Chapter 115 - 114

Such a lively atmosphere was interrupted by a group of people walking in hasty strides into the garden and behind them, Hank and some other bodyguards followed them anxiously.

Everyone in the table looked towards the commotion. When Shreya saw who it was, she wiped her hands and mouth with a napkin and excused herself from the table. She strode towards the crowd and stopped them on their track a good distance away from the table and stood there before them with her hands crossed.

"What do you want??" She asked with a stern voice.

The group consisted of 5 people. A middle-aged man led the group with a middle-aged lady a few feet behind her. They were followed by two young ladies seemingly in their early twenties and a young man about the same age. And unlike everyone already present there, these people were dressed to impress. All branded clothes and bags were visibly flaunted to give maximum impact.

The middle-aged man's eyes flared with anger when Hank came to stand beside Shreya protectively while Shreya rudely stopped them in their track with a displeased look on her face. On the other hand, the young man gave Shreya a big ass smile that looked very fake and seemed to hide layers of ill intentions.

Ladies, on the other hand, looked behind at the table and the house with eyes filled with envy and jealousy. Only the youngest girl in there had a completely indifferent look on her face as if she wanted to be at any place other than here right at that moment.

"Is this how you greet your elders?? W came here thinking you will be lonely and so came to celebrate New Year's with you but is this how you invite us??" The middle-aged man flared. He was overbearing and rude but then Shreya was not bothered. She found it a waste of time and energy to deal with this kind of drama. That is why she always kept away from this family.

That middle-aged man is her uncle, Ram. He is a cousin to her dad and elder to Anand. He was greedy, lazy, arrogant and overbearing. He was the first one to cause her trouble as soon as she took over the company. He acted entitled. He felt that the company was righteously his since he was the eldest in the family now.

But Shreya was what people called a business prodigy. So even though she was only 23 years back then, Anand and everyone else agreed on her taking over the company completely except for Ram. Adithya left 45% shares for Shreya and 15% each for Anand and Ram since he treated him like family. But Ram obtained shares from outside and started making noise within the company. Spouting nonsense like how she was young, naïve and incompetent.

But he was no match for Shreya and lost all of his shares to Shreya. That is how Shreya became the undisputed owner of Sri corp. She might not be the face of the company after her divorce 6 months later but she still had a controlling interest in the company which was public knowledge.

Even then since he was family, Shreya was never really too harsh on them so he kept finding trouble one way or another. Both his son, Mithun, and eldest daughter, Sushmitha worked in the company and both were up to no good. His youngest daughter, Meera just returned from abroad so Shreya never had much contact with them. But regardless Shreya avoided everyone like a plague because she hated drama.

Even now, if not for the guests present she wouldn't have bothered coming over. Coming and talking to them is itself giving them a face. But Charan's parents were here and she did not want to create too a scene in front of them and wanted to send these clowns away as soon as possible. But her tongue was still sharp.

"When you behave like one, I will give you the respect deserving of an elder!! But you are far from it now. And of course, I do not remember inviting you guys here. So can you guys scram. We are in the middle of something here…" Shreya said shrugging her shoulders. She gave him no face whatsoever.

Her aunt, Akila flared up at such blatant disrespect towards her husband. She defended her husband like a good wife she was.

"Don't you even have basic manners?? I know that you don't have parents to discipline you but that doesn't mean that you can behave barbarically. We raised you. Don't think that no one would ask you anything just because you own some shares. Money is not everything in the world. You can lose it at any moment!!" She said playing the perfect elder.

"Isn't it like the pot calling the kettle black!! One greedy person calling others names. Isn't it the joke of the year…" Shreya mocked away. Akila was angered so much that she became short of breath.

By then everyone in the table stopped talking and listened to the drama attentively.

Shreya looked at them as if asking them to say whatever they had to say all at once and scram. She was tired of having to shift her face from one person to another just to hear them talk nonsense. This time it was her cousin's turn to talk. Shreya took a deep breath and mustered some patience into herself.

Susmitha supported her mother like a good daughter she was and talked on top of her voice, "It was no wonder your parents sent you away as soon as you finished college. Who would want to keep around such an arrogant self-absorbed ungrateful girl like you…!! And you haven't gotten your act together even after becoming an orphan!!"

Susmitha poured all her misplaced envy and jealousy into her words and stabbed Shreya where it hurt the most. After all, she also resented Shreya for having the position of her ultimate boss despite being her younger sister. So she did not mind if her words were cruel.

Shreya's previously indifferent face paled all of a sudden. All blood drained from her face. Anand got up from his place with Bhagya hot on his trail. If eyes could shoot fire, the whole family would have become ashes by now.

Ram still had enough sense in him to realize his daughter had gone overboard this time and tried to stop her even if it was just lip service, "Susmitha… shut up. You can't talk to her like that…"

Anand stayed out of it for all this time because he did not want to give them that much face and he knew Shreya would shoo them away. But who knew they would cross all limits. Anand never went head-on with Ram because he was an elder and family. And whenever they met outside, they would even exchange some pleasantries. Even though it pained him, he understood his resentment with Shreya was because of his ego complex. Ram hated taking orders from someone younger to him. And it turned to anger when Shreya beat him at his own game without breaking a sweat. But this time around Ram touched his bottom line and Shreya was his bottom line. Always had been. So now he was not going to give him any face at all, elder brother or not.

Thus when he came and stood in front of Shreya, his veins were popping and eyes shooting fire. Susmitha went and hid behind her dad. Ram looked at Anand uncomfortably but even then his arrogance did not let him accept his mistake.

Bhagya and Akash reached them by then. Even Charan was itching to come here… but since it seemed to be a family matter, he hesitated and stood at his place in the table.

Bhagya did not bother about Ram or his family. She first went to Shreya. Shreya was standing there completely frozen and out of it. When Bhagya put her arms around her shoulders, Shreya's eyes, at last, flickered to reality. She looked around her once and completely walked out of the garden with the same haunted face whispering, "Sorry… excuse me…" She walked away so fast that nobody even had the chance to stop her.

"Zack…" Anand barked watching Shreya's back fade away into the dark.

Anand knew it was no use talking to any of the people in front of him seeing as they had not yet bothered to apologize even now. This was not some slip of the tongue or a mistake. This was said with every intention of hurting Shreya and he was not going to let that happen again.

When Zack reached them, Anand commanded with red eyes, "Hank… Zack… You both let any of these clowns anywhere near Shreya ever again, don't bother coming to work from the next day. Now get them out of my sight. I don't want to see them."

Both Zack and Hank got to work immediately. Just when he was stuffing people in their cars, Zack frowned at the girl at the very end of the group. She was completely unbothered by anything that happened and was hearing to some music. And after a second of thought, he placed the girl as the one who crashed at his place completely drunk. The world was a very small place after all… he thought to himself and went back after completing the task at hand.