Dassani Brides

Chapter 17

Late that night, the palace was a tomb of filtered shadows and ticking clocks.

When Shiv finally returned, he had the thick leather audit dossier firmly under his arm. He had intended to cross the west corridor to hand it directly to Kartik-whose signing authority was required on the final tax addendums before sunrise-but as he neared his own quarters, a thin sliver of yellow light cutting across the marble floor caught his attention.

He pushed his door open and stopped.

The air in the room froze instantly. On his bed lay Geetanjali, her breathing heavy and uneven under the medication. Sitting cross-legged on the floor beside her was Komal, her face streaked with tears as she clutched her sister's limp hand. Near the wardrobe stood Sudha and Meera, their postures stiff, their eyes fixed on the doorway.

The moment Shiv entered, the two older women glared at him with an intensity that made the air turn brittle. Nobody said a word. Shiv stood in the threshold for a long beat, his face an unreadable stone mask. He tossed his keys onto the vanity table, but kept the thick leather file clutched firmly in his left hand.

He looked at the intruders, his jaw tightening slightly. "What happened?"

Meera let out a cold, sharp breath, her lips curving into a humorless smile. "You would know better, wouldn't you, bhaiya? Since the last time we saw her yesterday, she was perfectly well."

The sharp, biting implication hung in the air. Shiv's eyes narrowed, his patience instantly wearing thin after a grueling day. He ignored her words entirely, his voice dropping into a low, absolute command. "Get out of my room. All of you. Right now."

"No!" Sudha shouted, her voice fracturing the late-night silence. She stepped forward, her eyes blazing with an unhinged defiance. "I am not leaving my sister alone with a person like you! What kind of husband are you? You live in the same space and you didn't even know she was dying of a fever this morning? You left her like she was nothing!"

Shiv didn't even look at the younger girl. His gaze remained locked on Meera, knowing perfectly well who gave Sudha the courage to say what she just did.

Meera took a step closer, her chin tilting upward in a dangerous show of bravado. "Does the Dassani prince require a written notice to realize his own wife is shivering to death under his roof? I suppose your high-value overseas meetings don't leave much room for basic observations."

"My house, my rules, and certainly my wife are none of your operational concerns," Shiv replied, his voice dropping into a dangerously smooth cadence. "You're crossing lines that your father spent decades trying to build for you."

"My father built lines to protect us from men who treat women like livestock," Meera shot back, her tone dripping with venom. "Look at her. She can barely breathe. Did you even look at her face before you walked out this morning, or was she just another transaction you completed and filed away?"

"Be very careful with your tongue," Shiv warned softly, tapping the edge of the leather folder against his thigh. "You enjoy a great deal of leniency in this house because of Kartik. Do not test how far my brother's shadow can shield your arrogance."

"Oh, please," Meera laughed, a cold, mocking sound. "Don't pretend you care about Kartik's shadow or his marriage. You brought this poor girl into this gilded prison to play a part, and the moment she breaks under your cruelty, you treat her like a defective piece of machinery. Tell me, bhaiya, if she dies of this neglect, will you just replace her with another contract?"

"I told you to leave," Shiv said, his voice dropping into that absolute, chilling register. "If you do not walk out of this door this second, I will call your husband. I believe Kartik can make you listen."

Meera did not flinch. The sight of Geetanjali's broken state had made her entirely reckless. "Call him then!"

"I don't need to be called to find my own paperwork, Bhaiya."

The low, rasping voice sliced through the room from the doorway.

Kartik Dassani stood in the threshold. He had grown tired of waiting in his dark study across the courtyard for the tax audits Shiv had promised to deliver an hour ago. Having tracked his brother's delayed arrival up the stairs, he had come to fetch the file himself. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets, his posture loose, but his eyes carried the unmistakable, lethal stillness of a man who had already been pushed to his absolute limit by the morning's volatile board meetings.

The moment his shadow fell across the floor, Meera's voice died in her throat. She instantly shut up, her jaw tightening as she stepped back into the shadows near the wardrobe.

Shiv took one cold look at Kartik, then shifted his gaze back to Meera. "I don't like your wife around mine. Take her away."

Shiv didn't elaborate. Partially, he knew something had transpired at the office building this morning-a severe corporate dispute that had already triggered Kartik's dangerous temper. Shiv had no intention of involving his brother in his domestic affairs; his earlier mention of Kartik's name had been nothing more than a tactical warning to make Meera back down.

Kartik stood perfectly still for three long seconds, his piercing eyes moving from the thick leather file in Shiv's hand, to the tear-stained face of Komal, and finally settling on his wife. His voice was flat, devoid of any warmth. "Meera. Apologize to bhaiya. Now."

Meera felt a surge of hot, rebellious fury crash through her hard-earned restraint. She looked from Kartik to Shiv, her voice rising in absolute, unhinged revolt. "Apologize? For what? Why don't you ask your brother if he has ever apologized to his wife? Has he ever apologized for ruining her life from the very day he brought her into his life?"

The words were barely out of her mouth when Kartik moved.

It was a blur of motion-sudden, precise, and terrifyingly violent. Before anyone could react, Kartik's fist landed squarely across Meera's jaw.

The force of the punch sent her reeling backward into the corner of the wardrobe. A sharp, wet sound echoed through the room. Meera gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as dark, crimson blood began to seep from between her fingers, dripping onto her silk sari.

Shiv's expression hardened. A flash of immediate regret ran through him for ever invoking Kartik's name or delaying the file; he had forgotten that his brother did not possess the patience for domestic diplomacy.

"That's enough," Shiv said, his voice flat, stepping between Kartik and the women. He tossed the leather folder onto the nearby table, signaling the end of any business discussion. "Leave. My wife is sick. I don't want this chaos in my quarters."

Kartik didn't say another word. He reached down, grabbed Meera by her upper arm with a vice-like grip, and dragged her out of the room. Meera went completely rigid, holding her bleeding mouth, her eyes wide with an unutterable shock. Never in the years of their mechanical, bitter acquaintance had Kartik ever laid a hand on her, no matter how much he despised her actions. It was a line she had securely believed his dark code of honor would never cross.

The door slammed shut behind them.

Shiv turned his piercing gaze back to the remaining two girls. Sudha and Komal were trembling now, their faces drained of color after witnessing the brutal display of Dassani authority.

"If either of you is still in this room in sixty seconds," Shiv said, his voice dropping into that chilling, quiet register that held their futures in the balance, "I will have my men pack your bags and send you back to the campus hostels tonight. You will not see her again."

Seeing how effortlessly Shiv had orchestrated Meera's defiance and Kartik's violence, the girls knew the ultimatum was absolute. They cast a long, deeply sympathetic, helpless look at their sleeping sister and quietly retreated, closing the door behind them.

The silence returned to the room, heavy and absolute.

Shiv walked over to the side of the bed, his movements methodical. He reached down and shook Geetanjali's shoulder, not roughly, but firmly enough to break through the fog of her medication. "Geetanjali. Wake up."

Her eyelashes fluttered. The moment her blurred vision cleared and she saw Shiv sitting right beside her, the cold intensity of his gaze anchoring her back into reality, something inside her support beam collapsed completely. The terror, the memory of the night before, and the sheer weakness of her body overwhelmed her. Large, silent tears began to tear down her flushed cheeks.

"What happened?" Shiv asked, his voice almost entirely emotionless, assessing her like a piece of property requiring maintenance.

Geetanjali couldn't hold the wall up any longer. Like a broken soul stripped of all her armor, she began to sob-a ragged, frantic sound that shook her entire frame. She wept for the riots she had survived, for the sisters she couldn't protect, and for the absolute erasure of the woman she used to be. Shiv sat there, a stoic figure commanding the space, watching her cry without offering a single word of comfort or a gesture of apology. He could feel the excessive heat radiating from her body and knew exactly what could have happened.

After several long minutes, her sobs subsided into a hollow, shallow breathing.

Shiv stood up. "Can you walk? It is cold out here in the outer room, and you have a fever. Sleep inside."

Geetanjali swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to swing her leaden legs over the edge of the bed. But the moment her feet touched the cold floor and she tried to bear her own weight, a sharp, searing flash of pain shot through her lower body, echoing the visceral trauma of the previous night. Her knees buckled instantly.

She began to fall, but Shiv's arm snaked around her waist, catching her semi-airborne before she could hit the stone.

Without a word, he effortlessly scooped her up into his arms, her slight frame presenting no resistance against his strength. He carried her through the adjacent door into the inner room-his personal study and sleeping quarters. He laid her down gently on the crisp, white sheets of his bed, reached for a cloth to wipe the tears from her face, and set a glass of water on the nightstand.

"Stay here," he said quietly, before turning to enter the washroom to freshen up.

Left alone in the dim quiet of his inner sanctuary, Geetanjali stared up at the high ceiling. Shiv had gone down to have his dinner, his routine entirely undisturbed, his appetite unaffected in the slightest by the blood, the tears, or the violence that moved in his wake.

A profound, suffocating despair settled deep into her marrow. Her life had completely shattered, falling apart into unrecognisable segments, until even the simple act of drawing oxygen into her lungs felt forceful and unnatural.

Does he truly feel no regret? she wondered, her hand curling tightly into the expensive fabric of his sheets. Or is he simply so far removed from humanity that he does not understand he is the sole author of this ruin? From the courtyard outside, the lonely, rhythmic chirp of night insects was the only answer that came through the dark.