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Veda ignored their little sideshow, watching her father instead as he finally turned towards the house and entered. She was about to go down and greet him, tell him she was here for the night, when she saw headlights cut through the dark of the driveway again. She didn’t need to see the car closely to know who it was. She would recognise that convoy of white Innovas anywhere.
Agastya was out of the car before anyone could open the door for him. His bodyguard, Naresh, rushed to keep up with his angry strides. The rest of the retinue hung back letting their boss storm the Gadde citadel.
“I thought he was in Delhi,” Raashi murmured.
Veda had thought so too. She heard the angry buzzing of the doorbell and then the quiet murmur of the helper who opened the door. And then the door shut with a quiet slam behind them, the only sound left was that of the crickets on a humid night.
“I’ll go see what’s happening,” Ram said, squeezing Veda’s shoulder for comfort.
“No,” she said her gaze swinging from the driveway to him. “Don’t do that.”
“Why?” He frowned at her. Raashi’s stayed silent, her gaze darting between her two older siblings.
“Put the news on first,” Veda said hoarsely. “Put City News on. We don’t go down until we know what we’re dealing with.”
Thirty-Three
AGASTYA
“Who’s your source?”
Chaitanya Gadde leaned back in his high-backed red leather chair, a smug grin on his lips as he watched his furious son-in-law. “You can’t possibly think I’ll answer that,” he drawled.
“I found out the truth about the culprit a couple of hours ago.” Agastya stood in the middle of the room, his back ramrod straight. He’d left his guard and aides outside the door, not trusting anyone to be in the room anymore. “And your channel ran its story less than an hour later.”
“Is that so? What a coincidence!” Gadde Sr. examined the whiskey in his glass, his eyes gleaming in the lamplight that illuminated the study in its dim glow. “Are you sure you won’t have a drink?”
Agastya tamped down on the rage that threatened to spill over. “I’m sure.”
Silence fell in the room as the two men studied each other, predators to the core, unwilling to be the first to yield.
“Sit down, Agastya,” his father-in-law said, his tone paternal. “Let’s talk about this.”
The fake concern would have gone down better if this man hadn’t just shoved a knife in Agastya’s back, a serrated, rusted one at that.
Agastya sat, knowing that anything else would make him look like a petulant toddler. Strangely, that was exactly how he felt. He’d been betrayed and outplayed all in one day. An unusual occurrence for him and not one that sat well with his pride.
Chaitanya placed a glass with two fingers of scotch on the table in front of Agastya. “Drink,” he told the younger man.
Agastya didn’t touch the glass. Exhaustion, stress, and an unspoken grief weighed him down. He’d lost someone important today. Someone who mattered to him. He mourned the man even if he was still alive and kicking. He mourned the memory of whom he’d thought he was. The last thing Agastya needed was to add alcohol to his tumultuous emotions.
“Have you ever thought of who stands to lose the most in this whole fiasco?” Chaitanya asked, his tone musing like they were discussing the latest movie release.
“My father,” Agastya said automatically, still staring at the glass in front of him. The politically correct lie sat awkwardly on his tongue.
Chaitanya snorted. “That’s what he’d like to think.”
Agastya raised his eyes to his father-in-law. “Who is it, according to you?”
The older man pointed his finger at Agastya, the faintest glimmer of a smile on his face. “You’re supposed to be a smart one, Agastya Kodela. Surely, you can put it together.”
“Do you think I haven’t?” Agastya asked, his voice going lethally soft. “He was my PA. MINE. Ganesh knew what he knew, had the opportunities he did, because of me. I trusted him. He was more than an assistant. He was my friend. And when the world has time to assimilate the news, I’m the one who looks like the biggest fool. The biggest loser in this whole situation is me.”
Chaitanya leaned against the table in front of where Agastya sat. “Yes,” he said simply.
Agastya rose to his feet, towering over the other man. “I’m married to your daughter,” he reminded him. “Do you really want to make an enemy of me?”
“What has that got to do with anything?” Chaitanya asked, goading him. “That is personal. This is business. The news is my business, Kodela. You can’t expect me to pass on a story like this, especially when it was sent to me with proof. It’s not personal. It never was.”
