Page 50 of Entangled Vows (Destined Diaries #2)

She kept her face blank, even as panic spread through her veins. She tried to calm herself a little, which was nearly impossible right now. She reached into her bag, her fingers desperately searching for the pepper spray, only for her to freeze.

Her stomach dropped at the horrible realisation that she had switched purses this morning and had forgotten to transfer it. It wasn’t there.

Fuck!! How could she be so stupid? Now what was she supposed to do?

She was all alone, stranded in the dark, on a deserted road with no mobile network, a dead car, and six masked men approaching her.

This felt like the beginning of a nightmare.

She made sure all the windows were rolled up and quickly pressed the auto-lock button. Her hands trembled, and she kept her face slightly turned away from the window, trying to appear busy on her phone, but her eyes were alert, flicking everywhere, watching their every move.

Her fear grew tenfold when they surrounded her car in a circle.

One of the men crouched near the hood, and another banged his hand hard against the passenger side window, making her flinch.

A third man ran his fingers across the driver-side window like he was tracing his target. Then came a sharp bang on her car door.

“Car trouble, madam ji?” one of them asked, pressing his masked face against the glass.

Another shone a flashlight directly into her eyes. She quickly turned her face away, shielding her eyes with her hand.

A palm slammed against the glass again, louder this time, and her body jerked from the impact. She tried to keep her expression neutral, but her stomach twisted as her trembling fingers dropped the phone into her lap.

“Kya hua, jaaneman? (What happened, darling?)” A voice called out from outside. “Don’t be scared. We’ll take care of everything for you.”

One of them leaned on the hood and made a lewd gesture with his tongue, and then he grabbed and squeezed himself.

Mahika turned away, sickened to her core. Bile swirled in her throat. She had heard horror stories about women stranded like this. Women who were never found. But never in her worst nightmares had she imagined she would feel that kind of fear crawl into her own bones.

But she would not give up.

Think, Mahika. Think.

She lunged for the glovebox and opened it to find a pen inside. A freaking pen. And a sunglasses case. She found a portable charger too. But nothing that could help her.

Holy hell… she was going to die today.

Her hands shook as she bent towards the floor and reached under the passenger seat. Her fingers touched cold metal. An umbrella with a thick wooden handle. She gripped it tightly and tucked it beside her thigh.

A scraping sound crawled along the side of the car.

One of the men was dragging something metallic along the side of the car, the sound sending shivers down her spine.

Then, the man closest to her door yanked the handle with a sudden jerk.

The whole car rocked. Mahika gasped, her body stiff with terror.

“You’re really going to leave us standing here all night?” he said. “That’s not very polite.”

Mahika was terrified, but she refused to give up. Her fingers shook as she tapped the call button, praying for a signal. Her iPhone stubbornly flashed No Service.

She tilted it, even shook it violently, but nothing changed.

The status bar mocked her with a stupid message: SOS Only.

Shit! How was she supposed to reach anyone? All she knew was that her lifeline, her phone, had become useless.

Then, almost on instinct, she noticed a small prompt at the bottom of the screen: “Emergency SOS via Satellite. No cellular coverage detected.”

Hope sparked in her chest. As the men outside created a ruckus, she focused on the screen and followed the instructions, raising her phone towards the window. A tiny yellow dot appeared, the satellite connection briefly established, only to vanish a second later.

Still, she didn’t give up and typed quickly.

‘Stuck on an isolated road. GPS enabled. Need help.’

Then she selected both options: Send to Emergency Services and Notify Emergency Contact.

Her emergency contact was Vikram. But he wasn’t in the country, and she had no idea how this was going to help her. All she could do was pray that the satellite had sent the alert, even if it showed as disconnected, and hope that the dispatch, or at least someone, knew she needed help.

Fifteen minutes had gone by, and still no help arrived. Her mind went rogue with all sorts of scenarios, and her eyes welled up with helpless tears. If needed, she would run. She would not give up so easily. She would rather die fighting than just be scared.

The men cackled outside. “She’s crying now. Look at her. No one’s coming to save you.”

Mahika gritted her teeth, trying to hold back her tears and anger. She mouthed a silent prayer to the Almighty to send someone for her rescue. Even the sound of a passing car might be enough to scare them off.

The man outside her door leaned in and sneered. “Last chance, sweetheart. Open the door. Let’s be friends. Or we will do it our way. We’ll break this glass and take you with us. Either way, you’re ours tonight.”

His words made her want to throw up, and she wanted to kill him with her bare hands. Mahika had never felt so small, so exposed, so utterly helpless.

In that moment, it wasn’t just fear crawling up her spine, it was the brutal realisation that her life might never be the same again, or that it could end tonight. And she still had so much left to do. So many stories still unwritten. So many moments she hadn’t lived yet, especially with Vikram.

And that thought gutted her.

Because it wasn’t just about dying. It was about losing all the possibilities… the might-have-beens, the what-ifs, the next kiss, the next fight, the quiet mornings, the passionate nights, and a future she’d never get to live with her husband.

She wasn’t ready to let that go.

And suddenly, the fear she felt morphed into something hot and vicious. Rage spread through her like wildfire. How dare these filthy animals trap her in a car and make her imagine her own end? How dare they steal her peace and her future with their cheap threats and disgusting grins?

They were nothing but pathetic cowards in human skin.

Mahika slammed her palm against the glass and shouted, her voice raw and furious, “Back the hell off! You come near me, and I swear to God, I’ll smash your faces with this car door!”

The men paused for a beat, startled.

Her eyes were blazing now. Her grip tightened on the umbrella.

“I’m not scared of you,” she spat, even as her heart pounded wildly. “You’re six losers on junkyard bikes trying to scare a woman in the dark. You think that makes you powerful? You’re nothing but monsters, and you’re going to burn in hell.”

She shouted and slammed her hand against the window again.

One of them laughed, flashing his teeth. “She talks tough for someone trapped in a tin box. Keep shouting, baby. We like it when they put up a fight.”

The tallest one tilted his head and stepped closer to the driver’s window. He dragged his finger slowly across the glass.

“She thinks she’s scary,” he murmured, almost like a whisper meant to crawl under her skin. “Let’s see how brave you are when that door comes off its hinges.”

Mahika’s knuckles whitened around the umbrella and her phone. Her throat burned and her body shook violently, but she didn’t shrink back. They just laughed, banging on the glass again, harder and faster, turn by turn.

She flinched, and her eyes shut as the courage slipped through her fingers like sand. If the glass shattered… if they got to her, she wouldn’t stand a chance. She would have to fight. There was no other option.

How the fuck had this day turned into the darkest nightmare?

She clenched the umbrella tighter, wishing it were a gun. If only she had something real to fight with.

For a heartbeat, she simply waited, every nerve on edge, bracing for whatever came next.