CHAPTER 1 The Weight of Empires and Ash #2
Through the agonizing months that followed, while Rudra was desperately trying to finalize the hostile takeovers that would grant him control of the family trust, Mihika had become Revaa’s sole shield.
Mihika absorbed Kanta’s vitriol, physically placing herself between the pregnant girl and the relentless, emotional battering of the aunt and her two sneering cousins, Ishana, and Ahana.
But the shame Kanta had systematically implanted in Revaa’s mind took root like a black cancer.
When the baby—little Aryan—was born, the nurses had tried to place the crying infant in Revaa’s arms. Revaa had screamed. A raw, guttural sound of pure terror and self-loathing. She couldn’t look at the child. She saw only the violence of that night, and the disgust in her aunt’s eyes.
Three days later, unable to bear the weight of her trauma and the suffocating shame of her existence, twenty-year-old Revaa threw herself from the balcony of her hospital room.
The memory of identifying his little sister’s broken body on the cold steel table of the morgue was a phantom pain that would never stop aching in Rudra’s chest. The light of his life had been snuffed out by a monster at a party, and the grave had been dug by the cruelty of his own blood.
Rudra and Mihika had not hesitated for a single second. While Birendra and Kanta whispered furiously about orphanages and “handling the scandal quietly,” Rudra had walked into the nursery, picked up the tiny, crying newborn, and held him against his chest.
“He is mine,” Rudra had declared to his horrified uncle, his voice possessing a dark, terrifying finality. “He is my son now. And if you, or your wife, ever speak a word against him, I will burn this entire family to the ground and dance in the ashes.”
Within weeks, Rudra had used every legal channel available to secure emergency guardianship of the newborn—medical authority, inheritance protections, travel permissions, and every practical shield a child could need.
It was not yet the clean, final adoption a court might one day grant to the family he and Mihika were still trying to become, but it was enough to make the world understand that Aryan Rathore-Chauhan was under Rudra’s name, Rudra’s roof, and Rudra’s protection.
***
Now, little Aryan was a quiet, observant boy, raised by Rudransh and Mihika. He knew nothing of the horror of his conception, nor the tragedy of his birth mother. He only knew the fierce, uncompromising protection of his father, and the endless, gentle love of his mother, Mihika.
But while Rudransh had spent the last few years transforming himself into an untouchable force of industry to secure their future, he had been blind to the slow, creeping poison that festered in his own home when he wasn’t looking.
That blindness was not stupidity. It had been engineered with exquisite care.
Kanta ruled the domestic wing like a private kingdom, invoking family privacy whenever Rudra suggested cameras, outside audits, or a separate household manager who answered only to him.
Mihika herself had stopped him from turning Aryan’s childhood home into a monitored compound; she had begged him not to let their son grow up feeling watched by walls and guards.
And the estate staff, paid by Kanta and terrified of losing their livelihoods, understood the rules of silence too well.
Thirty miles away from Rudra’s towering corporate headquarters, in the sprawling, suffocating opulence of the Chauhan estate, the afternoon sun slanted through the stained-glass windows of the grand parlor.
Mihika sat on a velvet settee, a worn, leather-bound book in her lap. Beside her, little Aryan was meticulously drawing a picture of a dragon, his dark hair—so like Rudra’s and Revaa’s—falling into his eyes.
The heavy mahogany doors swung open, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Kanta strode into the room, draped in an immaculate designer sari, her diamonds catching the afternoon light.
Behind her trailed her two daughters, twenty-nine-year-old Ishana and twenty-seven-year-old Ahana.
Both women were clones of their mother: sharp-featured, dripping with inherited arrogance, and perpetually bored.
“Still occupying the main parlor, I see,” Kanta remarked, her voice dripping with venomous civility. She paused by a side table, running a white-gloved finger over the immaculate surface to check for dust. “I suppose old habits die hard. The help always did like to linger where they don’t belong.”
Mihika’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t look up from her book. She slowly placed a hand on Aryan’s shoulder, a silent reassurance. Bear it, she told herself. Bear it for Rudra. Bear it for the boy.
“Mother, look at the mess the child is making,” Ahana sighed dramatically, pointing a manicured finger at Aryan’s crayons, which were neatly arranged on a silver tray.
“Doesn’t he have a nursery in the east wing?
Or perhaps he’d be more comfortable playing in the kitchens.
It is, after all, his guardian’s natural habitat. ”
Ishana let out a high, tinkling laugh that sounded like breaking glass. “Honestly, Ahana. You can dress a peasant in silk, but they still smell of cooking oil.”
Aryan looked up, his large eyes blinking in confusion. “Auntie Ahana, I’m just drawing a dragon for Papa.”
“Do not call me Auntie, you little—” Ahana started, her face twisting into an ugly sneer.
“Ahana,” Mihika’s voice cut through the air.
It wasn’t loud, but it carried a sudden, steely edge that made the younger woman snap her mouth shut.
Mihika stood up, placing herself directly between the three women and the little boy.
“Aryan is drawing. If the sight of crayons offends your delicate sensibilities, I suggest you retire to your private quarters.”
Kanta stepped forward, her eyes narrowing into dangerous, serpentine slits. The older woman closed the distance until she was mere inches from Mihika’s face.
“Do not forget your place in this house, Mihika,” Kanta whispered, her voice a lethal hiss.
“You may have bewitched my nephew. You may have convinced him to play father to this... this disgraceful mistake of a child. But to me, you will always be nothing but Nirmala’s grubby little granddaughter, begging for scraps at my back door. ”
Mihika held Kanta’s gaze, her heart hammering against her ribs, but she refused to back down.
Over the years, the systematic emotional abuse had been relentless.
Whenever Rudransh was away on business, expanding the empire, the mask of civility Kanta wore would slip.
The snide remarks, the deliberate exclusions, the constant, grinding reminders of Mihika’s lack of pedigree.
Mihika absorbed it all like a sponge. She bore the venom, the insults, the subtle cruelties, and she buried them deep inside herself.
Why? Because she knew the darkness that lived inside Rudransh.
She knew that if he ever discovered the truth of how they treated her—and how they looked at Aryan—he would tear his own family apart.
The scandal would rock the empire he had bled to build.
Build your empire, my love, she would whisper to him in the dead of night when he worried about her. Let me handle the household. Protect us from the world. Do not worry about the squabbles inside.
“My place, Mrs. Rathore-Chauhan,” Mihika replied evenly, her voice remarkably steady, “is exactly where Rudransh tells me it is. And currently, it is right here.”
Kanta let out a short, bitter laugh. “For now, my dear. For now. But men like Rudransh eventually realize that charity projects make poor life partners. Status calls to status.” She turned sharply, her sari rustling. “Come, girls. The air in here has become far too common.”
As the three women exited the parlor, leaving a trail of expensive perfume and malice in their wake, Mihika finally let out a shaky breath. She sank back onto the settee, pulling Aryan into a fierce, protective hug.
“Mama?” Aryan asked softly, wrapping his small arms around her neck. “Why does Grandmother Kanta always look at me like I broke something?”
Mihika squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the tears that threatened to fall. “She just has bad eyesight, my sweet boy,” she whispered into his hair. “She can’t see how beautiful you are.”
***
Two hours later, the heavy iron gates of the estate swung open to admit a sleek, black Maybach.
The transformation within the house was instantaneous and sickening.
It was as if a director had yelled ‘Action!’ on a film set.
The oppressive atmosphere vanished, replaced by an artificial, suffocating sweetness.
The staff, who usually skulked in the shadows, terrified of Kanta’s wrath, suddenly stood at rigid attention.
When Rudransh stepped through the grand double doors, he brought the weather with him. His presence filled the massive foyer, dominating the space. He handed his suit jacket to a trembling butler and loosened his tie.
“Rudransh, darling!” Kanta’s voice drifted down the sweeping marble staircase. She descended like a benevolent queen; her face fixed in a mask of doting affection. “You’re home early. How was the finalization with the Sterling Group?”
“Done,” Rudra said curtly, his dark eyes scanning the foyer, looking past his aunt. “Where is Mihika? Where is Aryan?”
“Oh, they are in the parlor, I believe,” Kanta smiled, placing a gentle hand on his arm. “We were just having the loveliest afternoon together. Little Aryan is quite the artist, you know. I was just telling the girls how much he takes after our side of the family.”