Page 19 of Empowered
Shyam
Today was the wedding.
I examined myself in the full-length mirror in my hotel suite. I had just stepped out of the shower and wrapped the towel I used to dry my skin low around my waist. Droplets of moisture still coated my skin because I was too focused on my thoughts to dry myself thoroughly. My frame was leaner now; I had lost muscle mass from not working out since Amelia had been taken. The bags under my eyes were deep like valleys. I still refused to shave until she was in my arms again, so the coarse hairs on my jaw had grown long enough to just cover my skin.
I saw my father in my reflection—not the strong man who grew an empire, but the broken shell of a man in the last years of his life after my mother died.
My men usually dressed in fatigues and bulletproof vests for missions. However, we had opted for suits for this occasion. I would be easily noticed by any of my former clients in attendance, but dressing in a suit would allow me to slip by catering staff or wedding planners without standing out if needed. They would assume I was just another guest. I also wanted to send a message to Tarun that I didn’t fear him. Amelia was safe and under watch, so he no longer held the upper hand in this war.
I had just set to work on securing my tie when Jai entered my room. He was in slacks and a collared shirt and tie, with no jacket. However, thiswasdressy for him; he had the same idea about blending in as I did.
“Looking sharp.”
I eyed his reflection over my shoulder in the mirror as I tightened the knot around my neck.
“You clean up good, too,” I said.
“Almost ready to go?” he asked taking a seat on the chair near the bedroom door.
I checked my wrists again to ensure my cufflinks were in place. Satisfied with my appearance, I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and tucked it into my pocket. “Are the men ready?”
“They’re armored up and loaded with ammunition. I’ve tracked Jameson and he arrived at the house on Chandni Road five minutes ago. We’ve had surveillance confirm that it is, in fact, the site of the wedding.”
Until recently, we had no knowledge of the wedding or where it was to take place. We had gotten lucky when Jameson ran his mouth at the bar, allowing Javed to overhear him and place a tracker in him.
“Tarun’s no longer hiding the location of his house?” I asked.
“I guess he has no need to. He thinks he won over the empire.”
I supposed that was true. He had accomplished everything that he had set out to. He had stolen the women in my life and taken my business. My clients had defected to his side and no one and uttered a word about the wedding or the location to me. If Amelia hadn’t planned an escape, we wouldn’t have known where Tarun was. He felt confident that he held all the power in this vendetta, and he wanted to make a show of it, with all my ex-clients there to witness it. “He wants us to come.”
“It seems so. He’s expecting a show on his big day.”
Slipping my weapon into the waistband of my pants so that it was concealed by the back of my jacket, I smirked. “Then let’s not disappoint him.”
•••
Jai and I rode separately from our crew, with Saran as our driver. The other vans full of reinforcements rode apart from each other so as not to attract attention on the way. Although Tarun knew we would be there, we wanted to infiltrate his wedding quietly to give an edge.
One van of men headed over before the rest of us posing as wedding venue workers. Indian weddings were large and involved the building of a massive stage called amandapwhere the ceremony would take place. The stages were usually elaborately designed with heavy vases on the floor and large garlands of flowers draped around the frame. The preparations required a lot of workers, both male and female, to arrange everything perfectly. We chose our leanest men to access the wedding venue first. They had to be unassuming, so sending thick, muscular men would only have raised suspicions.
The batch of our “wedding venue” men reported back to me that they had successfully gained access.
Tarun hadn’t yet inspected the ceremony site in the back of his palace, as I was told. He was most likely too busy primping himself for his grand entrance. None of his men suspected anything out of the ordinary either. The guys we sent were younger recruits who hadn’t been seen in association with our organization yet. They had been tasked with lacing the venue with explosives, and we knew they had completed the job without error because Jai was able to locate each explosive from his phone. They would detonate at the push of a button from either of our phones.
The venue men had slipped special sedatives into the alcohol to be served at the wedding. Hindu weddings were usually a dry affair, but we were criminals, so none of us ever took that rule seriously except for Tarun, who for some reason never drank. He did, however, have bottles of champagne ready to greet his guests upon arrival. Two of my men used syringes to inject mild sedatives into each of the bottles through the corks. The cases were lined up and ready to be served, so they had to work quickly. The drug wouldn’t knock anyone out fully, but it would alter their judgment-making skills enough to not be a threat when shit went down. We didn’t want to maim anyone, just throw off their alertness before they came to Tarun’s aid. And since Tarun didn’t drink, it would be a fair fight when I got him to myself.
The other vans were instructed to wait for the wedding to start before approaching the palace. Everyone would be too preoccupied with the ceremony and directing their attention to Tarun to notice the vehicles approaching the perimeter. It was highly likely that Tarun would have guards stationed out front during the ceremony since he was expecting us and wanted to be notified when were about to infiltrate his palace, so our men were instructed to shoot-to-kill as soon as any of them were spotted. We needed the lead time to get inside before Tarun was tipped off about our arrival.
At least Amelia wasn’t being held captive inside. I had instructed Zayn to keep her at the safe space. She was, under no circumstances, allowed to leave. I had originally planned for Zayn to stay with her, but Jai had convinced me that we’d need him to coordinate the men from outside of the venue while we were inside. He would also have permissions to detonate the explosives we planted if Jai and I couldn’t do it ourselves. Amelia would be safe under guard watch, so I didn’t have to worry about her getting hurt.
Our car stopped just before reaching Chandni Road. We would wait until the festivities began to enter. In Hindu weddings, it was customary for the groom to start the ceremony with rituals of his own before the bride joined him on themandap.We timed everything exactly so we could invade before Salena joined Tarun on the stage with her father. It would be safer to take Tarun down without her present. We would free her after the coast was clear.
The weight of the revenge that lay before us weighed heavily on my shoulders. The Sethi legacy depended on today. Everything had been ripped away from me by thisbenchod.Sister fucker.Today, I would get it all back. There was no option to fail and try again later.
“Boss, the ceremony is about to start,” Javed said in his gruff voice from the front passenger seat.
“Men in place?” I asked.
