Bound by Ashes

Chapter 2 - Shadows at the Table

"Blood ties are chains of their own — sometimes the only ones strong enough to pull you back."

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An obsidian sky hung low over Mumbai, draped in a misty haze that turned the city's restless heartbeat into something muffled, almost secretive. The monsoon clouds had rolled in earlier than usual, soaking the skyline in a pale, silvery gloom. Rain had left the streets slick and reflective, as if the city itself were a restless sea, mirroring the lights that burned through its veins.

From the sixty-fourth floor of the Rajvansh Global headquarters, the city below looked like a board of scattered jewels — brilliant, but distant. In the glass-encased conference room, that distance felt deliberate.

The air inside was a different climate altogether: cool, crisp, sharp with the scent of expensive coffee and power. A long mahogany table stretched down the room, polished to such a sheen that the recessed lighting created a mirror of the men and women seated around it. They were dressed in suits tailored so well they could've been sewn directly onto their skin, but not one of them looked comfortable.

Because Abhimaan Rajvansh was in the room.

He didn't speak immediately. He never did. His presence alone was enough to shift the atmosphere from professional to oppressive in under a minute. A tall, broad-shouldered figure in a three-piece charcoal suit, his posture was effortlessly perfect — not stiff, but like a man carved from control itself. His eyes, cold and precise, moved from one face to another with the measured pace of someone cataloguing weaknesses.

At the far end of the table, a junior executive was stammering through a quarterly report. Every few sentences, his voice faltered as if he were trying to read while balancing on a cliff's edge. The numbers were fine. The delivery was not.

Abhimaan's fingers tapped once on the table — a sound so small, yet it sliced through the room.

"Mr. Khurana," his voice was low, smooth, but it held the weight of a warning, "are you nervous because you doubt your data... or because you doubt yourself?"

The man flushed, fumbling with his papers. "N-no, sir, I—"

"Then speak as if you believe in what you're saying," Abhimaan said, leaning back in his chair. The movement wasn't casual — it was calculated, making it clear that every second spent on incompetence was a second wasted.

Around the table, a few of the senior partners exchanged quick glances, careful to keep them subtle. This was how it always went: someone faltered, Abhimaan dismantled them, and the meeting moved forward like a military march.

He wasn't cruel for the sake of cruelty. But precision was his religion, and in his world, hesitation was blasphemy.

The rest of the report went smoother. Numbers rolled out, projections were debated, strategies dissected. Yet even as he listened, a part of his mind was somewhere else — somewhere darker. That ever-present hum in the back of his thoughts, like the low growl of an engine beneath polished steel.

That was when his phone buzzed. Not the one on the table — the secure one, in his inner pocket. He didn't check it immediately, but the faintest muscle in his jaw flexed.

By the time the meeting adjourned, the room felt lighter, as if everyone had been holding their breath and could now finally exhale. People filed out quickly, murmuring to one another, avoiding direct eye contact with him.