CHAPTER 58
The office room inside Jogra Palace was lit only by screens.
Bharat stood at the head of the long black table, sleeves folded once, expression steady.
Ram, Samar, and Viraj were on the screen.
Samar spoke before anyone else could.
“Your right hook is still impressive, bhai.”
Ram's expression remained neutral, though something shifted briefly at the corner of his mouth.
Viraj smiled, even though the look on his face said he was calculating the political implications.
“The press conference is trending,” Samar added. “The social media and news channels are having a field day.”
“Samar.”
“Yes, bhai.”
“Let’s begin.”
A pause.
Samar straightened. “Right.”
And just like that, the levity was gone, and all four of them focused on the latest development.
“There was another cyberattack on my security company server this evening,” said Samar. “The second one in the same month.”
“Coincidence?” Viraj asked.
“No,” Samar replied. “They are too aligned with other slow disruptions. International advertising renewals have been delayed. Two overseas security partnerships are under review.”
The attacks were systematic.
“I sent the funding trail through this evening,” Samar continued. “The consortium routed through three shell foundations. Two in Singapore. One in Zurich. The money reached the protest groups from there.”
Viraj added, “They disguised it as climate advocacy grants. Clean paperwork. Strategic timing.”
Bharat nodded once. “This was competitive leverage. Disguised as activism.”
Green steel contracts. Regulatory influence. Market positioning.
A brief pause settled over the call.
Bharat said nothing for a moment.
Then he pulled up a file on the laptop and projected it on the screen.
“I looked at the Singapore foundations,” he said. “Two of them appeared in your infrastructure bid leaks eighteen months ago, Ram.”
Ram's expression shifted. He leaned forward. “The same ones?”
“Same registration dates. Same nominee directors. Different account layers, but the same origin point.”
Silence.
“That wasn't a competitor protecting market share,” Bharat said. “A competitor goes after one target. One industry. One contract window.”
He looked at each of them in turn.
“They went after Ram's infrastructure bids. Then my steel plants. Now Samar's advertising renewals and security partnerships are under pressure.” He paused. “Same funding route. Same shell structure. Same patience between attacks.”
Viraj, who had been quiet, spoke. “This isn't rivals or competitors acting independently.” His voice was thoughtful. “The gap between Ram's situation and yours was deliberate. Enough time for the last operation to go cold before starting the next one.”
“Meaning someone planned all three,” Samar said.
“Meaning someone is working through all of us,” Viraj said. “And I'm next, presumably.”
Nobody disagreed.
“Good,” Viraj added. “I'd hate to be left out.”
There was silence on the call.
“The same hand behind all three,” Ram said.
Bharat nodded once, already having come to that conclusion when he saw the common shell companies.
“The financial motive is real. But financial motive alone doesn't explain the pattern.
You don't route through three separate continents and rebuild shell companies from scratch just to slow down steel production.
Whoever this is, they aren't chasing money.
They're chasing something else entirely. This seems personal.”
Nobody spoke for a moment.
On the screen, all three of his brothers held the same expression.
They had built four separate empires across the four corners of the country. They had never had a common enemy before.
“Someone with enough resources to sustain this across years,” Viraj said. “And enough reason to keep going.”
The call stayed quiet.
Bharat closed the file. “I will fly to Singapore. The foundation registered there is the common thread. We trace it from the source.”
“I will join you,” said Ram.
“No,” Samar said. “You both should stay here in the country.”
Bharat looked at him.
Samar glanced at Ram. “Sanjana is eight months pregnant,” he said. And then, he glanced at Bharat. “And you have the final PR coverage events scheduled for the next three weeks, along with bhabhi. You pull out now, the narrative we just repaired starts unraveling.”
Ram said nothing, but the set of his jaw said enough.
Bharat stayed silent as well.
“I'll go,” Samar said. “Singapore first. Zurich, if I need to.”
“I’ll have the Ministry of Corporate Affairs put out a word to the Singapore government,” said Viraj. “I’ll ensure those shell companies aren’t allowed to register in more countries.”
Samar nodded.
“What about your disruptions?” Ram asked.
“My disruptions can wait a few weeks. A newborn cannot.” Samar turned to Bharat. “Send me everything you have on the Singapore foundations, bhai. Both sets. I'll find where they connect.”
Bharat held his gaze for a moment, then nodded once.
Samar leaned back and allowed a faint smile. “Don’t skip the PR event planned for next week with you and bhabhi. Bhabhi destroyed the protests more effectively than anything else we did.” There was no edge in Samar’s voice when he said it.
“Perhaps I should find myself a wife to resolve my media and security issues,” Samar added lightly.
Viraj almost smiled. Ram exhaled once.
Bharat’s gaze remained steady. “Focus on finding the Singapore connection,” he said.
Samar's smile widened slightly. “Of course, bhai.”
The call ended.
The screens went dark one by one.
The room went quiet.
Bharat stood at the table for a moment.
He walked to the window and looked at the snow-capped mountains outside.
His thoughts shifted. Not to the consortium or to the next step in the counterattack.
To her.
Yamini in the factory office, sitting on his lap as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Pulling up that social media page. Telling him, with a mischievous smile that four lakh women were fascinated by his cheekbones.
Then he thought of her face a few hours ago. She had frozen and looked horrified when she saw her ex-husband among the press reporters, saying things that deliberately tried to demean her.
She had looked shocked and vulnerable.
He disliked remembering it.
For two weeks, she had sat beside him in the evenings and listened while he talked. He had told her things he had never said aloud to anyone. About the boy who bit through his tongue. About temple bells that felt like knives. About a grandmother's voice calling him mad.
He had told her, expecting her to finally understand why she should leave.
She had listened, and stayed, and looked at him in the mornings without anything different in her eyes.
He had spent his entire life waiting for people to see the full picture and step back.
She kept stepping closer.
He didn't have a word for what that did to him.
He left the office and walked through the quiet corridors.
He paused at the bedroom doorway.
She was asleep. The bedside lamp was on, casting a soft glow across the room. Her hand rested near her collarbone.
The emerald fish pendant lay against her skin.
He stood still for a moment.
She had put it back on the night she found the studio and came back to the palace. She hadn't mentioned it. She had simply worn it again, the way she had before everything broke.
As if it had always belonged there.
As if she had always belonged here.
He stepped closer.
She stirred slightly in her sleep. Without opening her eyes, she shifted toward his side of the bed. Her hand reached across the empty space beside her.
Searching. Expecting him.
Something moved in his chest.
He walked around the bed and lay down beside her.
The mattress dipped. Her body settled closer on its own. Her fingers curled lightly against his shirt, the way they did every night now, as if making sure he was there.
He looked at the ceiling for a moment.
Everything outside this room had an answer. A plan. A next move.
In here, there was only her hand against his chest, the sound of her breathing, and the pendant catching the light.
He turned his head slightly toward her.
She didn't wake up. But she moved closer anyway, the way she always did, trusting him even in sleep.
He looked at her for a long moment.
For the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to imagine it. A child. Theirs.
With her tendency to climb walls she wasn't supposed to. And his tendency to calculate the safest way down.
With her laughter and his focus. With her heart and his mind.
He knew the surgery was reversible. He had never considered it before.
But lying here, with her hand curled against his chest and the pendant resting against her throat, he found himself wanting something he had spent years refusing to want.
A different future.
And for the first time in his life, that frightened him far more than any invisible enemy ever could.