chapter 3

Chapter TwoThe Queen RemembersThe night was thick with rain.Outside the haveli, thunder rolled across the hills like drums announcing war. Inside, the candles flickered as if the walls themselves were afraid to breathe.Rani Singh stood at the edge of her private courtyard, one hand resting lightly on the stone pillar, the other swirling the last sip of her whisky. The silk of her saree clung to her back in places where the rain had kissed her skin.She wasn’t thinking about Dev Raichand.Not directly, anyway.She was thinking about men like him. Men who came wrapped in charm and half-truths. Men who smiled too easily. Men who thought they could tame a woman like her — not knowing she had buried better men beneath her throne.But Dev… he unsettled her. Not because he was dangerous. Not even because he was bold.Because he knew something.Something he hadn’t said yet.And Rani Saheb didn’t like waiting for answers.She turned, stepping back into the dim hallway, her anklet giving the faintest chime. Her guards waited near the staircase, still and silent.“Make sure he sleeps,” she said softly, not looking at them. “But not too well.”One of the guards nodded. The other hesitated.“And, Ma’am?” he asked, who hesitated first. “If he tries to leave?”Rani paused. She smiled. Not a smile that will make you smile too. It was a smile that might scare you.Her fingers brushed the edge of the dagger hidden in her waistband. The two guards look curiously towards her navel. “Then make sure he bleeds,” she said keeping that scary smile. The guards looked apart.---Sixteen years ago.Jaipur District Prison for Women.Rani was only thirteen when she saw her mother for the last time.Jaya Singh — once called Jaya the Jewel in royal circles — was now a number behind iron bars. Her wrists bruised, her lips cracked, but her spine… still proud.“Listen to me,” she whispered through the bars, grabbing Rani’s hands. “The world doesn’t forgive women who know too much.”“I don’t care,” Rani whispered back. “They can’t touch us.”Her mother smiled, bitter and beautiful.“They’ll try,” she said. “And when they do, you don’t fight fair. You fight to win.”That was the last time Rani saw her alive.Two days later, Jaya was found dead in her cell. They said suicide.Rani knew better.She remembered. And she built her empire not with love, but with that memory. Brick by brick. Betrayal by betrayal.---Back in the present, Dev Raichand stood under the cold water of the shower, the gash on his shoulder stinging.He didn’t mind the pain. He welcomed it. It reminded him he was inside the lioness’s den — alive, but only just.He closed his eyes. Images flickered.The hidden message from Aryan.The coded files on Rani’s trade routes.The photo of her mother’s trial — half-burnt, half-erased from public records.There were too many secrets here.And he was beginning to suspect…Rani Saheb wasn’t the villain.She was something worse.She was the survivor of villains.Someone who had learned to wear danger like silk and keep knives behind her smiles.He toweled off slowly, the whisky from earlier still warming his blood. Every instinct in him said to run — leave, escape while he still could.But something else held him back.Not loyalty. Not duty. Not even the mission. Curiosity.What made a woman like Rani Singh?What was she hiding?And why did he feel like the longer he stayed, the more he’d lose control?---Rani stared at the rain from her window, her reflection barely visible in the dark glass.She didn’t trust Dev.But for the first time in years, she was intrigued.He wasn’t here to seduce her.He wasn’t here to save her.He was here for something else.And she would find out what.But first, she’d make sure he couldn’t walk away.---That night, two glasses sat untouched in the drawing room. One filled with whisky. One with poison.Only Rani knew which was which.And only Dev would decide which one to drink.(Nxt)