CHAPTER 21 #2
My eyes scan the lawn desperately for her.
All around me, mafia families mingle beneath the golden lights, as if tonight is some grand celebration instead of a business alliance sealed through marriage.
The atmosphere is filled with laughter mingling with danger.
And in the midst of all this madness, Samarjeet keeps dragging me one step at a time towards the mandap.
Finally, I stop walking.
Samarjeet immediately turns to me. “What now?”
“Where is Mom?”
For a second, confusion flickers across his face. His eyes briefly move around the lawn, as if he’s searching for her too. I realise then that this might not be Samarjeet’s doing. If Mom is missing right now… maybe even he doesn’t know where she is.
“I don’t know,” he mutters impatiently. “She’s probably somewhere in the mansion.” Then his grip tightens around my arm again. “But that shouldn’t stop this wedding.”
My chest tightens violently.
“Once the ceremony starts, my men will find her and bring her here.”
He tries to pull me towards the mandap again, but I don’t move. Not even an inch.
“Until I see Mom, I’m not getting married.”
Samarjeet abruptly yanks me closer by my arm, and I nearly stumble into him. From a distance, it probably looks like an affectionate brother steadying his emotional sister before her marriage. But the whisper against my ear is ice cold.
“Stop creating a scene,” he warns.
My jaw clenches.
“Behave like the sweet, innocent bride everyone expects you to be.” His voice turns darker. “Even if we both know that’s not who you are.”
His fingers dig harder into my arm. “So smile. Pretend. And let this marriage happen quietly.”
A chill crawls down my spine. My instincts have been screaming at me all evening, but now the feeling becomes impossible to ignore.
Because suddenly something feels very wrong tonight.
There’s a strange silence beneath all the noise around me.
The kind that comes just before a storm breaks.
Something bad is about to happen. I can feel it.
And through it all, I cannot stop thinking about Mom. Where is she?
Please let Trisha have found her already. Please let them both be safely outside the mansion by now.
I look around once more for any sign of Trisha, but she’s nowhere to be seen.
Panic begins to choke me from the inside.
Because if I reach the mandap before Trisha returns…
then what? How am I supposed to escape from the middle of a lawn packed with armed mafia men?
Do I wait until the wedding rituals are over?
The thought alone makes me nauseous. I cannot let this marriage happen.
Not even temporarily. Not even for the ‘sake of the plan.’
Marriage is not a joke to me. The second those rituals are completed, I legally become Parag’s wife. And I would rather die than let that happen.
My pulse grows more frantic with every passing second. So frantic that I don’t even realise Samarjeet has already walked me all the way to the mandap until I suddenly look up and find Parag standing right in front of me.
My breath catches. No. No. No.
This is happening too fast.
The canopy above us glows beneath golden lights while priests prepare for the rituals ahead. Guests begin to gather closer around the mandap, eagerly waiting for the ceremony to begin. A woman steps forward carrying silver trays filled with flower garlands for Jaimala.
My stomach drops instantly. Samarjeet takes one glance at the garlands before turning to Parag and speaking as casually, as if this were any ordinary family wedding.
“First, we’ll do the Punjabi rituals,” he says. “Then the South Indian ones.”
Parag smirks immediately.
“Fair enough.”
Samarjeet gestures towards the garlands.
“Jaimala first.”
And then Parag reaches forward and picks up one of the garlands. I still don’t move. I don’t even attempt to touch the second garland lying beside me until Samarjeet suddenly grabs my wrist hard enough to hurt, and forces the garland into my hands.
“Stop being difficult,” he mutters through clenched teeth, his smile never reaching his eyes. “Everyone’s watching.”
My fingers tighten unwillingly around the garland.
This cannot happen. Across from me, Parag lifts his own varmala with an annoyingly eager smile on his face.
Around us, the guests continue to watch us, some talking amongst themselves, some recording videos, others simply waiting for the alliance between the Reddys and the Vardhaans to be sealed at last.
My pulse races.
Where is Trisha? Where is Mom? Why hasn’t anybody come for me yet?
Just as Parag takes a step towards me to place the varmala around my neck, a gunshot explodes through the air.
The sound cracks across the lawn with such force that my entire body jerks.
The varmala flies out of Parag’s hand before it can touch me, the flowers bursting open and scattering across the ground.
For one second, nobody seems to understand what just happened. Then chaos erupts. Women scream. Men duck instinctively. Chairs are overturned. Another gunshot pierces the air. I stumble backwards, my heart slamming violently inside my chest as I look around in shock.
What the hell is happening?
My first thought is Trisha. Did she do this? Is this part of the extraction?
But the moment I turn towards the outer perimeter of the mansion, my breath leaves me completely.
There are dozens… no… hundreds of armed men in black tactical suits with heavy rifles pouring in from every direction. Within seconds they flood the entire Vardhaan Mansion like an invading army, surrounding every corner of the lawn, every staircase, every exit point.
And I know one thing immediately. These men do not belong to the Vardhaans or the Reddys. I know both syndicates’ security teams by now. Their uniforms. Their weapons. Their formations.
These men are different. More organised. Far deadlier.
Panic spreads through the guests almost instantly as more gunfire erupts near the entrance gates.
Guards begin pulling out weapons from beneath their jackets.
People start shouting orders from every direction.
Some rush for cover while others remain frozen in shock, unable to process what is happening.
Even Samarjeet ducks behind one of the decorative pillars beside the mandap, swearing furiously. But none of it matters anymore. Because whoever these men are… they have already taken control of the mansion.
The varmala still hangs from my numb fingers, and I can barely breathe. Then, through the chaos, I see him.
Raghav.
He’s dressed entirely in black. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, exposing the sharp V of his throat where his chain and pendant glint against his skin.
With his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, dark cargo pants, and combat boots, he walks straight through the middle of the gunfire like hell itself has opened its doors for him.
The rough stubble along his jaw is darker than before.
Untamed. And his eyes look terrifying, as if he hasn’t slept properly in days.
A black automatic rifle hangs effortlessly from one hand, the kind that’s built for massacres.
Smoke curls around him from both the bullets firing across the mansion and the lit cigar burning between his fingers in the other hand.
He takes another slow drag from it as though this entire bloodbath around him is nothing unusual, as if this is home.
There’s something almost inhuman about the way he moves through the gunfire.
And for a second… my entire world stops.
What is he doing here? In Cape Town?
This isn’t the controlled businessman from RK Estate.
Nor the restrained version of him I saw in Shivtara Valley.
This is someone else entirely. Today, he looks exactly like the man the underworld once feared.
The Dark Prince. The man who had walked away from the mafia world, and has now returned to it the way legends are born.
Violently. Without warning. Ready to bring devastation to whoever crosses his path.
And he isn’t hiding anymore.
He’s walking openly into the middle of two mafia syndicates and revealing himself to almost the entire underworld present here that…
The Dark Prince… Raghav Khurana… is alive.
I hear the reactions around me immediately.
“Dark Prince—”
“It’s him—”
“Raghav Khurana—”
“He’s alive?”