Her body shot the floor in thud.
Blood rushed out of her head with her face battered, unrecognisable in red. I stood stationed in my position unable to process the incident which happened in front of me, a few seconds earlier.

There was an urgent rush of crowd around the spot from the accident. An annoying sound of the horn from the man in the car brought me out of my abstraction. He winked at me with a huge smile on his face and his right hand lifted up in giving me thumbs up. "I never thought your wife to be this co-operative serving me her life in a silver platter, Mr Acharya. She made my task very easy." He speaks in a blatant burlesque.

My system instantly was set to blaze bringing me out of trance. My hand rapidly slid to my back pocket exposing the revolver. I shot him point blank on the head giving him no chance of a recovery. The car screeched to a stop hitting the pavement and the hunters body contacted the road. Before I could strike him further he stops me with his slow moving hand. His voice was now completely weak but eroding me was a smile on his face. "Welcome to the hell on earth Mr Acharya. Your wife is dead. I avenged the death of my dad." A proud smile on his dark brown face which I wanted to snatch away the next moment. He inhales a deep breath struggling to live for a few more seconds. "I know you are a billionaire and can easily turn the tables. You will be out of judicial procedure in no time for killing me. But living a life without your wife,"  he pauses for a while to take a breath "where every moment is worse than hell is it better than life imprisonment?" His last words hit me like a spread of poison in my system. I fired him one more time with a growing detest and he takes his last breathe closing his eyes.

My vision diverts to the motionless form of my wife and my world stopped then and there.

She is dead. My little girl is dead and my world is shattered.

Chapter 39

Ajit

Looking at my recumbent wife my conscience trickled and my vision blurred. My feet gave up unable to stand her quiescent form and I sink to floor. A few people came around me absorbing my fading profile. They pitied and whispered some consoling words while others just looked at me with compassion. One of them dialled the hospital number requesting for an ambulance as I became immotile.

An ambulance rushed to the spot within minutes. My limbs worked bionic and I sat in the ambulance with no emotions. My wife's resting form was transferred in a stretcher inside the ambulance. Seconds later the vehicle darted into the busy roads of the Mumbai city with an alerting siren for the public to clear the path for an emergency.

A group of doctors rushed to the spot as soon as the stretcher pulled inside the hospital. One of the doctors checked my wife's pulse and her stretcher were dragged immediately inside the OT.

Pulling myself out of the stupor that I was in, a hope ignited in my hustling heart for her to stay alive. Fight the death to stay alive for me Baby girl. I kept on chanting the same sentence in my mind feeling my wrecking nerves with each passing second. My hands formed into thick fists and droplets of sweat formed on my forehead as I stride on the hospital corridor feeling restless. I was pleading God to grant a life for my crashing wife. After three hours of defrocking time, the door of the OT finally opens and out came the doctor in his blue uniform.

He removed the cap out of his head and faced me squarely. "Mr Acharya I have joyous news and two sorrowful things to be conveyed to you. Which one would you wish to hear first? He asked me in a solemn tone. "I am itching to hear the good news first doctor." I answered him sternly dipping my hands inside the pant pockets. An igniting hope fills my heart with a glow. "Mr Acharya your wife is alive. She is going to live." The grey haired doctor cheers.

My joy knew no bounds for a few seconds but it was short lived as my thoughts diverted to the speculation of the bad news I was going to hear. Before I could gather the strength to ask the doctor to continue on his information, his lips started moving. "I am sorry, Mr Acharya we couldn't save your child. There was a heavy blood loss that your wife suffered as a result of which your child couldn't survive. She was six weeks pregnant when she was brought to the hospital." The doctor sighed exasperated.

My heart hammered frantically against the rib cage. My eyes welled tears as I mourn the loss of my first born. My stance trembled with defeat. With the last ounce of energy that is left in my system I gather my words to ask him my next question. "What is the second bad news I am going to hear, doctor?"

The doctor looks at me in contrite and answers. "Sir, your wife reached the hospital holding her last breathe. Even if she was a brought a few seconds later, she wouldn't have survived. Her face lay completely damaged because of the accident. We had to perform a major three hour plastic surgery to restore a passable form to her profile but unfortunately it doesn't remain the same." His last words almost trailed away nearly inaudible.

"What do you mean?" I crossed him agitated with my voice getting deeper and darker from each word that passed my lips. He inhales a heavy breath and looks directly into my eyes. "Mr Acharya, your wife no longer holds her original look.