Part 2

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

-Anonymous

"Cut! Take an ad break!" Kavya's distressed voice snapped the camera crew into action as they shut the lenses off but Mahi barely looked anywhere else but into those chilling dark eyes of Kartik Rao as he purposefully strode towards her with the whole studio looking at them with baited breath.

"You are going to apologize to me as soon as we go back on air Mahi Acharya." His furious voice reverberated throughout the hall and Mahi had this sudden urge to laugh. 'Really? Who did this man thought he was?'

"No, I won't Kartik Rao. I don't apologize for speaking the truth and you will do well to remember that." She spat at him, fully aware that by sabotaging such a rich potential client for their channel after taking a complete U - turn from the written script, there was a huge chance that she would lose this job, but she was too far gone now to back trace her steps, not that she wanted to!

This man was a first class rude, arrogant, bastard who had dared to insult her on live Tv and she would be damned if she let it go, just like that.

"You do realize that you could lose your petty little job over this fight, don't you miss Mahi? So, I suggest that you curb that lashing tongue of yours and apologize for insulting me!"

Mahi gave him a scathing smile in reply. "I would say nothing of the sort."

"Then we are finished here!" His lips uttered but his eyes spoke all that remained unspoken between them.

'Oh! They were far from finished!'

In continuation to her horrible morning, Mahi's whole day turned into a living nightmare. Manvi Batra, the editor in chief shouted at her for forty whole minutes right in front of the whole crew for sabotaging this interview while Kavya was one step ahead of her and filed an official complaint of misconduct to the producer and told her very clearly that Mahi was as good as fired now.

Pallavi, her best friend had tears in her eyes when it was all over, looking at MAhi with pity. "Oh! I am so sorry that this had to happen." Her voice shook with distress as she looked at the girl who she had worked together with, for three years now.

"I am sure you won't lose this job Mahi, over some stupid ass banker."

But Mahi didn't reply, the same words going round and round in her head. 'You are as good as fired!'

'Kartik Rao will have to pay for this!' She will make sure he pays dearly for this.

After a long sleepless night when Mahi reached the studio the next morning, bad news was already waiting for her in the form of Riaan, the assistant producer who was standing in front of her working desk, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor.

It was clear that he was waiting for her and Mahi had this sudden urge to turn around and run away.

Despite of all the things had been said and done yesterday, Mahi had still hoped, prayed that she wasn't actually going to lose her job over this but she realized now that there were no such things as miracles in real life and soon she was going to be jobless again after working her ass off in this stupid channel for three whole years.

Taking deep breaths to steady herself, she entered the room. "Good morning Riaan." She greeted the short man in front of her who was busy on his phone. At the sound of her, he looked up with no hint of smile on his face and no greetings either. In fact he didn't speak at all except, "The producer would like to see you now." And lead her to the rear offices.

She knocked twice on the producer's office door and entered after his faint reply to come in, already calculating how much savings she have and if she will once again need to ask money from her papa until the next job offer arrives.

The producer - Tony Zacharia, a pot bellied middle aged man was sitting behind his desk as usual, but today he wasn't alone, Ojas - the head of web master team was in the room too, showing something in his tablet to Tony. He was the one who maintained the channel's social media accounts and websites.

Mahi wondered miserably, if she would be fired in front of Ojas or if the producer will be kind enough to do it alone.

The producer greeted her cheerfully. "Good morning Miss Acharya, please take a seat and Ojas will show you what he has just shown me."

Perplexed at such a greeting, instead of hearing, "You are fired!" Mahi took a seat and waited as Ojas slid his tab towards her.

She picked it up, News Lift website was open, showing yesterday's interview and her nasty fracas with Kartik Rao which had almost 1.2 million views, her mouth fell open in surprise as she checked the data over and over again. In addition to that there were around 3k comments, almost all of which were commending her spine and cheering for her.

"It's trending on twitter too!" Ojas quipped in between.

"I-I can't believe this!" Mahi muttered, all of this felt so surreal above it relief flooded through her veins. 'So, she wasn't loosing this job after all!'

"Social media is a strange thing Miss Acharya, it could break people as much as it could make them, giving power in the hands of public to judge and it seems you have just emerged from the war as the winner." Tony smiled kindly at her.

"In fact I would say you have proved yourself more worthy than many people twice your age. Miss Achyarya. You have done an amazing job yesterday so, I would like to offer you a promotion."

"A - A promotion?" Mahi gaped at him. "Yes, there will be a free slot for a news anchor from the next month in our evening debate show. I'll like you to have that."

A complete hour later when Mahi emerged from the room, she was smiling like a blossoming tulip, a new charge in her gait as she went to her business.

'The curse named Kartik Rao had just proved himself as a boon!'

That evening she video called her parents and both her brothers who lived in Greater Noida and told them her good news about getting a promotion. Her parents were as happy as ever and so were her brothers and they all decided to take the 4 hours drive to meet Mahi in Delhi and have dinner together, to celebrate the occasion at the weekend.

That night she slept fretfully again, having strange dreams about a dark eyed tall man who chased her through a dark tunnel. His voice ringing behind her. "You are finished Mahi!"

On Saturday night when her parents and her brothers along with their wives and children arrived at Delhi after 4 hours drive from Greater noida, they decided to have their celebratory dinner at Mushroom villa, a classic 5 star restaurant, serving indo - Chinese and continental and much to her mother's relief - only vegetarian dishes.

'We are very proud of you, darling!" Divya her eldest brother - Chirag's wife, hugged her tight, smiling earnestly.

"We all saw that interview with the banker. You killed it sis!" Tejas, her second brother grinned at her as they took their seats at their assigned table near the window.

But her mother was not very happy with the situation and it became clear over dinner, why. They have ordered monchow soup and spring roll for appetizers while waiting for their main course of white sauce mushroom rice to arrive.

When she finally induolged her concern. "That man Kartik Rao, he's very powerful isn't he?" Mahi's mum asked, concern shinning through her eyes.

"Yes! But you don't need to worry about me maa. I will be fine, he can do nothing to hurt me." Mahi tried reassuring her mother quite in the same fashion she had been reassuring herself from the last few day but the elder woman was barely satisfied.

Nevertheless, the rest of the dinner went well, as all of them chattered away about funny incidents at work or as her little nephew and niece told their own incoherent stories about play school.

For dessert they ordered a chocolate mousse cake, to the utter delight of the children when something strange happened.

On the other side of the humongous dining hall, a young man started shouting, on a waiter and before they could comprehend something else the man had punched the waiter who fell on the floor with a bleeding nose.

Murmurs arose throughout the tables as people looked at the bloody scene. In the next minute os so, the manager of the restaurant along with 2 security personnels have arrived to escort the man out through the back door but the drama did not quite end there.

"I am the future president of Assure Bank! Don't you dare touch me!" The man's voice echoed through the room and hit Mahi like a twisted cannon ball and she sat up peering towards the open brawl with all her attention.

'Future president of Assure bank?' Her mind whirled. 'Exactly, who was this man?' Her curiosity prickling by the second.

It looked like, that the security guards on the other hand didn't care one bit, if he was the president of a bank or the president of America and were ready to wrestle him out if required.

"I will ruin this goddamned restaurant, if you so much as touch me!" He screeched but the guards did touch him, almost at the verge of dragging the man out when he punched on e of the security guards, who stumbled backwards, knocking a table off.

A complete chaos started in the restaurant, people started getting up from their tables to leave, the families calling for their bills to hurry away from this place.

In fact, her own family was doing the same thing, ready to get out but not Mahi! Because she knew this was going to make big news and she was going nowhere until it ends.

She wasn't quite sure who had called the police but within the next few minutes a police car arrived and two constables quite forcefully dragged the mad man out and it was on their way out when Mahi saw the man's face - It was Arjun Rao. Kartik's younger brother.

'Interesting!' A rueful smile lit up her face. 'Now she had the perfect way to make Kartik Rao pay!'