The Pratap Singh file was thick.

Sia had read it twice the night before. Not because she needed to. Because she needed to know exactly who she was walking into.

Pratap Singh family. Old money. Political connections.

Vikram Pratap Singh–3-term MP. And his son. Yashveer Pratap Singh.

Yashveer was photographed at approximately every party that mattered in Delhi and Mumbai between 2018 and now.

Currently linked to–she had stopped counting at four names.

The scandals were recent. A model. A leaked conversation. A financial irregularity that his father's people had managed to keep at the level of rumour but just barely.

The account itself was stable. The previous manager had handled it for over a decade.

Which meant two things — trust, and habits that hadn’t been questioned in years.

Sia closed the file. Picked up her coffee. And walked into the meeting room.

She was early. She always was. File placed neatly. Pen uncapped. Phone checked once, then turned face down.

This was supposed to be simple — a restructuring discussion before the financial year closed.

.

At 4:07 the door opened. Not the aide. Not Vikram Pratap Singh. Him.

He walked in like the room had been waiting for him. Dark jacket, no tie, the kind of watch that didn't need to announce itself.

He looked at her the way men like him look at young women—quick, complete, and already decided. Then he pulled out the chair across from her and sat.

Not a question.

She slid her card across the table

Sia held his gaze for a second. Then looked back at her file.

A small silence.

That landed. Not heavily. Just… clearly.

He tilted his head slightly. The corner of his mouth moved–not quite a smile, something more like the beginning of deciding to be charming.

She picked her card back up and put it in her file.

She stopped. Looked up.

Sia looked at him the way she looked at accounts that didn't balance.

Silence.

He looked at her with an expression she couldn't immediately categorise.

He leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table.

Something shifted in his face. Not anger. Something quieter than anger.

She flipped the file open to a specific page and turned it toward him.

He looked at the page. She watched his eyes move across the numbers.

He was quiet for a moment.

Yashveer sat back in his chair.

The room was different now. She had felt it shift–the moment he stopped looking at her face and started actually listening.

She had felt this before, with other clients. It usually took longer.

She capped her pen.

He almost smiled. A different kind than before. Less performed.

She picked up her file.

He said, one more time. But this time it was quieter. Like he wasn't sure why he kept saying it.

She left. Yashveer sat in the empty meeting room for a moment longer than necessary.

He picked up his phone. Put it down. Picked it up again. He texted his father's aide.

He paused. Added–

.

To be continued..

Yashveer Pratap Singh

Age: 34 Height: 6'1" Location: South Delhi. Family penthouse in Lutyens Delhi Profession: Political figure. Currently building his own independent political party. Secretly. Personality: *Observant — reads rooms without appearing to, stores information quietly *Effortlessly charismatic; knows how to be liked and uses it when needed. *Composed in public, internally more restless than he admits Weakness: *Avoids emotional depth, keeps things surface-level by design *Pride interferes with honesty, especially with himself *Treats relationships as temporary unless proven otherwise Status: Unmarried. Known for multiple casual relationships–some real, some rumoured, none taken seriously.

Sia Saxena

Age: 27 Height: 5'5" Location: Delhi. Vasant Vihar. Profession: Senior Relationship Manager. Private Banking Division. Manages ultra high net worth client portfolios. The person powerful people trust with the architecture of their money. Personality: *Precise. Not cold — precise. She has stopped explaining the difference *Self-sufficient to a degree that occasionally becomes a problem *Honest with a directness that most people are unprepared for *When she decides something–it is decided. Full stop Weakness: *Files feelings under irrelevant until they are impossible to ignore *Trusts slowly. Status: Unmarried

Vikram Pratap Singh

Yashveer's Father

Age: 64 Height: 5'11" Location: Lutyens Delhi penthouse. Profession: Member of Parliament. Third term. Personality: *Never raises his voice. Has never needed to *Patient in the way of someone who learned time is more effective than anger *Reads people as resources or obstacles. Rarely as people *Politically intelligent with the specific intelligence of forty years survival *Presence that changes the temperature of a room on entry Weakness: *Cannot distinguish between love and ownership *Ego that has never been successfully challenged Status: Married to Sumitra Singh.

Sumitra Singh

Yashveer's Mother

Age: 58 Height: 5'4" Location: Lutyens Delhi. Profession: Home maker Personality: *Warm in the specific way of someone with a great deal to give and a limited number of people permitted to receive it *Notices everything. Comments on very little Weakness: *Has made peace with a situation that perhaps did not deserve peace *Could not protect the people she loved from the house they shared Status: Married to Vikram Pratap Singh

Ashok Saxena

Sia's Father

Age: 60 Height: 5'9" Location: Agra. Profession: Senior government officer. Agra district. Personality: *Technically always correct–this is both his personality and his method *Cannot hear what he has not asked *Measures people by achievement. Has no other metric Weakness: *Has never once asked the people closest to him what they want Status: Married to Kiran Saxena

Kiran Saxena

Sia's Mother

Age: 52 Height: 5'4" Location: Agra. Profession: Home maker Personality: *Warm in the way that is real and not performed *Careful–the specific carefulness of someone navigating unpredictable terrain for decades *Loves deeply and expresses it in whatever ways remain available *The most honest person in every room she enters. Weakness: *Has absorbed things that should not have been absorbed *Could not give her daughter the protection she deserved Status: Married to Ashok Saxena

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To be continued..

Same Day–7 Pm

Rahul Sharma's cabin had one chair across from his desk and a window that faced the parking lot.

Sia sat in the chair with the file open on her lap.

Silence.

[Rajat Mehta is Vikram Pratap Singh's old manager–Sia's senior]

Rahul took the file from her. Looked at the pages she'd marked.

Rahul closed the file. Looked at the parking lot for a moment.

She took the file. Stood.

.

Night–9 Pm

Yashveer's Room

He read the same file at his desk. His own copy. Pulled from the account records his father's office kept separately–the real ones, not the ones that went to the bank.

He found it in twenty minutes.

He sat back. Not angry. Just–still.

Mehta had been with the account for eleven years. Had come recommended through a party contact

He picked up his phone. Called Vedansh–not a friend exactly, more like someone who knew where to find things.

He ended the call. Looked at the file again.

The fourteen lakhs didn’t bother him. It was small. It was too consistent to be accidental.

His phone buzzed forty minutes later. He read Vedansh's message. Read it again.

He set the phone down.

He called his father's office manager. Kept it short.

He ended the call. Closed the file.

He sat for a moment in the quiet of his study. The irritation was already gone–or not gone, just filed somewhere useful.

He didn't know what to do with that yet.

.

To be continued...