Chapter 18
Hem knew he’d screwed up the moment the panic and fear cleared from his brain.
He sat in the plush leather chair of the private waiting room, the one reserved for people who were shelling out major cash for the welfare of family members and closed his eyes.
He shouldn’t have told Mina to go. She’d only been trying to help.
He heard the chair next to him squeak and looked over to see Ajay collapse next to him. “After a sizable donation, the entire floor has been locked down. Everyone is under an NDA, we have security at every wing and exit, and PR is setting fires to create a diversion.”
“Any info from the nurses?”
“No, just that Dad’s stable. Relapsing from congestive heart failure means that his recovery time is now going to be longer.”
“Shit.”
“I know,” Ajay replied. “But it’s not as bad as we thought. He’ll be okay. The doctors are confident.”
“He’s going to be pissed when he’s healthy again.”
Ajay nodded. “As cruel as it sounds, with Dad busy getting better, we’ll be able to fight a little dirty and find out how WTA is screwing us.”
“Don’t talk like that with Mom around, man.”
“Brahm is with her in the cafeteria. No one will recognize either of them, so they’re trying to get some chai.”
Hem closed his eyes again. “This is a disaster.”
“No, you’re a disaster,” Ajay said.
Hem turned to his brother again. “What the hell does that mean?”
“You shouldn’t have sent Mina away, man. She was handling things like a pro.”
Even though his thoughts were along the same lines, he felt the need to defend his decision. It wasn’t his brother’s job to tell him how he’d messed up a relationship that was more important to him than anything else he’d experienced before.
“You saw how Dad reacted to her presence. She was only going to make things worse by coming to the hospital with us.”
“Dad was reacting that way because of you, not Mina. He trusts your leadership more than he’s ever trusted mine. He was ignoring me and Brahm before you showed up. Then when you started asking the same questions, he got defensive.”
Hem scrubbed his hands over his face. He knew that Ajay was still struggling to prove himself, and his father wasn’t cutting him any breaks.
“Ajay, he may not show it, but he respects you. I’ve been with him at the helm for a lot longer, and that’s the only reason why he’ll hear me out first. It’ll take time, but once he wakes up from his stupidity, he’ll see that you are so much better at this job than all of us.”
“I hope so.” Ajay nudged him in the arm. “Tell me something. Is it true that you told Dad we shouldn’t go public a few years back?”
“Yes,” he said. “Dad’s power is in his ability to create trust in people. It’s harder to do that with faceless shareholders.”
“But we made a shit ton of money,” Ajay mused.
“And look where that got us? Look what we had to sacrifice with ourselves and our community to get there? And we may not have it for much longer anyway, but if anyone can turn this around, it’s you.”
Ajay clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, bhai.”
It’s also clear I don’t belong at Bharat,” Hem continued. “I have other dreams and the longer I’m helping Bharat, the more I know that I made the right decision to leave.”
Ajay nodded. “Does Mina agree?”
“Mina . . .believes in the impossible for me.” They’d rarely talked about the future, but they’d spent hours discussing the ins and outs of his law firm.
Her face brightened whenever he’d asked her for advice, or they’d hash out a legal argument.
Never did she question him in whether or not he made the right move to leave.
“Hopefully she still believes in you after this,” Ajay said ruefully.
“Thanks asshole.”
He grunted in response.
Hem leaned his elbows on his knees and pressed his thumbs into the bridge of his nose. “Man, I really fucked it up today.”
They slipped into a silence, the sounds and smells of the hospital around them. No matter how plush they made the private waiting room, the facility was still a hospital.
“Are you going after her?” Ajay finally asked.
“I’m going to try.”
“She’s good for you, brother. Both of you work like a unit. I can see that she makes you happy. This is your second chance. Don’t fuck it up.”
Hem nodded, his brother’s words a truth that weighed on his shoulders. “It’s so much more complicated than that.”
Ajay switched to Punjabi when one of the cleaning crew came in to change out the garbage.
“I know we don’t talk about things like ‘feelings’ but I have some advice for you.
I know you hold Mom and Dad accountable, but with the way you and Lisa were going, they just happened to be an easy scapegoat for how your relationship ended.
Our parents will never change. They’re stubborn and brilliant.
Mina is stubborn and brilliant, too. She can handle them. ”
Hem looked down at the bracelet he always wore and ran his finger over the metal. A kara was a symbol of strength, a reminder to always keep his guru’s teachings in mind and to do what was right. “Why do you think Mina is the one?”
“Are you serious? She understands you.”
The truth in Ajay’s statement rang true. Mina did understand him.
Hem didn’t tell his brother how sometimes he felt like his relationship was moving too fast. That he hadn’t gotten to enjoy the slow build with Mina.
But another part of him didn’t think they were moving fast enough.
He met her when they were kids, and if he’d known then what he knew now, he would’ve spent all this time showing Mina how much she meant to him. How they were destined.
She was the one. Mina Kaur Kohli was the girl for him because she accepted him for who he was. She saw possibilities with him, and she made him laugh. She should’ve been the first woman he’d introduced to his parents.
He couldn’t change the past, but he had every intention of keeping her in his future. “Do you think she’ll stick around?”
Ajay laughed. “Brother, if she’s lasted this long, I think she’s in it for life. You’re lucky. In the little bit of time we’ve worked together, it’s clear that she’s an amazing woman.”
“Damn straight.” The double doors opened and Brahm escorted Hem’s mother into the room. They each held a cup of chai in hand.
“I’m going to go check with the nurses,” Hem’s mother said.
“Mom, I just checked,” Ajay replied. “He’s stable.”
She muttered something in Punjabi about sons who don’t know how to keep their mouths shut and crossed to the nurses’ station at the other end of the room.
Brahm hitched up his pinstriped pants and sat in the chair on the other side of Hem. He put his cup in one of the holders and lifted the chair’s mechanical footrest. His rainbow socks peeked out between Ferragamo shoes and slim- fit dress pants.
“Chachi is a demon. I don’t know how you guys live with her.”
“What did she do now?” Ajay asked.
“She asked if I’d found any sensible Indian boys to marry in the UK.”
Hem snorted. “I think she wants you to get married more than she wants us to.” “Because she knows that when I get married, it’s going to be classic and elegant.
I’d have something like a traditional Punjabi ceremony with a vineyard backdrop.
You three blokes are probably going to have keg stands and beat your chests during the milni. ”
Ajay laughed. “Brahm, the whole purpose of the wedding milni is to meet the brothers, cousins, and uncles of the other family and prove that we’re stronger and better and staking a claim on one of their women. Beating chests is part of the ritual.”
“See what I’m saying? Heathens, the lot of you.”
“Your upper- crust British bullshit is too much right now,” Hem said.
Brahm slapped him on the shoulder. “Chutiya, you’re only saying that because you look like a sad, kicked puppy. Why don’t you go to her? I expected you to have left already.”
Hem faked a nut shot that had Brahm jackknifing in his seat. Ajay and Hem burst into laughter as their cousin straightened his suit jacket.
“Fuck you,” he said in his crisp accent.
“You deserved it.”
Despite the jokes, his cousin was right about needing time to beg for forgiveness. “Brahm, before I leave, what happened to Gopal?”
Brahm’s face grew solemn. “He’s in rehab near Bath. His therapist said that he’s over the withdrawal and he’s suffering from depressive mood disorder. He’s getting the help he needs, though.”
“How did you find out about the shares?” Ajay asked.
“I went to see him yesterday. He was sobbing. He said that a few days before I extracted him from Punjab, he’d been approached by a WTA representative. They offered twice the amount they were worth. Gopal wanted the money, so he sold the shares.”
“Son of a bitch,” Hem said.
“There’s more,” Brahm said. “This is what I really didn’t want to send over email or even a phone call.
I took care of Gopal’s dealer when the extraction happened.
He was starting to threaten the family. Our cousins, the ones that still talk to me anyway, were ready to take out their shotguns but I hired someone to be a bit more discreet. ”
Ajay stood. “Thanks, Brahm. That’s one less thing we now have to worry about.”
Bhram held up a finger. “Not quite. Some intel I received says that the dealer was paid to target the family. They had to find the weakest link and report back to another person.”
“Do you think it’s WTA?” Hem said. “Were they the ones who tried to get to Dad through his brothers?”
“Maybe. I’ll keep digging but I don’t know anything for sure yet.” If Brahm’s intel was right, the corporate giant had made a critical mistake. They’d purposely targeted family.
“Thanks for all your help,” Ajay said. He pulled out his phone and began typing. “We figure out the percentage that WTA now owns through all their shell companies, and then we come up with a plan. We can’t wait any longer to clean house.”
“What does that mean?” Hem asked.
“It means we move up the board meeting to next week.”
“I’m just as invested in the future of Bharat and the family as you two are, so I’ll stay for a few days and see if I can help with developing a strategy to fight,” Bhram said.
“Use Zail’s office in New York for the week,” Hem replied.
Brahm grinned in response. “It’ll be good to see your assistant again, Ajay.”
“If Rafael quits or brings sexual harassment charges against you, I’ll personally snap off your dick.”
“Harsh, and completely not necessary. Raphael was interested once. I just have to remind him of what he liked back then.”
Hem stood as well. “On a more serious note, I have some groveling to do. Let me know if Dad’s situation changes.”
“Where are you going?” His mother’s voice had him turning around. She was still a little pale and cupped her chai in both hands. Hem went to her and rubbed his hands down her arms.
“I’m going to check on Mina.”
Her face brightened. “Mina. What’s her last name?”
“Kohli.”
“Sikhini?”
“Yes, Mom,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“I like her.” Despite the dire circumstances his family was embroiled in at the moment, he couldn’t help but laugh at his mother’s obvious excitement.
“You’d like a paper bag as long as it was a Punjabi Sikh paper bag.”
She called him an idiot in both Hindi and Punjabi. Only a Punjabi mother could make an insult sound like an endearment.
“You should’ve warned me that you were bringing her to the house. I’m so ashamed of what we said in front of her. And your father! I’ll straighten him out the minute he’s better. I don’t know what’s wrong with that man. Mina shouldn’t have seen the fight. I don’t want to scare her off?— ”
“Mom,” Hem said. “Mina can handle whichever way you want to welcome her.” He pulled his mother in for a hug, and some of the resentment he’d carried around for over a year dissipated. “Family means accepting people’s true self.”
Hem felt his mother sniffle against his chest, and he held her closer. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll also come out again if anything changes with Dad.”
“Okay. Drive carefully.” Hem was across the room and opening the double doors when his mother called his name again. “Take her some food.”
“What?”
“Take her some food. She won’t turn you away if you try to feed her. It’s impolite.”
He knew he’d be facing an uphill battle because of the way he’d dismissed Mina from the estate. Because Mina wasn’t going to let him get off the hook easily, he was willing to try new things. Bringing food wasn’t all that terrible a suggestion.
“Thanks, Mom,” he said and slipped through the double doors. It was time to grovel.