47. Vasuki
Vasuki
Kiri
Radhika’s driver is waiting outside when we leave.
He's not the same man who used to collect us from airports and film sets ten years ago.
This one is younger, broad through the shoulders, dressed in a black suit tailored well enough to disappear into the night.
He opens the rear door without looking at my split knuckles or asking why half the party seems to be collapsing behind us.
“Take us home,” Radhika tells him quietly.
The ride is silent as Los Angeles slides past the tinted windows.
As the seconds pass, I look at her and then I catch her doing the same.
Neither of us seems to know where to put the first word.
We keep searching each other’s faces for some decent footing, something old enough to stand on without falling through. Eventually, we find it in the silence.
There's always been something grounding about sitting beside her. Even now, after everything. Radhika never fills empty space because she’s afraid of what might live inside it.
She lets it exist until the truth gets uncomfortable enough to speak for itself.
Another gift from her father. The driver turns through a set of gates and stops beneath the covered entrance of a house I’ve never seen before.
Radhika reaches for the door, then pauses. “Come inside.”
I look at her.
“I have a few things to say to you.”
I’m sheepish as fuck climbing out of the car, but I follow her anyway.
I have things I need to say too. Her house is warm inside, dark wood and golden light.
Nothing feels staged, despite the art that was probably imported from all over the world and the windows overlooking half the city.
Radhika slips off her heels by the door.
I follow suit, tugging off my boots and placing them beside hers.
She points toward a chair in the sitting room.
“Sit.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you still take your chai black with no sugar?”
I nod. She disappears before I can offer to help.
I lower myself into a chair opposite a long, fancy sofa and inspect my hand.
The swelling is already rising across the knuckles.
The skin split over one of them has begun bleeding again.
Nothing feels broken, which is something.
Radhika returns carrying a tray with two cups on delicate saucers, and an ice pack wrapped neatly in a towel.
She hands me the tea first, then the ice.
“For the nerves and the swelling.”
She sits across from me on the sofa. Poised, elegant and precise. Even barefoot, with her earrings gone and strands of hair falling loose around her face, she looks like she belongs on a throne. I take a sip.
“This place is cozy.”
She nods and drinks from her own cup. Then she simply looks at me.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’re in love?”
I scoff, set my tea down, and press the ice pack against my hand. The cold bites through the towel. I look toward the ceiling before my eyes find her again.
“Does it help if I didn’t really know myself until tonight?”
She shakes her head, but a small smile touches her mouth.
“Don’t.”
Her smile disappears.
“Don’t do that,” I say. “Don’t give me kindness and compassion when I don’t deserve it. I don’t think I can handle that right now.”
She lowers her cup carefully onto its saucer.
“Ah. And here, after that confession at the Meridian, I thought you were finally moving beyond all this self-loathing.”
I scoff again.
“I’m serious. You should throw that tea in my face, Radhi.”
“This is expensive chai.” She makes a joke of it by clutching the cup to her chest like it's a precious treasure. Normally I'd laugh but I'm too upset with myself for that tonight.
“I mean it, not only for what I did to you. For dragging you into this fucking mess tonight.”
Her expression remains still.
“I’m a fuckup,” I continue. “I always have been. You’ve always been too good to me. Too good for me.”
“Kiri—”
“What did Julian say? A heart for charity?” I laugh without humor. “Maybe that’s what got under my skin the most. Fucking asshole.”
Radhika lifts the cup and saucer and sets them together on the table beside her. Then she reaches into a woven basket near the sofa and pulls out a ball of yarn and a crochet hook. A half-finished piece of deep blue fabric rests in her lap. I smile despite myself.
“Just like your mother.”
"It helps me think."
She finds the loop and begins working the hook through it.
“They say you turn into your parents,” I add. “Here I am, following in my father’s footsteps.”
Radhika slams the crochet into her lap. The force of it startles me.
“What you did tonight was not like your father.”
I stare at her.
“If anything, you protected her from a man like your father. Someone who preys upon people he believes can't fight back.”
“I laid him out on the floor.”
“Violence alone is not evil. Purpose matters.” Her eyes flash. “Your father hurts people because he enjoys their helplessness, their fear. You struck a man because he was trying to make a woman helpless. Don't compare the two simply because punishing yourself feels comfortable.”
I open my mouth. She points the crochet hook at me.
“Stop talking nonsense.”
I close it again. Radhika finds her loop and continues, her movements jittery with annoyance for the first few stitches before settling into an even rhythm. I sigh and slide lower in the chair until I’m nearly lying in it, the ice balanced over my hand. My gaze travels across the room.
“This is peaceful.”
She doesn’t look up. I take it all in, the quiet house. Her on the sofa with yarn pooled across her lap. Tea cooling between us. The strange domestic peace of it.
“This could’ve been us if I hadn’t been an idiot, huh?”
The crochet hook stops. When I glance at her, she’s staring at the fabric. Her throat moves as she swallows, and when she finally nods, it looks like the motion took effort to make.
“Perhaps.” She draws another loop through. “But it seems you have another lesson to learn, Vasuki.”
The name lands softly. Vasuki. The serpent king. The story she told me the night I confessed my love for her, when she understood I could be both dangerous or sacred, depending on what I chose to carry.
“It was nice,” I say. “For the five minutes I let myself believe seeing you again was a sign.”
Radhika’s hands slow.
“At the Meridian,” I continue. “The guys kept talking about fate. The gods. Some lesson I was too stupid to understand the first time.”
“Rafe?”
“Mostly.”
“Maybe I wasn't hard to convince.” I look at her. “You’re not exactly easy to forget.”
Her eyes meet mine. For just a moment, neither of us looks away.
Then we both do. Radhika places the crochet beside her and stands.
She crosses the room and stops in front of my chair.
Her fingers touch my face first, tracing the edge of my cheek as though checking whether I’m still the same man beneath the years.
Then she takes my injured hand. She lifts it, inspecting the swelling carefully.
“I’ve had worse,” I say, but before I can make another joke, she lifts my hand and presses a gentle kiss over the injured knuckles.
My chest aches with the simple beauty of the gesture. I look up at her.
“I’m sorry for bringing all this shit back up.”
I close my fingers around hers.
“No,” she says. “You owed me that apology.”
“I did.”
"I'm glad you finally gave it.”
She keeps hold of my hand.
“I’ve had a wonderful time seeing all of you again,” she says. “Being twenty-two for a little while.”
I pull a face.
“I don’t know if I want to be twenty-four again. I was a disaster.”
“True.” Her smile is sad. “But a beautiful one. I wouldn't trade it.” Her gaze lowers to our joined hands. “You taught me many things."
She cups my face with her other hand.
“I think we both know you have someone you should go see.”
Pain moves across both our faces. There's no hiding it now. We both nod.
“You deserve the world, Radhika.” My voice catches around her name. “I hope you find someone who gives it to you.”
Her thumb brushes my cheek. She bends closer.
“I hope Lord Krishna guides you toward peace,” she whispers. “And that one day, you stop mistaking pain for proof that you're alive.”
Then she kisses my forehead.
Not like a lover trying to hold on, but like a blessing.
Her thumb presses gently between my brows, in the same place I watched her mother and aunts mark with color during Holi.
A tilak laid over the third eye, meant for blessing, clarity, protection.
Back then, I’d stood among her family and hoped I might one day belong there.
Now Radhika holds her thumb there for one quiet second, as though asking whatever wisdom exists inside me to finally wake the fuck up.
She pulls away. Neither of us says anything. Radhika returns to the sofa and gathers her crochet into her lap. I stand and pick up my jacket.
Then, to my surprise, she says, “Don’t be a stranger, Kiri.”
I turn. She’s already working the hook through another loop, and her eyes remain on the yarn.
“I'd like to see all of you again before another ten years pass.”
A smile pulls at my mouth.
“As it stands, you may have to visit me in prison. Who knows what Julian fucking Mercer plans to do.”
Radhika glances over.
“I wouldn't worry too much about Julian.”
I raise an eyebrow. She pauses her work to look at me.
“He forgot his place when he spoke about the Malhotra's tonight.” Her mouth curves. “Papa and his friends here in L.A. won't appreciate that when I tell him. He'll also admire what you did.”
Dev Malhotra? Admire something I did? It feels almost impossible. I stare at her. She crosses one leg over the other and returns calmly to her crochet.
“It turns out you are not so small after all.”
She doesn’t look up, but she clears her throat before adding, “My driver will take you wherever you need to go.”
Radhika Malhotra.
A queen on her throne, pulling threads of the universe through her fingers while powerful men prepare to ruin someone on her behalf.
Even if I’m just a foolish jester who wandered out of her court, she’s still stunning to witness.