CHAPTER 12 The Sins of the Father #2
Walking right beside him, her hand securely interlocked with his, was Mihika. She wore an elegant, high-necked crimson silk dress, her spine perfectly straight, projecting an aura of quiet royalty.
Kalyani stood up, her knees trembling slightly as she faced the most powerful couple in the city. “Mr. Rathore-Chauhan. Mrs. Rathore-Chauhan. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I... I know my investigators must have caused alarm, but please, you must understand—”
“Sit down,” Rudra commanded. It was not a request. It was the sharp crack of a whip.
Kalyani flinched, immediately dropping back onto the plush velvet chair.
Rudra did not sit. He and Mihika stood near the grand fireplace, towering over the elderly woman, casting long, dark shadows across the room.
“You deployed private investigators to look into the sealed, highly classified medical history of my son,” Rudra stated, his voice a low, vibrating hum of danger. “You are laboring under the delusion that Aryan is connected to your late son, Dev Desai.”
Kalyani gasped, tears instantly springing to her eyes.
“He is! I know he is! A mother knows her own blood. He has Dev’s face.
He has his eyes. Please, Mr. Rathore-Chauhan, I lost my only son.
The grief has been unbearable. If Aryan is my grandson...
if there is a piece of Dev left in this world...
I just want to know him. I just want to be a part of his life. ”
“You want a piece of your son,” Mihika spoke. Her voice was incredibly calm, yet it sliced through Kalyani’s emotional plea like a scalpel through tissue.
Mihika stepped forward, letting go of Rudra’s hand, standing directly in front of the weeping woman.
“Let me tell you exactly who your son was, Mrs. Desai,” Mihika said, her dark eyes flashing with a cold fire.
“Nearly nine years ago, your son, Dev, attended a university party. At that party was a twenty-year-old girl named Revaa. She was Rudransh’s younger sister.
She was bright, innocent, and beautiful. ”
Kalyani blinked, confused by the sudden narrative shift. “I... I don’t understand. Did Dev date her?”
“Your son did not date her,” Rudra snarled, the raw fury finally bleeding into his voice. “Your son, along with others, drugged her. He assaulted her. He brutalized her.”
The words hung in the air, violent and completely catastrophic.
Kalyani’s face turned an ashen, sickly white. The air rushed out of her lungs. She gripped the armrests of her chair, shaking her head frantically. “No. No, that’s a lie! Dev was a good boy! He was reckless, yes, but he was not a monster! He would never—”
“He was a rapist,” Mihika stated, the word ringing with uncompromising finality.
“The trauma of what your ‘good boy’ did to her shattered Revaa completely. It broke her mind. And when she discovered she was pregnant with his child, the shame, and the horror of it drove her to jump from a hospital balcony. She killed herself, Mrs. Desai. Because of your son.”
“No!” Kalyani screamed, clapping her hands over her ears, sobbing hysterically. The beautiful, tragic illusion of her perfect, golden heir was violently, annihilated in a matter of seconds. “No, it isn’t true! Please!”
Rudra stepped forward, placing a heavy, possessive hand on Mihika’s shoulder, pulling her slightly back, protecting her from the woman’s hysteria.
“Aryan is the product of violence and trauma,” Rudra said, looking down at the broken woman with cold disgust. “He carries the genetic code of a monster. But we took him. He is fully, legally, and spiritually our son. He is innocent, he is happy, and he is safe. And he is loved.”
Kalyani wept, her entire body shaking, the pearls rattling against her chest as the horrifying reality of what her son had done crushed the breath out of her.
“You raised a monster,” Mihika said softly, offering no pity, only the cold, hard truth of a mother protecting her child.
“You have no right to this boy. You have no claim to his laughter or his future. If you possess even a shred of decency, or an ounce of shame for what your son did to this family... you will never speak of this again. You will stay far, far away from our son.”
“If you ever approach him again,” Rudra promised, delivering the final, fatal blow, “if you ever send an investigator, or attempt to claim lineage, I will release the sealed intake notes, hospital records, witness logs, and private intelligence files tied to the assault to the press. I will ensure the entire country knows that the family of a rapist built the Desai fortune. I will destroy your entire bloodline. Do you understand me?”
Kalyani could not speak. She simply nodded, broken, shattered, and utterly horrified, weeping into her hands as the billionaire and his wife turned their backs on her and walked out of the room, their fortress completely secured.
***
The Desai residence in Juhu was undeniably affluent, but it paled in comparison to the unfathomable, multi-billion-dollar opulence of the Rathore-Chauhan empire.
That evening, the grand living room of the Desai home was a theater of sickening horror.
Kalyani sat on a velvet sofa, staring blankly at the wall, her eyes swollen and red. Sitting opposite her were her two daughters, Nandini and Malini. They were both in their early thirties, elegant women who had always lived in the shadow of their golden, favored brother, Dev.
Kalyani had just recounted the meeting. She had repeated the horrifying truth delivered by Rudransh and Mihika.
“It can’t be true,” Malini whispered, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. “Dev... he was wild, he partied too hard, but to assault a girl?”
“It is true,” Nandini said, her voice hollow and sickened. Unlike her mother, Nandini had always seen the darker edges of her brother’s entitlement. “The dates line up. The party... I remember the rumors. The university covered it up because of our donations. Oh my god, Mother. He was a monster.”
Kalyani wept softly. The legacy of her only son was corrupted.
But as the initial horror settled, a complicated, painful reality remained.
“But the boy,” Malini looked up, wiping her tears, her maternal instincts warring with her disgust. “Aryan. He is innocent in all of this. He didn’t ask to be born that way.
He is... he is our nephew, Mother. He is part of our bloodline.
Could we... could we at least try to get to know him?
Maybe we could reach out to Mihika? I heard she is kind. ”
“NO!” Kalyani practically shrieked, sitting up abruptly, her eyes wide with primal terror.
Nandini and Malini flinched backward.
“You will not reach out to her!” Kalyani warned, pointing a trembling finger at her daughters. “You will not call her. You will not send a letter. You will pretend you never heard the name Aryan.”
“But Mother, he is blood—”
“He is Rudransh Rathore-Chauhan’s son!” Kalyani cried out, the sheer, crushing intimidation of the billionaire still pressing heavily on her chest. “You did not see the look in that man’s eyes.
He is a force of nature. He holds the economy in his hand.
He promised me that if we ever took a step toward that boy, he would release the scandal and annihilate this family.
He will burn our businesses to the ground. He will ruin us all.”
The daughters stared at their mother, realizing the magnitude of the forces with which they were dealing. The Chauhans were untouchable beside them, and the Desai family was merely a fragile insect.
“We mourn in silence,” Kalyani wept, pulling her shawl tightly around her trembling shoulders. “We must bear the sins of your brother in silence. We have lost Dev, and we have lost his son. It is over.”
***
The afternoon sun beat down on the manicured courtyard of St. Jude International Academy. The three o’clock dismissal bell had just rung, and the air was filled with the chaotic, joyful noise of children running toward their parents.
When the motorcade pulled up to the gates, Mihika stepped out of the Maybach, then stopped. The color faded from her face. She swayed slightly, pressing a hand to her forehead as a wave of dizziness washed over her.
Instantly, the passenger door flew open.
Rudransh was out of the car in a microsecond. He didn’t walk; he moved with the panicked, lethal speed of a man intercepting a bullet. He was at her side in an instant, his massive arms wrapping around her waist, physically supporting her weight against his side.
Aryan, seeing his mother stumble, ran across the courtyard. “Mama! Are you okay?”
Mihika leaned her head against Rudra’s broad shoulder, taking a deep breath, and then burst into a bright, breathless laugh.
“I am perfectly fine, my loves,” Mihika laughed, waving off the panic. She stroked Aryan’s cheek and then looked up at her deeply anxious husband. “It was just a dizzy spell. The heat is a bit much today. Honestly, Rudra, you look like you’re about to call a medevac helicopter.”
“I am calling three,” Rudra growled, though his relief was palpable.
He refused to let go of her waist, tucking her securely against his side, his dark eyes scanning her face with hyper-fixated devotion.
He leaned down, pressing a lingering, reverent kiss to her temple.
“You need water. You need to sit down. We are going straight home.”
Aryan grabbed Mihika’s other hand, completely agreeing with his father. “Yes, Mama. You have to rest. I will read you a story.”
Mihika simply smiled, her eyes shining with overwhelming love for the two fierce protectors flanking her.
***
Later that night, the coastal penthouse was quiet. The rain had returned, tapping a gentle, rhythmic lullaby against the massive glass windows.
Mihika was feeling slightly sick. The dizziness had subsided, but a wave of nausea had settled in her stomach. She lay in the center of the massive king-sized bed in the master suite, propped up against a mountain of pillows, sipping a cup of ginger tea.