Shah’s new wife, Amish, the Widow Noor, as I’d known her most of my life, fit all of the prerequisites for the exact type of society wife he sought. A woman who looked fifteen years younger than her age and knew how to carry herself in society. Most of all, she came with a sizable portfolio of her own.
Oh, and she was as conniving as Shah. They made the perfect match.
“I breed horses. I expect the Queen of Diamonds to know the difference between horses and pigs.”
“Yeah, yeah. They’re both animals who shit on the ground.” I passed between two pillars with barely a foot and a half between them. “Whoever goes in here can’t be much bigger than me, or they will become part of the structure.”
“I still don’t understand how you never think twice about these jobs.”
I set up six more trackers designed to scan the area and give measurements of the sector to a central computer.
“Well, only a few are born in every generation with the ovaries to handle the tough situations.”
I moved to the inner wall that I knew neared Shah’s monstrosity of an office.
“Not all of us are the size of pixies.”
I snorted. “Or can handle seeing bugs. Don’t forget these scary little passages have these creepy crawly things called insects living in them.”
“Okay, children.” Neil’s voice came over my earpiece. “Let’s play nice. Not to take Carter’s side or anything, but you aren’t normal, Van. You like playing in holes that have the potential of collapsing.”
“As I said, you need ovaries to handle the hard jobs. Weren’t you the one who spent three weeks in bed with allergies? I haven’t taken a sick day except when one of you forced me to take one. And that was because I had three bullet wounds.”
“I had malaria, Van. Not allergies.” The annoyance in Neil’s voice made my jab so satisfying.
“I had it too, but I didn’t complain about it.”
We’d been on the same assignment in the Congo and received a bad preventative vaccine batch. The whole team contracted the infection, requiring all of us to helicopter out and regroup. In a matter of a few days, I’d fully recovered and returned to duties.
It annoyed the hell out of Neil and Noah that I rarely, if ever, got sick. But then again, I dealt with a lot of other shit, so I’d take any positivity thrown my way.
“Hate to break up this banter between our superiors, but—” Tasha Lee broke into the conversation, “—we are on a timetable, and according to the infrared, it looks as if you’re about to get company.”
“Thank you for keeping us in line.” I couldn’t help but smile.
Neil and I had a reputation for staying on the hard-ass side of things. Noah, not so much. Giving our team this not-so-professional side of us had probably shocked the hell out of them.
Almost as if on cue, the moment I crouched down to move through a low-lying area, the echo of voices reached my ears.
“Going silent,” I whispered. “Shah’s office is occupied.”
Taking ginger steps, I positioned myself close to the area where, a hundred years ago, the owners had created an escape route, but Shah had sealed it up. Luckily, he hadn’t completed the job perfectly, allowing me a tiny view into the room.
“We shouldn’t be in here. If Sir finds out we are snooping, do you understand the consequences?”a male voice pleaded in Gujarati.
All of Shah’s staff spoke his native Indian language. It was a requirement for employment, and he allowed no other language spoken in the house unless guests were in residence.
A female responded in the same language.“I don’t care anymore. Danika said we could come live at her home. Even Jayna said we could go to Miami and stay with her mother. I won’t let that man lord over us anymore. How can you condone what is happening?”
“Danika is pregnant. What if he does to her what he helped do to Jayna? We can’t risk anything.”
“They are grown women. Not the scared little girls who lived under this roof. They are the reason the bastard has behaved this way for the last few years. He needed Jayna to fund his lifestyle. Now that he lost the election, he’s desperate to save face.”
“He has his faults but wouldn’t go down the path you believe to rebuild his fortune.”
“I can’t believe those words came out of your mouth. Sir ordered the accident that nearly killed Kiran King. He helped orchestrate the stabbing that caused Jayna’s miscarriage. That poor girl will never get to carry her own children because of him. And you were there when he paid off the truck driver who pulled out in front of the bus that killed over twenty people to keep Veda Kumari from meeting his parents.”
A chill ran down my spine, and a lump formed deep in my throat. The elder Shahs had always known there was a child out there. Now it made sense why Sara Shah had worded her will the way she had. The eldest of her grandchildren, legitimate or not, would inherit the majority interest in Shah International. She’d left nothing to her son.