Aarohi

The world pretended to be normal. The biryani steamed between platters of kebabs and naan. Glasses of nimbu pani scotch sweated rings onto the tablecloth. This was what important events smelled like in her father's house — cardamom, ghee, and the ease of men who never worried about being caught.

Aarohi observed the far end of the gold detailed marble table — polished so hard it mirrored the crystal chandelier above. Her father, sitting at the head, was carving mutton for someone, like any ordinary man.

Stilling her jittery knee, she counted the seats next to him without meaning to. Uncle Rehan, filling her fathers glass with shikanji like he filled their godown with cash. Bua ji, chatting with mother about family. She'd taken over the eastern routes after retiring her cheating husband with a bullet. Then twins, who never spoke to each other in public and never needed to. Their bribes network made sure every pig grunted their language.

Each one of them had earned their seat near her father— a shipment moved, a rival bled, a debt collected in something other than money.

But, each one of them had been given a chance to earn it.

Aarohi always had to sit far away from the things that mattered. Accountings, administrations, offices. Nowhere near real power.

“Hey Aarohi, heard you are getting pretty good at laundering”, a nasally voice called.

She peeled her eyes from her father's circle with effort to address the imbeciles behind. Joking and gossipping, blind that they sat even farther away.

“Oh please, I've always been good,”

“I spilled some chutney on my shirt, launder it for me then”

High-fives. Laughter. Oh Damns.

Aarohi rolled her eyes the antics. She hated to engage but her father had taught her. Disrespect can never be tolerated.

“All the money I've been laundering for your family is clearly being wasted. Tell you what, if you strip off your shirt right now, I'd wash it for you.”

The boy toyed with his obnoxious lion button. “If you wanna see me naked so badly visit me privately at night”, he said with a lewd wink.

A lion can not pay heed to barking dogs. And a lion can not stab them either. So aarohi turned away with a shake of her head. "I'd shoot myself if I had to suffer your presence longer than I need to."

Enough. Today will be her last day sitting among these children.

She thought of the warehouse at 2 a.m. — diesel and river water thick in the air, the tremor in her hands that she'd refused to let slow her down. She thought of the guard posted alone outside, and the quiet after she'd slit his throat. She thought of creeping into the office next, her own heartbeat louder than the hum of the servers, standing frozen with her eyes on the door while the shipment files copied onto her drive — because there was no one behind her. No backup. Just her.

She had the photos. She had the routes. She had the pendrive. She had, folded into a chit, like something shameful the notes in her own handwriting — timmings, names, the small mechanical details that would tell her father this pendrive was not luck.

All she needed was one gap in the noise. One moment when the table went quiet enough that her voice, unpracticed as it was at commanding rooms like this, wouldn't be swallowed whole.

Her father laughed at something Uncle Rehan said, head tipped back, throat working, and for a second the whole room seemed to laugh with him, orbiting his pleasure the way it orbited everything else about him. Aarohi watched his hands — the same hands that had once steadied hers around a gun she wasn't supposed to be holding, then taken it away before she could learn anything from it.

Later, she told herself. When the plates are cleared. When Uncle Rehan stops talking. When Baba is looking this way and not that way.

Beneath the table, her knee started again without her permission. She pressed it flat with her palm, harder this time, until it hurt a little, until stillness became a kind of discipline instead of an accident.

Leaders do not fidget.

She reached for her water glass instead of the biryani, and drank, and watched her father's face for the gap she needed.

The aroma of condensed milk filled the air, cries of excitement rising as a maid brought in the kheer. Dessert. Dinner had come and gone, and the gap she needed still hadn't opened.

Strike while the metal's hot. And if it isn't? Strike until it is.

She was done waiting. Interrupting Buaji Aarohi called out, "Baba!"

Her father's gaze landed on her, and one by one, the rest of the table followed.

"Yes Aarohi?"

"Um, Baba — I wanted to tell you something. You know how you were saying that day, it'd be good if we could find out the alternate routes those Mehras might be using for the shipments?"

"No. We don't talk business while we're eating."

Aarohi's hand, about to showcase the pendrive, froze. "But Baba..."

"Later Ruhi. And why is your plate still piled with food? Looks like you've barely touched it."

The soft reprimand sent Aarohi straight back to being a little girl. Her father hated wasted food — he used to sit beside her and wait, however long it took, until her plate was clean.

"Sorry, baba. I'll finish it in my room later," she said. She swallowed the urge to plead — will you sit with me while I finish? — Baba had important things to do.

His attention had already drifted to one of the twins. His face gave nothing away, but Aarohi knew how to read the flare of his nostrils. It meant business. Something had gone wrong.

Baba pushed back his chair, and the whole table rose with him. Jumbled phrases, greetings, goodbyes — Aarohi let all of it pass over her. Childish perhaps, but she couldn't help though- do rules exist only for her? .

The room split into two kinds of people then: those heading off to sleep, and those following Baba into the study to talk business.

Aarohi stayed exactly where she was. The far end of the table.

Hours after the the dinner, crickets and moonlight accompanied Aarohi as she marched towards the study– utilitarian, custom made and off-limits. The doors, teak and iron-banded, thick enough to muffle a gunshot, were barred shut.

I should go sleep. She knocked. Once. Twice. Louder each time.

She glanced down the corridor, empty and unlit, before bending to listen at the gap beneath it. Thick wood, thicker carpets — both conspiring against her. But if she pressed her ear just right, she could make out the low thread of jazz, and under it, the gravel rasp of her father's voice. She smelt smoky burn of scotch even through the door. That was confirmation enough.

No one would be hearning her knocks tonight. Short of putting a bullet through the hinges, nothing was getting this room's attention.

Unless…

Aarohi leaned out of her bedroom window, The study window sat directly below — close enough to see clearly, too far to reach without letting go of something solid. She measured the drop with her eyes, and felt her stomach measure it too.

Lions aren't afraid to jump their prey. But they only jump the prey that won't kill them back.

She pulled herself back inside.

From her weapon drawer, she took out a nylon rope. She knotted one end around the bed frame, tested it with her full weight, then looped the other end around herself . A harness built out of nothing but rope and nerve. She eased herself out the window and lowered herself hand over hand, short measured steps, until her feet found the ledge below.

The glass was too thick to kick through, and firing blind into it would send shards — or worse, a stray round — into whoever sat on the other side. But the latch was only wood, and wood she could work with.

She drew her gun, aimed low at the base of the latch, and braced against the recoil. The wood splintered fast enough that a single kick finished the job, and the window swung open with a crack.

She used what was left of the rope like a line, swinging herself through the gap feet-first. She hit the study floor hard, glass and splinters skittering around her — and looked up to find every gun in the room already drawn, and already pointed at her.