RAGE
YUVAAN
I don't sleep.
Anamika eventually does, exhaustion finally winning over everything else, her breathing evening out sometime after three in the morning.
One of her hands remains curled loosely around mine even after she falls completely under, her fingers warm against my palm, trusting me in a way that still feels almost unbearable after everything she told me tonight.
I lie beside her and stare into the darkness. I don't think about the gala. I don't think about the council. I don't think about what tomorrow will look like.
I think about my Daisy sitting alone in a police station while a man behind a desk decides her pain isn't important enough to investigate.
I think about a clinic waiting room. A hospital bed. A stranger holding her hand because nobody who loved her was there. I think about Sara. And then I think about him.
By the time the first light begins slipping through the curtains, I already know what I'm going to do. I'm going to make him understand what it feels like to lose the life he assumed would always belong to him.
Not tonight. Not in one dramatic moment.
That would be too easy.
I want him to wake up every morning and know that something else is gone.
A little more certainty. A little more comfort. Another door closed. Another person who suddenly doesn't return his calls. Another part of the life he thought his father's name had guaranteed him disappearing between one day and the next.
I want him to understand that protection is not the same thing as immunity. And I want him to understand it slowly.
I leave Anamika sleeping. I don't wake her. I don't tell her where I'm going. I don't tell Kairav. I don't tell Samrat. I don't tell anyone. There are some things I refuse to put on another person's conscience. The hotel is exactly where I expect it to be. Three streets away from the gala venue.
I sit in the back of the car for a moment after we arrive, staring through the windshield at the entrance, my hands resting loosely on my knees.
I should feel something. Hesitation, perhaps. The old voice in my head telling me to be sensible. Instead, I feel strangely calm.
I step out.
By the time I reach his door, I've already decided that whatever happens inside this room, I will walk back out with a clear head. I knock once. The door opens.
He is holding a drink.
For half a second, he looks mildly annoyed at the interruption. Then he sees me. I watch recognition spread slowly across his face. His eyebrows draw together. His mouth parts. And something inside me snaps. I don't give him the chance to say my name.
My fist connects with his face. Hard.
His drink flies from his hand, shattering somewhere behind him as he stumbles backward, and I follow. Another punch. Then another. I don't hear what he says. I don't care. I see his face and all I can see is Anamika's face on those ballroom steps.
White. Terrified. Seven years of her life sitting inside that expression.
Another punch.
He tries to raise an arm. I shove it away. My fist hits his jaw. "She had said no." My voice booms in the room, he falls against the side of the table, knocking something onto the floor. I grab the front of his shirt and pull him upright. "And you did it anyway."
I don't know how long it lasts. Long enough for my knuckles to split. Long enough for my breathing to turn ragged. Long enough for the rage to stop feeling like something inside my body and start feeling like something outside it, something I can finally see clearly.
Eventually he stops trying to fight. He drops to the floor. I stand over him, chest rising and falling, my hands aching. He looks nothing like the man I saw laughing at the gala.
Good.
I don't feel better. That's the strange part. I thought I would. I thought perhaps seeing him afraid would give me something back. It doesn't.
Because I know what I want now. And it isn't his blood. It's his certainty. His arrogance. That effortless belief that the world will always bend around him because his father's name has always been strong enough to make consequences disappear.
I crouch in front of him. He flinches. "Please." His voice is barely recognizable. "I'm sorry."
I stare at him. "You weren't sorry when she begged you to stop." His eyes flicker away. "Don't look away from me." He looks back.
I straighten slowly. Then I reach down and fix my jacket.
I smooth the front of it. Adjust one cuff.
Straighten my collar. The ordinary movements feel almost absurd after what has just happened.
But I want him to understand something. The man standing in front of him now isn't the man who lost control five minutes ago.
That man is gone. What remains is much worse. "You know what I find interesting?" I ask. He doesn't answer. "You probably think this is the worst thing I'm going to do to you."
His face changes.
Good.
"It isn't." I take one step closer. "I'm not going to kill you." His eyes widen. "That would be merciful." I let the silence sit. "I'm going to let you live." He swallows. "And I'm going to make sure you understand exactly what that means."
I crouch again, resting my forearms loosely against my knees. "You're going to lose things." His breathing becomes uneven. "Not all at once. That would be too easy."
I smile without warmth. "You're going to lose the things you never questioned because you've always assumed they were yours."
I can already see it. The first door closing.
Then another. The people who once returned his calls immediately suddenly becoming unavailable.
The business relationships his father spent years building beginning to unravel.
The invitations disappearing. The comfortable little world surrounding him becoming smaller and smaller until he has nowhere left to hide inside it.
"And when you wake up one morning and realize the life you had yesterday doesn't exist anymore," I continue quietly, "you'll remember this room." He stares at me. "You'll remember me standing here." I straighten my jacket again. "And you'll remember exactly why."
He tries to speak.
I raise a hand. "No."
He goes quiet.
"Don’t make it worse for yourself," I look at him for a long moment.
"You don't get to negotiate with me now.
" I turn toward the door. “You have no idea what lengths I will go to for her. I will ruin you. I will make sure you struggle, to a point where death seems easier.” I sigh, “And if my anger is still not satisfied . . . I don’t know what will happen to you.”
"There is one more thing." He looks up. "I know about the police report." His expression changes. "I know what happened after she filed it. I know who your father called. I know how quickly the case disappeared."
I watch him swallow. "You were protected once." I open the door. "You're not anymore."
I step into the corridor. And I leave him there. Not because I'm finished. Because I'm only beginning.
The next several weeks already exist in my head with frightening clarity.
I will not storm into his father's office. I will not make threats over the telephone. I will not give anyone the satisfaction of watching me lose control again. I will simply pull at the threads.
One at a time.
Every person who ever helped keep him untouchable will have to decide whether they still want to stand beside him once standing beside him becomes expensive.
The businesses that welcomed him because of his surname will reconsider.
The people who once laughed at his jokes will become uncomfortable being seen beside him.
The reputation his family spent decades polishing will begin to crack under the weight of truths they buried.
But Anamika won’t know all this. I will not tell her what I'm doing. She has carried enough. She doesn't need to know that while she's sleeping beside me, I'm quietly dismantling the world of the man who took seven years from her.
This isn't something I want gratitude for. It isn't something I want her to praise me for. If she ever finds out, she may be angry. She may tell me I had no right. Perhaps she will be right.
But there are some things I cannot unknow now. I know what happened to her. I know who did it. I know who helped him walk away. And I know what it feels like to hold the person you love while she tells you she spent years believing she had to carry that pain alone.
I will not allow the people responsible to keep living as though nothing happened. Not anymore.
When I return to the palace, the sky is beginning to lighten. I park the car myself and sit there for several minutes before going inside.
I look down at my hands. The skin across my knuckles is split. There is still a faint smear of blood near my thumb. I close my fingers. Then I walk upstairs. Anamika is still asleep when I enter the room.
She shifts slightly when the mattress dips beneath my weight. "Yuvaan?"
Her voice is thick with sleep. "I'm here."
She reaches for me without opening her eyes. I take her hand. She settles again almost immediately, her fingers curling around mine. I look at her sleeping face.
And I make myself one promise. She will never have to carry him again. Not in her memories. Not in her nightmares. Not in the world outside these walls.
Whatever I have to do to make sure of that, I will do. And this time, I won't wait seven years to act.