Page 84 of Knot Their Arrangement

That Maharaja's actions have triggered a new revolution…

And given that enemy a reason to unleash their fury against him with not a pinch of remorse.

13

THE PRICE OF BREATH

~KAMARI~

"Meri jaan,"Maharaja's voice cuts through the darkness like a blade, the Hindi endearment for 'my dear' twisted into something ugly. "Keep breathing so loudly, and I'll stop this car on the side of the road and silence you with the cock you surely missed!"

I try to control my breathing, to suppress the panic that makes each inhale sound like a desperate gasp in the confined space of the car. But it's easier said than done when your entire world is collapsing around you, when every breath might be counting down to your last.

What would he know about fear?

Maharaja has never known real anxiety, never tasted the bitter cocktail of uncertainty that's been my constant companion since childhood. His whole life has been cushioned by privilege – not even earned privilege, but stolen wealth accumulated through generations of ruthless acquisition.

I watch his profile in the intermittent glow of passing streetlights, taking in the sharp angles of his face, the scar that marks him as someone who takes what he wants regardless of the cost.

His family built their empire on the ruins of others, swooping in with perfectly timed bids when other families faced crisis or hardship.

How many ancient bloodlines saw their legacies crumble because of men like him? How many generations of careful stewardship ended because they couldn't compete with his family's bottomless resources and criminal connections?

But who would stop him?

No one has managed it yet.

The police? Bought. The courts? Influenced. The media?

Controlled.

His reach extends into every corner of power, every institution that might hold him accountable.

He was never meant to feel like the sacrificial lamb.

Not like me.

The thought brings a fresh wave of bitterness. I wasn't born to be the favorite child, the cherished daughter. From my first breath, I was an investment – a future bargaining chip in my father's endless quest for more power, more connections, more wealth.

Never loved. Never adored.

Just assessed for value like a piece of jewelry to be traded when the price is right.

My thoughts drift to my grandmother –Nani– lying in her sickbed across the city. The last time I saw her, she could barely lift her head, years of submission to the patriarchy having worn her body down to nothing but sharp angles and quiet dignity.

Even if she knew what was happening to me now, what could she do? In our world, status is everything. Without money, without power, you're less than nothing – worth less than the garbage that lines the streets.

Would she try to help me if she could? Or would she be like my mother – another Omega broken by the system, conditioned to accept that our suffering is simply the price of existing?

The questions circle in my mind like vultures, picking at the remnants of my hope. My grandmother taught me to read, snuck me books when my father thought education would make me too independent. She was the one who first showed me that words could be weapons, that knowledge was its own form of power.

But she also taught me about survival. About keeping your head down when the storm rages, about bending so you don't break.

"Sometimes, meri beti," she would whisper, stroking my hair as I cried after another of my father's rages, "the river must flow around the mountain because it cannot move it."

But I'm tired of flowing around mountains.

Tired of reshaping myself to accommodate the immovable forces in my life.

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