The moment Ayaan sees me, his expression turns murderous.
“You killed a contract killer inside RK Estate?” he barks. “Have you completely lost your mind, Raghav?”
My eyes narrow slightly. Another thing he managed to dig up. Which means someone from the RK Estate security detail is feeding him updates without my knowledge. Not that I can stop it. This estate belongs to him as much as it belongs to me. Everything here ultimately traces back to our mother.
I prop the iPad upright against the desk and lean both palms flat on the table.
“He was there to kill Siya,” I say coldly. “What exactly did you expect me to do?”
For a second, Ayaan actually looks taken aback by that revelation. Then he completely loses his temper all over again.
“So you took a bullet for her,” Ayaan fires back. “Saved her. Then killed the shooter afterwards just to send a message to whoever hired him?”
His voice rises further.
“Do you even hear yourself right now, Raghav? Do you even realise what the hell you’re turning back into?”
I hold his gaze while he keeps listing my mistakes one after another.
“A mafia princess walks straight into RK Estate, and you don’t think informing me is important?” he continues furiously. “Then, to protect her, you withhold information about the Reddys’ arms trafficking operation from me. From GLEN. The same organisation you promised your loyalty to.”
My jaw tightens.
“Don’t question my loyalty to you or GLEN,” I retort. “You know damn well I would never let the underworld to harm any of us. The situation is already handled. The arms deal never went through. We dealt with it. The weapons are in GLEN custody,along with everyone involved. You have more than enough evidence now to bury the Reddys and everybody connected to them.” I lean closer to the screen and look straight at him. “So get over it, Ayaan.”
“Get over it?” he repeats, his voice turning dangerously low. “Do you even understand what your silence has cost us?” The room goes quiet as he continues. “Yes, the operation succeeded. The network was exposed. The ammunition was confiscated. But Parag Reddy escaped.”
My fingers slowly curl into fists over the table.
“Hadyouinformed us earlier,” Ayaan continues, “GLEN could have dismantled that trafficking route long before the movement began. We could have tracked every link in that chain beforehand. We might have even arrested Parag before he ever got on that flight to Cape Town.”
His eyes lock onto mine.
“Andthatfailure matters to me, Raghav. Especially when my own brother chose to hide things from me for a mafia princess.”
Again he called her a Mafia princess!
“Your first loyalty should have been towards me,” he goes on. “Towards GLEN. Towards taking down syndicates using the intel you promised you would always share. Not towards protecting a mafia princess from exposure.”
My fists tighten against the table. The sheer audacity of him to keep throwing that choice in my face again and again.
He still doesn’t understand that I never hid Siya because I was protecting the mafia. I hid her because I was protectingherfrom the consequences of that world. From GLEN questioning her. Tracking her. Dragging her deeper into investigations she never wanted any part of.
The second her identity came out, Siya would have stopped being a woman trying to escape the mafia. She would have become a target.
“I would f*cking do it again,” I snap so hard my jaw hurts.
Ayaan’s expression darkens further.
“Iwillprotect her every single time if I had to,” I add.
For a second, nobody speaks. Then Ayaan leans back in his chair and drags a hand through his hair.
“I swear, one day I’m going to punch that arrogance right off your face,” he says through gritted teeth.
I slowly roll my sleeves higher over my forearms before flexing my fingers once.
“Try it,” I dare him. “Because right now, even my hands are itching to break someone’s jaw.”
