Page 56 of A Royal Deception

“When did you last fence?” he asked, stepping back to let me breathe.

“A long time ago.”

“I’ll arrange for an instructor to give you a brush-up if you like.”

“When did you last fence?” I countered.

“Last week,” he replied with his signature smirk. “I train every day. You can join us tomorrow morning if you like.”

Fuck! I was in so much trouble.

CHAPTER 21

RANVIJAY

Iwanted nothing more than to show Shivina around the rest of the armoury. We had just seen the blades. She hadn’t even seen the guns yet. But my phone buzzed in my back pocket, and I knew it was time to go.

“We’ll continue the rest of the tour tomorrow, Shivina. After your training,” I promised, leaning forward to nuzzle the side of her neck.

She tilted her head to give me better access, and I nipped at the tender skin under her ear. She hissed in response, and I knew that if I carried her upstairs right now and laid her on our bed, she’d give herself to me willingly. But I had made a commitment to my friends, and I was a man of my word. Which meant I had to leave my beautiful wife and go hunting in the desert under the scorching sun. For Ayush Goel.

Dheer had just sent word that he had escaped from prison and had vanished into the desert after swearing vengeance onthe Trikhera, Jadhwal and Mirpur royals. Veer and I had to smoke him out before he acted against us.

My friends wanted me to stay home with my new wife, but I knew that the sooner we found Ayush, the sooner we could all be home with our wives. With a groan of regret, I forced myself to step away from Shivina. She looked up at me in confusion.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have to go,” I whispered.

“Where are you going?”

“I have some important work, but I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

She nodded and followed me out. Veer was waiting for me in the courtyard and waved at Shivina, who frowned as she saw us climb into the armoured car. We had a meeting with an informant in one of the hamlets nearby, and I was a little concerned that Ayush had chosen to hole up so close to my palace. It was quite a brazen gesture, as if he didn’t care if we found him. And right now, I needed him to be very afraid.

Ayush Goel was the scion of one of India’s richest families who had built their wealth through drug smuggling and gun running. From what I’d heard, they were trying to branch out into human trafficking as well. My friends and I were trying to shut down their operations because we were sick of the local mafia holding back progress on our lands.

It wasn’t just that they were choking out infrastructure updates to the region, but they were actively acquiring land near the India-Pakistan border to facilitate cross-border smuggling. And they weren’t doing it legally. When they began to encroach on Dheer’s land in Trikhera, the three of us decided to clean up the trash from the lands that our ancestors once governed.

“Who’s this guy again?” I asked as I settled into the seat.

“Harmu Patel,” replied Veer. “He’s a tour guide who takes firang tourists on over-priced camel rides into the desert. He’s one of Kirori Ji’s men.”

In the past, Kirorimal Talati would have had a glorious career as a kingmaker. But in these democratic times, he had to settle for being a sarpanch and informer. Kirori Ji had single-handedly guided Dheer through the most troubled period of his life after his father’s death when he had discovered that his father, the previous Maharaja of Trikhera, was actually an illegal arms dealer. And that the entire Trikhera fortune was propped up by the illegal economy of which he was king.

Dheer had broken off his relationship with Diya to protect her from the fallout of this discovery and had dedicated the rest of his life to righting those wrongs. Instead of taking on the mantle of being his father’s successor, he had shut down all of his father’s illegal businesses, and that’s how we discovered the extent of the rot in Trikhera, Jadhwal and Mirpur, which were three cities connected by the same national highway.

When Dheer discovered that Ayush Goel had resumed his activities on Trikhera land, we had come together to put a stop to it. Until recently, Ayush Goel was in prison on a murder charge, but he’d managed to escape, and we were building up to a grand confrontation with the bastard.

“Is he positive the man he saw is Ayush?”

“Yes,” replied Veer. “He’s seen him around before. Seems to have close relatives in the area.”

“And why aren’t we passing this information to the police?”

“Because you can’t break out of a maximum security prison without inside help,” said Veer grimly. “We have to handle this ourselves.”

“All right. If Ayush Goel dies, his organisation will come crashing down. We’ve already broken their spine by shuttingdown their cocaine labs and delivery routes. Let’s end this today,” I said with renewed determination.

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