Married in Vengeance (Dynasty Rebels #4)

Chapter 1

One

RAM

He stared at himself in the mirror. He didn’t look any different. His hair had been gelled into submission, the simple pancha he was wearing gleamed in the overhead light, his square rimmed black glasses framed his blank, cold eyes.

It was his wedding day. His wedding day. He waited for an emotion, any emotion to course through him. But all he could feel, the taste of the emotion cold steel on his tongue, was vengeance.

A loud and rambunctious knocking on his bedroom door had him pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Come in,” he called, sighing.

His sisters tumbled through the door, laughing and chattering like a pair of middle schoolers. They came to stand on either side of him, both dressed to the nines in heavy kanjeevaram sarees and even heavier jewelry. Their wedding finery stood in stark contrast to the simple, cotton silk pancha he was wearing. He moved away from them without a word to pick up the angavastram and drape it over his bare shoulders.

He felt more than saw them exchange a worried glance.

“Are you all set then?” Veda asked.

He nodded, not bothering to answer beyond that.

“Amma wanted you to wear a kurta on top so she could give you the ancestral satlada to wear.”

Ram suppressed a shudder. If his mother thought he was wearing a seven strand emerald and pearl necklace, she was delusional.

“He could still wear it on his bare chest,” Raashi added with a wicked smile.

Ram snorted derisively. “Your husband might be excited to dress his bare chest up but the rest of us are happy to be normal.”

“My husband doesn’t need to dress his bare chest up,” Raashi retorted loftily, pushing her glasses up her nose with one finger. “It’s perfect as it is.”

Ram ruffled Raashi’s carefully tousled curls, ruining her hairstyle, not that this sister would care about that. Veda on the other hand would break his fingers if he dared to ruffle even one strand of her elaborate messy bun. He squinted at Veda’s head. Were those diamond studded hair pins in her bun?

“Anna, I just saw Aadhya,” Veda chattered, her face glowing with excitement. “She looks absolutely stunning. The emerald and gold saree Amma chose for her is just divine.”

He ignored that. Everything his mother chose was divine according to his sisters. They claimed she could never go wrong in her fashion choices. Not that Aadhya needed help. She would look divine in a gunny sack. His chest tightened at the thought.

Aadhya Reddy was going to be his bride. His bride. Chief Architect of Laxmi builders, heiress to a vast real estate fortune, sister to a man he considered a close friend, and failed blackmailer. It wasn’t often that someone ended up marrying a person who tried to blackmail them but then, it wasn’t often that someone was blackmailed by the very woman he craved like a drug, one injected right into his bloodstream at that.

“Are you happy, Anna? It’s finally your wedding day.” Raashi asked, lounging against his bedpost. Her pale peach and silver kanjeevaram was a more subdued choice in contrast to Veda’s traditional pink and gold one. His sisters were polar opposites, two pieces of his heart that still managed to fit seamlessly.

Ram ignored her, as he tipped his chin up and sprayed on cologne. He should have listened to his mother and worn the kurta. Not because he wanted to wear a freaking pearl necklace but because this left him feeling vulnerable. He wasn’t shy about his body, but he didn’t necessarily feel the need to flaunt it either.

“Anna??” Raashi was nothing if not persistent.

“Of course he’s happy,” Veda responded when Ram still didn’t say anything. “He’s the one who arm twisted Nanna into sending the formal proposal for Aadhya’s hand.”

Arm twisted? Ram snorted again. His father didn’t need much encouragement to send a marriage proposal for the hand of the only daughter of one of the richest families in Hyderabad, maybe even in the country. He’d practically high jumped over his office desk and run out the door the minute Ram had suggested it.

“I don’t think so,” Raashi said now, her voice cool and level as always. “He’s doing his bull snorts.”

His bull snorts? Ram almost smacked the back of her head but that might send her glasses flying across the room and he didn’t want to have to explain her broken glasses to her husband. Maybe a light smack though?

Before he could do anything though, the door opened and his father entered. “Ahh, all three of my children in one room. What more could my father’s heart want?”

“The inside scoop on the amendments to the land zoning agreement?” Veda asked drily.

“Photographic evidence of Venkat Varma, the film director’s scandalous affair and subsequent murder?” Raashi deadpanned.

“I know!” Ram snapped his fingers. “His heart wants his new buddy, Suryakanth Kodela, to tell him about the cabinet reshuffle before he announces it.”

Their father glared at them. “I should have kept having children until I produced a bearable one.”

Ram snorted before he could stop himself.

“Bull snorts,” Raashi murmured under her breath. “Never a good sign from you, big brother.”

“It’s time.” Ram’s mother made her entrance, looking ethereal as always in a yellow silk saree. “We should leave.”

“Excited?” Veda asked, squeezing his arm.

Ram met his gaze in the large floor length mirror at the end of his room. Happy? No. He couldn’t answer that question honestly, but this one…Was he excited to marry Aadhya and make her pay for her betrayal? Was he excited to finally have the woman he’d craved for years now in his bedroom and in his bed? Was he excited that vengeance would finally be his and he could use this lifetime to make her pay?

“Yes,” he said out loud, not meeting his sisters’ perceptive gaze. “Yes, I’m excited.”