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Agastya got to his feet immediately, noting the fraught urgency roiling off his PA. “What is it?” he asked but the other man only shook his head and gestured to Agastya to follow him outside.
Veda’s eyebrows shot up as she took in the scene. This didn’t look good and for a family as constantly in the public eye as the Kodelas, not good was a disaster. She picked up her phone thinking she’d scroll the news to see if there was any sign of whatever was agitating them when Aarush came barreling into the room.
“Turn on the news,” he said tersely. He didn’t wait for anyone to follow his orders but grabbed the remote and turned on the large screen television on the far wall.
Veda saw Agastya’s PA close his eyes with a pained grimace but before she could preempt whatever disaster was set to unfold, the familiar logo and audio of her father’s news channel streamed through the now silent room.
They all watched as the news anchor stared out of them, his face set in sombre, stern lines. Below him, the red breaking news ticker kept flashing without a hint of what exactly was the news he was breaking.
“Good afternoon,” the anchor began in Telugu. “We are here to discuss an extremely serious and disturbing allegation against none other than Suryakanth Kodela, our Chief Minister. We are in possession of documents that point to a scam at the heart of the ‘free rice for the poor’ scheme. If these alleged documents are proven to be authentic, then it would mean that over three thousand crores worth of pandemic relief fund never reached the poor it was meant for but instead was used to line the pockets of the people in power in our state.”
His speech cut to a visual of Suryakanth Kodela walking out of the Secretariat, his security detail holding the screaming hordes of journalists and common folk at bay. As they watched, the Chief Minister, her friend’s father got into his car and roared out of range of the screen. Aarush turned the television off, and silence fell in their room.
“It’s not true,” Priyanka whispered.
“Of course it isn’t,” Harsh snapped, getting to his feet. Even he’d lost his general ‘fuck you’ attitude and was looking pale and ashen. “They used the words alleged and allegation often enough to let you know they weren’t stating fact, just throwing around unfounded accusations.”
“There is a lot Nanna would do but he would never cheat anyone, especially not his voters. They’re his people, more even than we are.” Priyanka’s hands were shaking.
Veda’s skin prickled at the ominous, thunderous silence roiling off the one person who hadn’t said anything. Yet. Slowly, she turned to look towards where Agastya was standing.
Her heart jolted as she saw that he was looking directly at her, a dark, calculating look in his eyes. Unease unfurled inside her as she watched him watch her. What was going on in that head of his? Even as she stared at him, she watched his eyes blank out, becoming the usual impenetrable granite gaze she was familiar with. And yet, her stomach still turned. She was never doing shots again. In fact, she was never drinking vodka again.
Agastya broke their eye contact deliberately, turning his head to look at his brother.
“Get dressed,” he said quietly. “We’re going home.”
This time Harsh didn’t argue. This time no one dared breathe a word that could infuriate the oldest Kodela sibling. This time, they all knew better.
Three
AGASTYA
Agastya strode into his home, his team of seconds-in-command at his heels. Harsh peeled off towards his room without a word. Agastya pivoted on his heel when he saw his mother pointing down the hall and made his way to his father’s study. He opened the room to what looked like command central of a black ops mission. To be fair, it was pretty much that in the political world.
“The documents?” he asked tersely, addressing the question to his father’s PA who hovered beside the grand desk.
His father, he noted, hadn’t even bothered to look up at his arrival.
“They are fake, Sir.” Anand Anna, his father’s PA, announced, his tone managing to be both pompous and defensive.
“I’m not asking you for your opinion, Anna,” he replied rounding the deck and coming to stand beside his father. “I’m asking for the facts.”
His father looked up then, his furious gaze landing on Agastya. “You believe that I did this? You believe that I took pandemic relief funds from the poor and used it to…to buy you a new car or what?”
“No,” Agastya answered, his hand going to his father’s shoulder and squeezing hard. “I know you didn’t.”
“How do you know?” His father scrubbed a hand over his face, looking defeated.
“I know because I paid for that car from my account.”
A startled bark of laughter escaped his father. He grinned at Agastya. “Vedhava,” he murmured affectionately, calling him a donkey in Telugu.
At least he’d made his father smile. Agastya looked around at the people milling around, talking on their phones and typing away furiously on laptops. He cleared his throat and silence fell, all eyes turning to look at him expectantly.
“What do we know?”
No one answered.
