Page 237 of The Redemption
My fist clenches. Not because the information is unbelievable, but because it involves Siya. My first instinct is to protect her from it.
Does she know? Maybe she herself has no idea.
“She already knows,” Haider quietly adds, as if reading my thoughts.
Siya knows? Then why the f*ck didn’t she tell me?
Before I can process everything, a movement catches my eye.I turn my head towards the doorway and freeze at the sight of Siya standing there, looking as though the ground beneath her feet has vanished without warning. She looks shaken, not because her true identity has been exposed, but because of the other revelation. The one she never saw coming.
She has just heard the name of the man responsible for her father’s murder. The very man who, no matter how ruthless or flawed he may have been, was still the brother she grew up with. That same man who now sits at the head of the Vardhaan empire.
Samarjeet Vardhaan.
CHAPTER 44
SAMARJEET VARDHAAN
Two hours back (Cape Town, South Africa)
“Ikilled my father, Shamsher Vardhaan.”
The revelation freezes both men sitting across from me at the table. Parag Reddy stops midway through lifting his glass of whiskey, while Singhal’s fingers still around the cigar he was about to light. Neither man blinks. They just stare at me as though waiting for me to laugh and tell them it was all a joke.
I don’t.
I lean back in my chair and take a slow sip of whiskey, letting the silence stretch between us. Men like us build empires on murder. Each man sitting in this room has blood on his hands. But what shocks them is the fact that I didn’t kill an enemy.I killed my own father.
“Youplanned your own father’s brutal assassination?” fifty-five-year-old Hemant Singhal finally asks as he lights his cigar.
“You heard me,” I reply coldly.
Their disbelief turns into shock.
“But why?” Parag asks, setting his glass down. “Do you realise you broke the oldest law of our mafia world? We don’t kill our kin unless they are traitors. It’s a law every mafia family swears to uphold, and you broke it willingly?”
“I don’t give a f*ck about that law.” I slam my fist on the table between us. “And I don’t give a f*ck about my kin either.”
The room falls silent again. Parag and Singhal stare at the madness in my eyes before exchanging a wary glance.
“I killed Shamsher Vardhaan because he deserved to die.”
The name alone is enough to stir years of resentment inside me. I can still hear his voice. Still see the disappointment in his eyes. Still remember how he looked right through me, as if I was never enough.
I was the heir to the Vardhaan empire. The son of Shamsher Vardhaan. Yet everything in that house revolved aroundher.
I rise from the table, walk towards the large glass wall overlooking Cape Town, and stare at the city spread out beneath me. There are thousands of lights, thousands of people, and thousands of men willing to kill for power. And I’m one of them.
“He wasmyfather,” I begin. “He was supposed to groom me to be his successor. He was supposed to hand me the empire one day, but instead, he spent half his life making me prove that I deserved it.” A humourless smile touches my lips. “Every operation I completed, every territory I expanded, every rival I crushed… and still, nothing changed. He continued to look at me as though I was a reckless child who wasn’t ready for any of it.”
I take another sip of whiskey before turning around. “And then there was Siya. Always the centre of everything. My father’s biggest weakness.”
Neither of the men looks away.
“My father loved her. My mother adored her. The Vardhaan men respected her. From the moment he brought Siya into our family, she became the apple of his eye, while I was pushed further and further into the background.” My fingers tighten around the glass. “Everything always revolved around her. It was always Siya’s comfort, Siya’s choice of vacation, Siya’s happiness… Siya, Siya, Siya… My foot.”
I hurl the glass onto the floor. It shatters instantly, whiskey splashing across the floor as the sound echoes through the room.
“She wasn’t even his real daughter,” I mutter, staring at the shards of glass. “I was his son, the one who was supposed to inherit everything. And yet, somehow, Siya always mattered more to him. My own father behaved like she was his only responsibility, as though she was the true heir to his empire... not me. A girl with no Vardhaan blood was treated like royalty, while the son carrying the family name was treated like a disappointment.”
