The cognac burned a worthless path down Rishab’s throat, its expensive warmth doing nothing to thaw the block of ice in his gut. On the massive television, a well-coiffed news anchor dissected the Kapoor empire’s ruin with a surgeon’s precision. ‘Insider trading’… ‘Frozen assets’… ‘Disgraced industrialist remanded to judicial custody’. Each word was a precise, clinical stab.

Rishab didn’t hear her come in. The first he knew of Naysa’s presence was the scent of her perfume, something dark and expensive that cut through the haze of his despair, and the sharp click of her heels on the marble floor. She stood between him and the screen, a silhouette of cool indifference.