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Renata couldn’t understand why Michelangelo was that angry. She just went to the club. She always went to some places with her friends. He never minded that before then why was he irked now? He again called her a whore, his slave, his Odal. Why were those words back? Everyone saw her almost naked. She was humiliated again, tortured again. She was thrown out of the house. There was no place for her to take shelter. Where should she go? What should she do? The raindrops kept drenching her. She didn’t even have something to cover herself or save herself from the water. It was like even the gods were punishing her along with Michelangelo. But what was her fault? Why was she a whore again? Just because she went to a club without Michelangelo, she became a whore. Did she not figure out what kind of person Michelangelo was? He said he was wrong when he thought that she slept with other men. Then why was he making the same mistake? Why was he back to treating her as a slut? “Michel! Michel
“Sev! Sev!” shouted Michelangelo at the top of his lungs. “Come fast!” he shouted. “What? What?” Severino came running. He saw that Michelangelo had Renata in his arms covered with his robe. “What happened, Michel?” he asked. “She is not… not breathing!” Michelangelo stammered. He was on the verge of hyperventilating. “What are you talking about?” shouted Severino. “Please! Sev!” said Michelangelo. A single tear dropped from his eye. Severino ran to Michelangelo and placed his finger over Renata’s nose. He then moved his finger to her neck to check for her pulse. “There is a faint pulse, Michel! We have to take her to the doctor, NOW!!” ordered Severino. “I… did this,” sobbed Michelangelo. “I killed her.” “Stop it! Stop doing that! You don’t think when you are angry and now you are feeling guilty? Snap out of it. First, think about her, and then think about your guilt,” snapped Severino. Michelangelo realized that he was right. She needed medical assistance as soon as possible.
Sameeksha was on the other end of the hospital treating her patients when she received a message from a nurse. “Come to ER stat! Your friend is here!” Sameeksha didn’t know which friend, but she read ‘stat’ and knew that she had to run. And people only came to the ER in emergencies. Which of her friends came to the ER, she didn’t need to know, she just wanted to be with them, whoever they were. The moment she saw Severino and Michelangelo standing inside the ER she understood it was Renata. Why always her? Why did she keep getting hurt when she was near Michelangelo? Why couldn’t he protect her? What happened this time? All the questions kept swirling inside her brain. “What happened to her? Why is she here?” she shouted from the other end of the room. She could see tears in Michelangelo’s eyes. But Michelangelo didn’t say a word. Severino asked her how did she know that Renata was in the hospital. She replied that everyone in the hospital knew about her and her friends. She demanded
Sameeksha went inside the ER room and placed her head on Renata’s shoulder. Her tears kept falling on Renata’s shoulder. She didn’t know how she was going to tell everyone about the death of Renata. She kept her hands over the dead body and kept crying for long. Michelangelo wanted to run in but didn’t want to make Sameeksha angrier. She was right. He killed Renata. He didn’t know his anger was capable of such a thing. He could not believe that the girl he loved, he killed her himself. He stood outside the room and kept looking at Sameeksha lying over Renata’s chest and wailing her eyes out. His guilt was on the verge of killing him. He wanted to grab a scalpel and stab himself in his heart. The death of his love broke Michelangelo. The tears kept falling from his eyes. He was not allowed inside the room, he could not leave the hospital. He didn’t know what he should do. “Michel! Let’s go,” suggested Severino. “Where? Where can I go? My home is lying dead on that bed. Where can I
Sameeksha shut the door in Severino’s and Michelangelo’s faces and lowered her face to cry. She could not believe that the girl who saved her, was dead. And now she had to inform all the other girls. How was she going to do that? Her hands and her mouth were not working properly. How was she going to tell them or even type about Renata on her phone. She decided that telling the girls over the phone about Renata was not the right way to tell them about her. This was a piece of face-to-face news. She curled her quivering lips into a small ‘O’ and exhaled a few times. She took out her phone and typed in, “I need you all to come to the hospital ASAP. There is something I have to tell you. Don’t call as I won’t pick up the phone, just come and I will tell you everything.” And she hit ‘send’. The cryptic message was enough to give anyone a heart attack. The girls saw the message and immediately left their jobs to come to the hospital. “Dr. Malhotra, we will need this room,” said a nurse.
A staring match was happening between the girls and Vicktor. They didn’t want him inside and he didn’t want to leave without saying his piece. “Girls! I…” Vicktor opened his mouth. But Hazel stopped him midway. “Don’t! don’t say that you are sorry. Your syndicate murdered her. Your Michel murdered her. What is there to say? What could you possibly say that we would want to listen.” “It’s true that I am here to say sorry, on Michel’s behalf, on my syndicate’s behalf. But I am also here to tell you that we need to organize her funeral. You guys cannot keep her here all her life. She needs to go,” said Vicktor. “She is already gone. And what life are you talking about? The life that your Michel took?” snapped Sameeksha. “Girls! What I meant was you guys need to bury her and get peace. Not suffer the way she suffered after meeting with Michel. Rest assured, Michel is suffering enough. He is going crazy. He kept hitting himself because he killed her in his anger. The doctor had to seda
The morning of the funeral arrived. Just like the rain took her, it came back to say sorry at her funeral. It was raining cats and dogs. The dark and gloomy day became darker and gloomier. The girls wore black dresses and came out of their rooms. “Are you guys ready?” asked Sameeksha. “I don’t think I will ever be,” sobbed Hazel. “Me too,” said Ambrosia. “How can this happen? We saw her one night before. She drank with us, she talked with us. How? How??” sniffled Valentina. “We will never forget her,” said Sameeksha and extended her arms to hug everyone. All ran to her, and the girls remained in each other embrace for minutes. The girls took their umbrellas and came out of the house. For the first time, no one was standing outside. Since the day they met Michelangelo, they always had someone at their door, if not someone at least their bodyguards. Today, the corridor was empty. They slowly walked to the lift and entered. Tears kept dropping from their eyes. Today was the last day
Tikhon did not say a single word after that and left with Aurora before the funeral started. All were standing scared, even the girls. Was he not afraid of giving kill orders before so many people? Angela and her people screamed the moment Vicktor moved a step forward. Thank God! He didn’t take out his gun or they would have fainted for sure. “What the hell was that?” screamed Angela. “Don’t worry about that. Father, please continue,” ordered Vicktor. He looked around, a few people left with Tikhon, but a few remained. All the Consiglieres made sure the nominees remained behind. They didn’t one point cut because they didn’t pay their respect to an Odal. The father opened a page of his diary and started reading from it. He had made a small speech in honour of Renata. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. The times of loss come to all the time for mourning comes to all but in all those times, the Lord is with us to show us the path. We are