[POV: Rajesh]
The Malhotra penthouse didn't feel like a home. It felt like a very expensive museum where the exhibits were my parents' achievements and the main attraction was their disappointment in the living heir.
The dinner summons came via my father's assistant, Priya. Not a text. A calendar invite. Subject: Family Review - 8 PM. Attire: Business Casual. Catering: Ashok. As if it were a quarterly board meeting.
Which, for them, it was.
I stood outside the double-height lacquered doors, my knuckles hovering. I could hear the low murmur of their voices inside, the delicate clink of crystal. My uniform for the evening: dark jeans, a black cashmere sweater. Not business casual. A quiet rebellion.
I pushed the door open.
The dining room was a study in monochrome perfection. A twelve-foot marble table that could seat twenty held only three settings at one end, making the vast emptiness feel like a taunt. My mother, Anjali Malhotra, was a sculpture in cream silk. My father, Vikram Malhotra (a different, more legitimate Vikram), was already dissecting a filet mignon with surgical precision.
"Rajesh. You're four minutes late," my father said without looking up. "The foie gras amuse-bouche is compromised."
"Tragic," I said, sliding into my designated chair. The air between us was refrigerated.
My mother offered a smile that didn't involve her eyes. "Darling. You look tired. Are you sleeping? The circles." She made a vague gesture near her own perfectly contoured cheekbone.
"I'm fine."
"Ashok," my father called softly. Our butler materialized from a shadowy corner. "Serve the main. And open the '15 Margaux. We're celebrating."
Ashok glided forward with a domed silver platter. Celebrating. While I was hunting my best friend's murderer. While Divya was probably eating instant noodles and planning how to use herself as bait.
The domes were lifted. Seared scallops on a bed of something frothy and green. Food as architecture.
"So," my father began, the CEO opening the quarterly earnings call. "The Liang merger documents. Your final notes were... adequate. The board found them emotionally clouded in section 4B, but the core logic was sound. They've moved forward."
Adequate. The highest praise he'd ever given me.
"Good," I said, pushing a scallop around my plate. It tasted like nothing.
"The board is, however, concerned about your... peripheral focus." He took a sip of wine. "Your academic performance. Your group project debacle. Rohan's father is a valuable connection. You publicly humiliated his son."
"I didn't humiliate him. I prioritized."
"To a Malhotra, they are the same thing." He set his glass down with a precise click. "Your priority is the legacy. This company. Your succession. Not... extracurricular dramas."
The word dramas hung in the air, poisonous and light.
My mother reached over, placing her cool, manicured hand over mine. A gesture meant to look loving. It felt like being pinned. "We know you're grieving, beta. That Sharma boy. It's very sad. But you mustn't let it consume you. He was, after all, not family."
The air left the room. The perfectly climate-controlled, filtered air vanished.
I slowly pulled my hand out from under hers. "His name was Amit. And he was more family than either of you have ever been."
My father's knife screeched against the plate. "Mind your tone."
"Why? Will you dock my allowance? Oh wait, I pay my own bills from the trust I manage. The one you gave me to 'learn responsibility.'"
"This is exactly what I mean!" My father's voice rose a decibel, which for him was a shout. "Emotional. Volatile. Unbecoming. A man leads with his head, not his... his spleen!"
"Amit is dead!" I slammed my palm on the table. The crystal shivered. "He didn't trip. He was murdered. And I'm going to find out who did it. That is my priority. Not the Liang merger. Not Rohan's fragile ego. Not this... this performance of a family dinner!"
Silence. Thick and stunned.
My mother recovered first. "Murdered? Rajesh, that's... that's preposterous. The police said—"
"The police are wrong," I said, my voice dropping to a low, venomous calm. "He was killed because he uncovered something. Something about money. Sound familiar? That thing you care about more than oxygen?"
My father stared at me, his expression shifting from anger to something colder: analytical interest. "Uncovered something? What, precisely?"
And there it was. Not 'Are you safe?' Not 'How can we help?' What did he find? A potential business risk. A liability to be assessed.
"It doesn't matter," I lied. "The point is, your son is investigating a murder. Your only son. And your concern is my GPA."
"Don't be dramatic," my mother sniffed. "If there's a... situation, we have lawyers. We have consultants. We can make a call, have it handled quietly. There's no need for you to play detective. It's beneath you."
Handled quietly. Like a nuisance. Like a PR problem. Amit's life, his death, reduced to a 'situation.'
I looked at them—two beautiful, polished monuments to success. I saw the empty chairs where siblings might have sat. The walls where childhood photos should have been, replaced by abstracts worth more than most houses. I felt the yawning, absolute loneliness of it. The kind no amount of money could fill.
They had given me everything. And nothing.
"You don't get it," I said, standing up, my chair scraping loud in the silent room. "You never will. He was the only person who ever saw me. Not the heir. Not the portfolio. Me. And now he's gone. And you're offering me wine and consultants."
My father stood now, matching my height, his eyes blazing with a different kind of fire. "What you are doing is reckless. It is jeopardizing your future. Our future. If you are involved in something sordid, it could impact the company. The stock price. I will not allow you to set fire to generations of work because of a sentimental attachment to an orphan!"
The word orphan was the match to the gasoline.
"His name was Amit Sharma!" I roared, the sound raw and foreign in the pristine room. "He was brilliant, and kind, and he loved life more in his twenty years than you have in your entire empty lifetimes! And I would burn every share, every building, every single rupee of your precious legacy to ashes if it meant finding who took him from this world! Do you understand me? I. Don't. Care."
The silence that followed was absolute. I had crossed a line from which there was no return. I had revealed the nuclear core of my grief and my rage, and I had aimed it directly at the foundation of their world.
My mother was pale, her hand at her throat. My father's face was granite.
"Get out," he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "If this is the path you choose, you walk it alone. Do not come to us for help. Do not expect the Malhotra name to shield you when you fall. You are on your own."
It wasn't a threat. It was a disownment.
I looked at them one last time—my creators, my curators, my wardens. I felt a terrifying, exhilarating freedom. The last tether had been cut.
"Fine," I said.
I turned and walked out of the dining room. I didn't slam the door. I closed it softly, the final, gentle click more final than any scream.
In the echoing marble foyer, Ashok stood holding my leather jacket. His old, kind eyes held a sadness that my parents' never could. "Your car is downstairs, Rajesh-beta."
I took the jacket. "Thank you, Ashok."
"Will you be... alright?"
I looked at the closed dining room doors, behind which my parents were probably already discussing damage control. I thought of Divya, with her shears and her fury. Of a grey ghost in a market. Of Amit's laugh.
"No," I said honestly. "But I'm not alone."
I walked out into the night. The city lights spread out below, a galaxy of chaos and life. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Divya.
Divya: Bait plan is stupid. I'm in. When do we start?
I looked up at the cold, starless sky above my parents' penthouse. I was exiled. I was alone. But I had a partner. And a war to fight.
I texted back, my fingers steady.
Me: We start now. Meet me at the usual place. And bring your scissors. It's time to build a trap.