.com/themes/sharepoint/collapse_collapsed.png)