chapter 5

Chapter FourThe Trap Beneath the ThroneMorning came without warning.No sunrise. Just light bleeding through the storm-soaked windows of the haveli, pale and cold.Rani Saheb was already dressed. Not in red this time.Today, she wore black. Crepe silk, pleated like it had something to hide. Her hair was knotted tight at the nape of her neck, and her kohl-lined eyes didn’t belong to someone who’d just woken up.She hadn’t slept.Downstairs, Dev sat at the breakfast table, chewing slowly through a plate of paratha like a man waiting for a bullet.They hadn’t spoken since the drink.No sudden arrests. No poison. No seduction. Just silence.That was worse.Maya entered, silent as shadow. She placed a file beside Rani, nodded once, and left without a word.Rani didn’t look at it immediately. She poured herself tea first. Slow. Intentional.“Are you going to keep ignoring me, or should I fake a heart attack?” Dev called from across the room.She didn’t smile.“You speak like a man who’s forgotten where he is.”He stood, walked toward her, slowly. “Oh, I remember. Every corner of this palace breathes fear. Even your mirrors look afraid to show you the truth.”She looked up, amused.“You’re still alive, Dev. That means you either interest me…” she leaned forward, “...or you’re useful.”He pulled out the chair across from her. “Let’s assume both.”She slid the file toward him. “Sircar. Arms deals. Three men from my side feeding him intel. All verified.”He raised a brow. “You checked?”“I watched them die.”Dev exhaled through his nose. He hadn’t expected her to move that fast. Or that coldly. Dev tried to say something but he couldn't. Rani watched them to die! What a terrible statement!Rani sipped her tea quietly. Dev saw her lips to kiss the cup. Those are beautiful. But those lips just said the horrible thing.“You’re not lying,” she said softly. “At least, not about that as per my assumption.”He hesitated. “You’re welcome.”“I didn’t say thank you.”He smirked. “You almost did.”Rani looked at Dev with irritation in her eyes. But Dev was smiling then looking at Rani. It felt as if he can spend hours by just his that kind of unfunny humour with Rani by just looking at her.Elsewhere. Same morning.A phone buzzed in a locked room somewhere in Udaipur.Sircar didn’t answer it right away. He was watching something.A video feed.Rani. Dev. The chessboard. The whisky.He leaned back, stroking the edge of a scar that ran across his jaw. It is the medel of a great inhuman brutal war that was won by him.“She’s keeping him close,” his second-in-command said.Sircar didn’t blink. “She’s toying with him. That’s her weakness. She enjoys the game too much.”“And him?”Sircar finally looked away from the screen.“He doesn’t know yet. But he’s going to bring her straight to me.”He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes.“She thinks she’s the queen.”He stood, poured himself a drink, and raised the glass like a toast.“But even queens fall when they protect the wrong knight.”Back at the haveli, Rani paced her war room. Maps. Routes. Names circled in red. A storm brewing in ink.Dev stood in the corner, arms folded, studying her silently.“You trust me now?” he asked.Rani didn’t stop pacing.“I trust nothing,” she said. “But I listen.”He walked up to the map, eyes scanning the marks she’d made. “Sircar’s next hit is on Route 47. That’s where he’ll bleed you dry.”She turned, slowly. “And you know this how?”He hesitated. Just for a second. Rani noticed. She always noticed.Dev’s voice dropped. “Because I’ve been on that route. Once. A long time ago. Things were different.”“How different?”He didn’t answer. Just stared at the red-circled point.Rani stepped closer.“I don’t need your whole story, Dev. Just tell me one thing.”“What?”“When this burns… and it will burn… are you going to be standing with me, or running the other way?”He looked her dead in the eye.“I haven’t decided yet.”She didn’t blink.“Good,” she said. “That makes two of us.”That night, an explosion ripped through the quiet valley outside the city.A weapons cache. One of Rani’s.Burned to ash.Sircar’s message was clear.This was no longer strategy.This was war.(Nxt)