“They did it again?” Asha asked incredulously, anger rising up from her belly, anger for the girl who was about to marry a man she most probably didn’t want to wed. “We have to stop the marriage unless she wants it.”
“Max already did. She didn’t want it, but was in the same circumstances as you were at the time. She wants to go to college to be a teacher. Max already has her at the school and settled into her dorm. We’re helping her. Don’t worry. And Max will make certain they never get another foster child again.”
Tears of anger and relief flooded Asha’s eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered fiercely. “You have no idea how much this will change her life.” Although the teenager had probably grown up mired in the same guilt and shame as Asha, the course of her life had changed because of Mia and Max.
Mia squeezed her hand and Asha turned to face her foster parents, who were still arguing with Max. Letting go of Mia’s hand, she lifted her chin and walked into the room. All conversation stopped as she approached her foster parents, every eye on her.
“You will leave my brother’s house and never come near any of my family again,” Asha told her foster parents abruptly, her anger still boiling inside her.
Her foster mother stepped forward, gold bangles clinking as she moved. She looked very much the same, but different to Asha now that she was seeing her through the eyes of an adult. Her eyes moved over the finest silk sari that her foster mother was wearing, and the gold and gems that adorned her body. Why had she ever believed that her foster parents were suffering financially? Her foster mother was wearing enough to gold to live off for life.
I was a servant, and then I was sold, just like Kade told me I was. There were no financial difficulties, no reason for what they did except profit.
“What? You no longer speak Telugu?” her foster mother admonished.
“I’m American, and I live in America. I speak English. My brother and his wife speak English. I wouldn’t be that rude to speak in a language they don’t speak,” she answered angrily.
“How dare you? We fed you, we raised you, and you talk back to my wife?” her foster father answered furiously.
“You took me in and sold me off. In the meantime, I was an unpaid servant to you. You even sold my father’s things,” Asha answered bravely, stepping forward to get in her foster father’s face. “How dare you?” Taking a deep breath, she continued. “Did you know that Ravi abused me? Did you know what he did to me?”
“He was trying to discipline you. And he was disappointed that you never gave him a child,” her foster mother answered, as though it were natural for such a thing to happen.
Asha blew out a heavy breath, getting the answer she had expected but had hoped wasn’t true. They had known, and they’d let it happen. “You’re both horrible people. My father worked to protect the rights of women, and you sell them like they’re chattels. It has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with both of you being selfish and cruel individuals, although you need to open your eyes and see that Indian women are tired of being treated poorly, tired of being slapped around and subjected to the will of men. I wasn’t able to bear a child, but that doesn’t mean I deserved to be beaten because of something that wasn’t my fault.”
“Your father, your father…” Her foster father threw his hand in the air and let go of a snort of disgust. “He was a dreamer who died poor because of his stupid ideals.”
“His karma was rich,” Asha snapped back at him.
“You need to return to your husband,” her foster mother said sternly. “You can help him financially now.”
“Because my relatives are rich, you think some of their money should go to Ravi?” Asha fumed, disgusted that they really believed that she owed anything to a man who had nearly killed her on several occasions. They likely thought they would share in the riches. “I pay my own way. I don’t sponge off others, or sell people to make money. And I’d die before I’d return to the prison of an abuser again.”
“He’s your husband,” her foster father boomed.
“He’s nothing to me. We’re divorced, and if and when I remarry, it will be to the man of my choice.”
“Whore!” Her foster father raised his arm to strike her. Asha moved quickly, ducking and scrambling backward as a large body pushed between her and her foster father. A large hand came up lightning fast to manacle her foster father’s wrist as it swung. Asha lost her balance, her momentum carrying her backward and onto her ass in the middle of the carpet.
“She dishonors her husband. She’s a tramp,” her foster mother wailed.
Max came forward and looked at the whining woman, giving her a disgusted glance before grasping her wrist. “You’re leaving. And don’t say another word. I’ve never hit a woman before in my entire life, but lady, you’re the first who’s made me even wish that I could.”
Asha looked up, a little dazed, first at Max tugging on her foster mother, and then at her foster father, who was being restrained by someone who made her heart accelerate and her breath catch.
Kade!
The two men were in profile to her, but she could see the rage on Kade’s face, veins pulsating in his neck. His breathing was ragged and the glare he was giving her foster father was one of pure furious wrath. He was like a serpent the moment before it struck with deadly intent.
“We will leave. You’re dead to us,” her foster mother said with a sniff.
Asha thought that was nothing new. She’d always been dead to them, and if Ravi had killed her, he wouldn’t have been blamed by either one of them.
Max’s security swarmed the room, taking the woman from Max’s grasp and leading her toward the door.
“Kade. Don’t. Neither one of them is worth it,” Asha said softly, trying to coax Kade out of going on a rampage. She could see his resolve, and it frightened her. She didn’t want him caught up in her problems.
Asha rose quickly, and put her hand on Kade’s shoulder. “Please,” she whispered into his ear.
“He was going to hit you,” Kade rasped, the breath sawing in and out of his lungs rapidly, as though he were losing control.
“He didn’t. You saved me. Let him leave.”
Her foster father stood in stony silence, trying to move by Kade to leave, but he couldn’t escape Kade’s grasp.
“Fine. He can go. Right after this.” Kade pulled back his powerful arm and slammed his fist into the older man’s face. The force was powerful enough to bring her foster father to his knees.