ANANYA
"The world bowed before me. I never thought I would be on my knees for him."
They call me The Verdict.
In the international courts of The Hague and the glass boardrooms of Manhattan, that name is whispered with a mix of reverence and terror. For five years, I lived as a ghost: Anna V., a woman with no past and a terrifyingly sharp legal mind. I didn't want the Varma billions. I didn't want the emerald mines or the name that opened doors like a skeleton key. I wanted the world to bleed because I was better than them, not because my father signed the checks.
But tonight, the ghost was dead. Tonight, Ananya Varma had come home.
I stood on the balcony of the Taj Mahal Palace, the heavy gold weight of my jhumkas brushing against my neck with every breath. My emerald silk saree felt like liquid armor, the pleats perfectly aligned, as rigid as the smile I wore for the vultures below.
I loathed these people. If it were up to me, I would chop their heads off and serve them on a platter. But doing so would tarnish my family name, and I cannot have that. So I put on the fake smile and lock those thoughts away in the dark.
"You're thinking about London," my father said, stepping beside me. He smelled of expensive tobacco and the complacency of a man who owned the city.
"I'm thinking about how many people in that room have tried to sue you in the last decade, Papa," I replied, taking a sip of vintage Krug. "And how many of them I'm going to have to bury now that I've taken the helm."
He laughed, but I wasn't joking. I was the Ice Queen of the senior class at Le Sommet, grown into something much more dangerous. I was a weapon.
I scanned the ballroom, my eyes moving with the clinical precision of a predator. I saw the CEOs, the starlets, the politicians. And then, I saw him.
The air in my lungs didn't just stop; it turned to ice.
He was standing near the grand staircase, a shadow in a room full of light. He was dressed in a charcoal-grey suit that fit his broad shoulders with a violence that made my pulse jump. His skin was the color of toasted hazelnuts, a stark contrast to the silver-grey of his eyes—eyes that were currently locked onto mine like a sniper's scope.
Alessandro de Luca.
My mind flashed back seven years. Switzerland. The scent of pine and the biting cold of the Alps. I remembered him as a freshman. A brooding, silent boy who sat in the back of the library, watching me lead debate prep. He had been seventeen, a "lowly" underclassman with a secret royal bloodline he carried like a curse.
On my graduation night, he had approached me by the lake. He had looked at me with those same grey eyes, raw, hungry, and far too intense for a boy his age.
"Dinner, Ananya. Tomorrow night in Geneva," he'd said. Not a request. A command.
I remembered how I'd laughed. I remembered the feeling of my silk-gloved hand reaching out to pat the top of his head, ruffling his dark hair as if he were a particularly bold puppy.
"You're cute, Alessandro," I'd purred, enjoying the way his jaw had locked in fury. "Focus on your exams, little prince. Maybe when you've grown up, I'll let you buy me a drink."
I had disappeared the next morning. I had never looked back.
Now, that "little prince" was walking toward me through the crowd, and the crowd was parting as if they were afraid he'd catch fire. He wasn't seventeen anymore. He was a man built of hard angles and suppressed rage, a King who had spent five years learning exactly how to take what he wanted.
He stopped at the edge of the balcony. We were in an isolated corner now, where the shadows were long and no one could watch us. The Mumbai heat suddenly felt like a fever.
"The head-pat was a mistake, Ananya," he whispered.
His voice was a dark, gravelly baritone that vibrated straight through my silk saree and into my skin. It was the voice of a man who didn't ask for dinners anymore. He took provinces.
"Mr. de Luca," I said, my voice remarkably steady despite the way my heart was hammering against my ribs. "I see you've grown up. Did you finally pass those exams?"
Alessandro stepped into my space, ignoring the social boundaries of the elite. He was so close I could smell the espresso on his breath and the cold, metallic scent of the Mediterranean. He reached out, his hand hovering near my face. I expected him to strike me, or perhaps to mock me.
Instead, he took a lock of my dark hair between two fingers, his thumb grazing the gold of my jhumka. The touch was electric, a jolt of pure, unadulterated heat that made my knees weak.
"I passed everything," he whispered, leaning down until his lips were inches from my ear. "I learned how to run the Corona Nera. I learned how to decode the ciphers of the Savoy kings. And I learned exactly where you were hiding for five years, Anna."
I shivered. He knew. He knew about my secret life.
"I have a legal problem, Ananya," he continued, his voice dropping to a predatory silkiness. "A very dark, very dirty problem that requires the best lawyer in the world. And since I'm a man who pays his debts... I've come to collect on that dinner."
He pulled back, his "Savoy Grey" eyes burning into mine. There was no warmth there. Only a dark, erotic promise of retribution.
"You're not a child anymore, Alessandro," I breathed, my professional mask finally cracking.
"No," he said, his hand sliding from my hair to the nape of my neck, his grip firm and possessive. "I'm the man who owns the evidence that could ruin your father's legacy. You're going to come with me to Italy. You're going to decode my family's past. And by the time I'm done with you..."
He leaned in one last time, his teeth grazing the lobe of my ear.
"...you'll never dare to pat my head again."
He turned and walked away, leaving me breathless in the humidity, the gold of my jewelry feeling like a collar. The "Little Prince" was gone. The Don had arrived. And I was his next target.