may decide to forget them.”
Payal had never been meant to actually take up the mantle. But then two things had happened in quick succession.
Pranath Rao had suffered his accident.
And Lalit had been caught by their paternal aunt doing something for which there could be no rational explanation when he was meant to be in full control of his urges: using a knife to carve shapes into the body of a teenaged maid employed at Vara for domestic duties. He’d been in an unlocked room with an old lattice window that allowed passersby a view inside should they glance that way.
Payal had been lucky that day—she’d happened to walk by as their aunt confronted Lalit. Using Lalit’s distraction as cover, she’d teleported to the girl, then out with her to an undisclosed location. She’d made a point of building a mental database of locations Lalit couldn’t access, including an old farmhouse that she’d bought with money from a small business venture.
That far in the countryside, it had cost less than nothing—and the caretaker wasn’t aware it was in his name. He just knew that the owner paid him handsomely to look after the place and take care of any guests. Because while Payal hadn’t been able to save the homeless man, the maid was far from the first person she’d taken to the sanctuary of the farmhouse.
Leaving the wounded maid to be tended to by a rural human doctor who never saw Payal, only the caretaker, she’d then made her way to her father’s secure recovery suite—a month after his accident and he was back at work, though under medical watch. He’d also already ordered renovations to the basement area he intended to turn into his long-term base of operations. She’d made her report about Lalit’s relapse while her brother was still in the midst of telling their aunt she needed to forget this for her own good.
“I’ll be in charge soon enough,” he’d been saying when Payal last heard. “You’ll be under my control—and I don’t like people who get above their station.”
After making her report, Payal had delivered her coup de grâce. “Lalit has so little foresight that he was recording the encounter. When I teleported the girl out, I also took the recording—I’ll forward you a copy.”
“What do you intend to do with this information, Payal?” Pranath’s eyes were as motionless as a snake’s slitted pupils.
“Hold it over Lalit’s head. You can make him your heir, but I’ll destroy him and the family in retaliation.” The threat had been a carefully calculated gamble, Payal all too aware of the thousands of blameless people who relied on the Rao family for their livelihoods. “He’s irrational, Father. He’ll take our family name to the gutter. Lalit is driven by his urges, not by reason.”
Pranath Rao had smiled the same cold smile Lalit so often mimicked. “Well done, daughter. I didn’t think you had it in you.” A cool murmur. “You do realize I know every location you could’ve possibly utilized.”
Payal had held his eyes without fear, her ability to wall off the rage of her emotions the best trick she’d ever taught herself. “I’ve run my own small business since I was fifteen. Did you actually believe I showed you all my profits?” Payal had learned by watching her family, and what she’d learned was never trust anyone. “Try to find the girl or the recording. You’ll fail.”
After a long, tense minute, while Payal stood unflinching, Pranath Rao had brought his hands together in a slow clap. “Brilliant. You are my true heir after all—Lalit never saw you waiting to strike at his back.”
Now Payal took the elevator to the basement level of Vara, a windowless and highly secure area that could be accessed only by a limited number of people. All were Psy, and all but Payal and Lalit were fanatically loyal to Pranath Rao.
Which was why their father had other ways of controlling his children.
After exiting the elevator, she keyed in her private entry code on the doors to the main suite, then stood still for the retinal scan. She should’ve been able to teleport in, but her father had a group of staff on duty whose sole task was to alter elements of his work space in ways that stopped a teleport lock.
The team did this every single time after a visit from Lalit or Payal.
What some might call paranoia, their father called good security, and Payal couldn’t fault him for it. Lalit, at least, was fully