CHAPTER 2 The Gilded Guillotine #3
“The private investigators sent over their final report, sir,” Neel said, his voice trembling slightly. He placed a sleek black folder on the glass coffee table. “They... they have hit a stone wall. The accounts in Europe have been closed. There is no trace.”
“Leave,” Rudra commanded.
Neel practically fled the room.
Rudra walked over to the table and stared at the black folder. He didn’t need to open it. He knew what it contained. Excuses. Dead ends.
When he had come home a year ago and found Mihika gone, he had torn the city apart. He had hired the best security firms in the world. He had demanded answers from his family.
His aunt and uncle had played the roles of shocked, grieving relatives perfectly. And then, a few days later, they had brought him the “evidence.”
It was a masterclass in forgery and manipulation.
Birendra still retained legacy access to the old estate accounts and to two family accountants whose loyalty had been purchased long before Rudra seized control of the empire.
Through them, he built phantom shell accounts, backdated transfers, and paper trails convincing enough to survive a first forensic review.
They showed Rudra bank records—heavily doctored—indicating that Mihika had been siphoning funds from the estate accounts for years.
They produced a fabricated letter, supposedly left by Mihika, stating that she could no longer handle the pressure of raising another woman’s child, that she never really loved him, and that she was leaving with a wealthy businessman she had met in secret.
Rudra’s logical, brilliant mind had warred with his heart. He knew Mihika. He knew her soul. He couldn’t believe she would steal. He couldn’t believe she would abandon Aryan.
But in those first catastrophic days, the evidence looked ironclad.
Rudra was not investigating a hostile takeover with a clear head; he was a shattered man trying to breathe through the disappearance of the woman who had been the center of his universe.
The private investigators he hired confirmed the bank transfers, not knowing the accounts were phantom shells created by Birendra and validated by compromised insiders.
And most damning of all—she was gone. She had not fought for them. She had not reached out.
The family had convinced him that Mihika had betrayed him in the worst possible way. She had used his love, used his sister’s tragedy, to secure her own financial future, and then discarded them when she got bored.
The betrayal had broken something fundamental inside Rudransh.
The warmth that Mihika had cultivated within him had died, leaving behind only ruthless, calculating ice.
He had immediately packed up Aryan and moved out of the Chauhan estate, purchasing the coastal penthouse.
He couldn’t breathe the same air as the ghosts of his past. He distanced himself from his uncle and aunt, focusing on his business and his son.
Every matrimonial scheme Kanta had whispered about before Mihika’s disappearance—including the proposed meeting with Meera Singhania—died in the ruins of that night. Rudra had no tolerance left for society brides, or for anyone who imagined his grief could be managed like a merger.
Rudra picked up the scotch and downed it in one burning swallow.
“Papa?”
Rudra turned. Standing in the hallway was seven-year-old Aryan. The boy had grown taller, his dark hair neatly parted. He was wearing his school uniform, a tiny, serious replica of his father.
Instantly, the ice in Rudra’s eyes melted. He set the glass down and walked over, dropping to one knee to be at eye level with his son. He adjusted the collar of Aryan’s blazer, his large hands incredibly gentle.
“Are you ready for school, champ?” Rudra asked, his voice low and soft.
Aryan nodded, but his large dark eyes drifted past Rudra, looking toward the sprawling, empty living room. It had been a year, but the absence still echoed loudly between them.
“Papa?” Aryan asked softly, clutching the straps of his backpack. “Do you think... do you think Mama is ever coming back?”
Rudra felt a jagged shard of glass twist in his chest. It was a question Aryan asked less frequently now, but every time he did, it nearly brought the billionaire to his knees. He hated the woman who had supposedly betrayed him, but he hated the pain in his son’s eyes infinitely more.
Rudra pulled the boy into a tight, fierce hug, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. He stared out at the crashing, turbulent ocean, his jaw clenching so hard his teeth ached.
“I don’t know, Aryan,” Rudra whispered, the finality of the word tasting like poison. “But you have me. You will always have me. And I will never, ever let anyone hurt you again.”
He stood up, taking his son’s small hand in his, a king and his prince, standing alone in a fortress of glass, unaware that the queen they mourned was currently living a thousand miles away, looking up at the same sky, crying for the family she had died to protect.