CHAPTER 2 #4
“You’re not walking out of here until you tell me what you’re doing on my private property.”
“I have no interest in trespassing either,” she says finally. “But someone needed to be reminded of a few things.”
Her chin lifts slightly in defiance.
“Now you know how it feels when someone invades your private space?” she asks, holding my gaze. “Not a good feeling, right?”
I don’t move nor loosen my hold.
“I heard you’re planning to give my guards full access to the estate’s CCTV feeds,” she fires back. “I don’t need them breathing down my neck every second, RK. So don’t even dare to do that.”
I just stare at her, stunned. That’s what this is about?
“Oh,” I say slowly, studying her face, “So you climbed down from your cottage balcony, walked across half my estate in the dark, and hid in my garage just to check if I gave your guards full access?”
Her expression doesn’t change.
“Or,” I murmur, leaning a tad closer, “were you planning to disappear again, right under your guards’ noses, while using my estate as a convenient blind?”
She doesn’t answer.
“I’ve heard lying and running is your favourite sport, Miss Vardhaan.”
Something dark flickers across her face. And then she grins. “Wow. Digging into your guests already? You must be very bored up here in your vineyard, RK. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since I checked in. Now I’m intrigued what else do you exactly know about me.”
“Siya Vardhaan,” I say slowly, forcing out every syllable. “Daughter of Shamsher Vardhaan. Promised to the eldest son of the Reddys. This isn’t news to me. It’s your real identity.”
For the first time, surprise flickers in her eyes, but she doesn’t back down. She just keeps glaring at me as if I’ve insulted her lineage. I release her shoulder abruptly, letting my hand fall away as I step back.
“Pack your bags,” I tell her. “Leave with your convoy at the crack of dawn. There’s no place for mafias and their kin at RK Estate.”
Siya lifts her chin, giving me a look of pure challenge.
“The kind of information you have on me…” she says slowly, “comes only from someone with deep contacts in the mafia.”
That’s right. It takes a mafia to know a mafia.
I keep my face blank, as though I have nothing to do with her claims, but the look in her eyes says that she’s already seen through it. Siya presses a finger into my chest.
“You…” she says, stepping closer now, invading my space, “remind me of someone I’ve heard about.”
I stiffen when she leans in, her breath grazing my ear as she finally whispers, “The Dark Prince.”
Her eyes lock onto mine as she pulls back to read my expressions.
She knows who I am. But how? Before I can demand answers, the overhead lights in the shed snap on, and Haider storms in, breathless, his eyes darting between us. Siya and I both turn to him, but only one of us is smiling. And it’s not me.
“Traced the cameras,” Haider says quickly, looking at me. “Saw her walk in here a while ago, so I came to check.”
“Good night, RK.” Siya smirks, completely unfazed, and without another word, she marches towards the door, ignoring Haider’s glare. My jaw tightens so hard that I feel it might crack.
The moment the door closes behind her, I turn to Haider. “She knows who I am.”
Haider exhales, his fists clenching at his sides. For more than two years, we’ve buried my past identity so deep that no one could reach it. And yet, the Vardhaan princess walks into RK Estate and knows who I am.
Ever since I crossed paths with her that night at Josh Club, I’d dug just enough to know who she was.
The moment her name was linked with her bloodline, I’d ordered Haider to shut it down.
No more digging, no more threads. I didn’t want the Vardhaans, my past enemies, to find even a shadow of connection to my present life. But all of that is ruined now.
“Maybe the Vardhaans told her about you,” Haider says. “She’s one of them, after all. A princess in their world would want to know who their allies and enemies are.”
“If she knows, then why is she here? What is she playing at? And who else has she told?” My jaw tightens. “There are too many possibilities, Haider, and I don’t like any of them.”
It wouldn’t take much to wipe her guards off my estate and send their princess back to where she belongs. But doing that would drag every eye onto me, not just the Vardhaans’. The entire mafia world believes the Dark Prince is dead, and I intend to keep it that way.
“What do you want me to do?” he asks.
I take a moment, every instinct in me screaming to take control of this situation before it gets out of hand.
“Just keep an eye on her for now. And make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Haider nods once and leaves. My gaze drifts back to the wall where I had pinned her just minutes ago. Siya Vardhaan walked into the most forbidden corner of my estate without permission, and walked out of it as though she owned the ground beneath her feet.
I should see her as a threat. But the truth is, for the first time in a long while, something in this quiet mountain life has finally stirred the beast I had buried within me.