The dining room of the Singh mansion was not built for comfort; it was built for intimidation. A single slab of black Italian marble stretched twelve feet long, polished to such a high mirror finish that Sia could see the reflection of the heavy crystal chandelier hanging above them like a cluster of jagged ice.
Dinner at the Singhs' was a theater of unspoken wars.
Vikram sat at the head, his chest puffed out, still riding the high of the previous night's gala. To his right sat Aryan, who was currently preoccupied with his phone, his thumb flicking nervously across the screen. To the left, Meera sat perfectly poised, her eyes scanning the table settings for any imperfection.
Sia sat at the far end, directly opposite her father. She was dressed in a simple, high-necked cream blouse, her black hair once again pulled into that trademark, razor-sharp high ponytail. Before her sat a small porcelain bowl of Rasmalai, the saffron-tinted milk swirling slowly as she stirred it with a silver spoon.
"The Singapore deal is moving, Dad," Aryan said, finally dropping his phone. He reached for a piece of garlic naan with a hand that had a slight, almost imperceptible tremor. "Julian says we should have the signatures by Friday. We'll be the first Indian firm to bridge the tech-gap in the Straits."
Vikram beamed. "That's my boy. Expansion. Legacy. That's how you keep the Singh name on top of the skyline."
Sia took a slow, deliberate bite of the sweet. The coolness of the cream hit her tongue, but her mind was calculating the heat in the room.
The Tell-Tale Plate
"Friday seems... ambitious," Sia said softly.
The table went silent. Vikram looked down the long stretch of marble at his daughter, his eyebrows knitting together. Aryan laughed, but the sound was brittle.
"Ambitious? Sia, stick to your textbooks," Aryan scoffed. "This is high finance. Things move fast when you're a player."
"I was just looking at the catering bill from last night," Sia continued, her voice as calm as a frozen lake. She didn't look at her brother; she looked at the reflection of the chandelier on the table. "And the menu for tonight's dinner. You ordered *Hilsa* fish from Kolkata, flown in this morning. And Julian Vane's favorite vintage of scotch is sitting on the sideboard."
Aryan's smirk faltered. "So? I'm treating our partner well."
"It's a 'celebration' meal," Sia observed. "But according to the Singapore Registry, the shell company you're using—*Vane-Singh Acquisitions*—filed for a 'Notice of Delay' three hours ago. Why would you celebrate a delay, Aryan?"
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crack the marble. Vikram's smile didn't disappear—it just froze. He turned his heavy gaze toward his son. "A delay? Aryan, you told me the signatures were ready."
The Shadow Terminal
Sia's left hand was beneath the table, her thumb tracing the rim of the copper disc hidden in her lap. Under the tablecloth, the faint blue glow of the Shadow Terminal illuminated the fabric, invisible to the others.
She wasn't guessing. She was reading the real-time encrypted data she had intercepted from Julian Vane's private server.
"It's just a formality, Dad," Aryan stammered, his face flushing a deep, guilty red. "A bit of red tape with the Monetary Authority. Julian is handling it."
"Julian isn't handling it," Sia said, finally looking up. Her "baby-innocent" face was tilted slightly, her dark eyes wide and curious, as if she were asking about the weather. "Julian is shorting our tech stocks. He knows the deal won't go through because the 'assets' you're transferring don't actually exist in the Singapore shell. They've been diverted to a secondary account in the Cayman Islands."
She paused, taking another small bite of Rasmalai.
"An account registered in your name, Aryan. Not the company's."
The Crumbling Heir
Vikram slammed his fist onto the table. The crystal glasses jumped, and Meera gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
"What is she talking about?" Vikram roared, his voice shaking the paintings on the walls.
"She's lying!" Aryan shouted, standing up so quickly his chair scraped harshly against the floor. "She's a child! She's playing with her phone and making up stories to get attention!"
"I don't want attention, Brother," Sia said, her voice dropping an octave, becoming the cold, sharp edge of a knife. "I want an audit. The 'Gastronomic Audit' is quite simple: you've spent three crores on 'business dinners' in the last six months, yet the companies you dined with have no record of you. You weren't buying partnerships. You were buying silence. And Julian Vane? He isn't your partner. He's your undertaker."
She tapped her copper disc through the cloth. On the large smart-screen on the dining room wall—usually used for family photo slideshows—a series of bank statements and encrypted emails suddenly flickered into life.
The emails were clear. Aryan promising Vane a "gutted version" of the Singh Empire in exchange for a private buyout.
The New Order
Vikram looked at the screen, his face turning a terrifying shade of purple. He looked at the evidence, then at his son, and finally at the seventeen-year-old girl sitting calmly at the end of the table with a half-finished bowl of sweets.
"Sia..." Vikram whispered, his voice cracking. "How... how did you get this?"
Sia stood up. She smoothed the front of her cream blouse, her pale skin glowing in the harsh light. She looked like a classic beauty, a porcelain doll that should have been kept in a glass case.
"The world is noisy, Father," she said, walking toward the door. She stopped beside Kabir, who was standing in the shadows of the doorway, his face unreadable but his eyes full of a new kind of respect.
"I just chose to listen," she added.
She turned to her brother, who was trembling, his world collapsing around him.
"Don't worry about the Cayman account, Aryan. I've already flagged it for the Enforcement Directorate. By tomorrow morning, the Singh Empire will officially be under 'Restructuring.' And I will be the one holding the pen."
As Sia walked out of the room, her high ponytail swaying with every precise step, she didn't look back. She didn't need to. The "Silent Takeover" had moved from the ballroom to the boardroom.
And for the first time in his life, Vikram Singh realized that the most dangerous person in his empire wasn't a rival titan.
It was the daughter he had told to "just smile."