A Change of Heart by Sonali Dev Page A

patted her cheek. She was all stacked and tight. He was going to have to pat more than just her cheek. It took one sideways glance at Laloo to get a nod of acknowledgment. Oh yes, his men were well trained indeed. No words were needed.
    â€œSmart girl. Yes, Jen madam . How well did you know her?”
    â€œWhat ‘know,’ Bhai?” the fat one said behind him. “She was a fancy doctor. She just came in here to help the girls with checkups and all.”
    â€œYes, yes. All these charitable foreign fuckers who show up to clean up our shit and wipe our arses. Did you know her family?”
    â€œShe was by herself, Bhai. Husband was somewhere abroad.”
    Asif was on her in a moment. He slammed her face into the counter. The girls screamed. The fatso sobbed. “Do you know who I am? I didn’t become the king of Dharavi by letting dried-up old bitches fuck me.”
    He pulled her up by her hair and stared into her face. He knew what he looked like. Terror lit up her eyes. “You used to send her husband food when he was here and crying into his sari.”
    She tried to nod. Her cheek was bleeding. He pressed a finger into the gash and dragged blood up her cheek to her eyelid.
    â€œOne more lie and you won’t be able to see out of this eye. Who else came here looking for information? The police?”
    She nodded.
    â€œWho else?” He must have shouted because the terror in her eyes swelled. His tobacco spittle splattered across her bloodstained face, red mixing with red.
    â€œNo one else, Bhai,” the hot stuff he was going to fuck later said behind him. He was about to slice one across her face for interrupting him when she said, “But there was a girl who came asking for the same color hair dye we used on Jen madam’s hair.”
    He smiled. Forget waiting for later. This one was turning him on so much he wasn’t going to wait.
    â€œGood girl!” he said and swaggered out of Beauty’s Beauty Parlor like the king he was. Behind him, his men followed, dragging the screaming bitch with them.

10
    I didn’t believe that entire “eyes are the window to the soul” thing until I met Nic.
He has this way of looking at you as if he sees you and finds you lacking in nothing. And you believe it. And that lets all sorts of shit out.
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    â€”Dr. Jen Joshi
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    â€œA re you absolutely certain you cannot find me one single flight from Miami to Chicago? Or from any of the surrounding airports?”
    â€œYes, sir, I believe that is what I’ve been trying to tell you for the past twenty minutes.” The lady at the airline counter threw another long-suffering glance over her glasses at the line snaking behind Nikhil.
    Other airline employees at other counters had been telling him that for the past few hours as well, but she didn’t need to know that.
    â€œSir, this has been the worst blizzard in history to hit the Great Lakes, and no flights are making it into Chicago or into any of the airports within four hours of it. The closest I can get you is Atlanta. But not until tomorrow night. I’m sorry.”
    He thanked her and she almost collapsed in relief when he finally walked away. She’d suffered enough for the fact that he hadn’t watched the news or read the papers recently, and looking out at the sky through the wall of windows, it seemed like all the earth was bathed in sunshine.
    He found Jess leaning against a metallic column, the handles of both their bags clutched tightly in her fist. It reminded him of his mother holding on to their bags at a Mumbai railway station on one of his childhood visits to India.
    â€œNo one is going to run off with our bags,” he said more sharply than he’d intended.
    â€œHow do you know that?” she said as if he hadn’t just snapped her head off. Her newly colored hair framed her face, which was giving away nothing today. She was in full Goddess of Darkness