CHAPTER 5 The Architect of Ruin #3
At the violent crash of the doors hitting the walls, all four heads snapped up in alarm.
“Rudransh!” Kanta gasped, her hand flying to her chest, startled by his sudden, unannounced presence and the wild look in his eyes. “Good heavens, you frightened us! We heard the helicopter. What on earth are you doing here at this hour?”
Birendra set his cognac down, a frown creasing his forehead. “Rudransh, this is highly irregular. Has something happened with the company?”
Rudra stepped into the room. He didn’t close the doors behind him. He walked slowly, deliberately, into the center of the plush, Persian rug. He looked at the four of them—the family that had demanded his loyalty, the family that had systematically destroyed his life.
He wondered, looking at the smug, privileged faces of his cousins and the cold, calculating eyes of his aunt, what Mihika must have faced in this very room when he wasn’t there to protect her. The thought made a murderous, primal growl vibrate deep in his chest.
“Nothing has happened with the company,” Rudra said. His voice was not loud. It was remarkably quiet. It was the cold calm at the center of a catastrophic hurricane. “But something is about to happen to this family.”
Ishana and Ahana exchanged a nervous, confused glance. The champagne flutes were slowly lowered to the table.
“I have allowed you to live under the delusion of control,” Rudra began, pacing slowly like a caged panther, his dark eyes locking onto Birendra.
“For the past seven years, I have done the work. I have built the empire. I have controlled the family finances, the trust funds, and the operational shares. But I allowed you to maintain your positions on the board out of a misguided sense of familial duty.”
Birendra stood up, puffing his chest out indignantly. “See here, Rudransh, I don’t care for your tone—”
“Sit down,” Rudra snapped, his voice cracking like a bullwhip. The sheer, dominating force of the command hit Birendra so hard the older man actually collapsed back into his chair, stripped of his bravado.
“As of tonight,” Rudra continued, his voice dropping back to that lethal, icy calm, “I have executed a hostile takeover of the remaining minority shares. I have clear controlling interest in Rathore-Chauhan Enterprises. I possess universal veto power over the family trust.”
The color rapidly drained from Kanta’s face. The fashion magazine slipped from her fingers, landing on the floor with a soft thud. “Rudransh... what are you saying?”
“I am saying,” Rudra leaned forward slightly, resting his hands on the back of an armchair, his eyes devoid of all mercy, “that I own everything. The cars you drive, the clothes on your backs, the roof over your heads. I hold the purse strings to your entire existence. Which means, if I chose to, I could cut every single one of you off, permanently, without a single word of explanation, and leave you on the streets of Mumbai with nothing.”
Ahana let out a small, terrified squeak, grabbing her sister’s arm.
“Have you lost your mind?” Birendra whispered, his face pale with sudden realization. “We are your blood! We raised you!”
“You held my sister hostage to force my compliance, and you drove her to her death!” Rudra roared, the explosive sound shaking the crystal chandelier above them. For a split second, the polished billionaire vanished, replaced by the traumatized, grieving brother.
The silence that followed was complete, ringing with the weight of the undeniable, long-buried truth. Kanta looked physically ill, her perfectly manicured hands trembling in her lap.
Rudra took a deep, steadying breath, reeling his fury back in, converting it back to cold, calculated leverage.
“I am perfectly capable of severing you from the Chauhan fortune tonight,” Rudra said smoothly, straightening up. “However, before I execute those legalities... I want the answer to exactly one question.”
He walked slowly toward the settee, standing directly over Kanta, forcing her to look up at the towering specter of his vengeance.
“I want the truth,” Rudra commanded. “The person in this room who lies to me, or attempts to cover for another, will be financially cut off by midnight. All accounts frozen. Passports flagged. You will be destitute. However,... the person who can explain the full truth to me, with no omissions, will be permitted to at least maintain the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. I will allow you to keep your allowances.”
The family was suddenly paralyzed with fear. Rudra had brilliantly, flawlessly laid a trap. He had removed their unity. He was offering them salvation, but only at the cost of turning on each other. The aristocratic loyalty they prized more than anything else was suddenly up for sale.
Rudra looked from Birendra’s sweating brow to Kanta’s shaking hands, and finally to the wide, terrified eyes of Ishana and Ahana.
“So,” Rudra asked, his voice echoing in the dead silence of the grand parlor, slicing through a year of carefully constructed lies. “Who or what made Mihika leave?”