Page 173 of Queen of Shadows and Ruin

They approached the dais in a line as their eyes fell on Vikram. He sat on the steps with his elbows on his knees and his head buried in his hands.

“Vik?” Yasen asked, slowly moving closer and kneeling on the tiles. “What’s wrong?”

Vikram’s head snapped up, peering at them with bloodshot eyes and a pale and sickly complexion. He took Yasen in, scanning him up and down.

“He took her,” he said. “Nidhi was born two days ago, and he took her.”

Zarya exchanged a look with Rabin and sunk down next to Yasen.

“The baby? Who took her?”

Vikram opened his mouth and shook his head before he broke down in sobs. Yasen leaned over to rub his arm as he answered, “Gopal. He said he planned to ‘raise her.’”

“What?” Zarya said. “He kidnapped her?”

A shadow fell over them, and Zarya looked up to find Rabin staring at his brother with fire and rage in his dark eyes.

“Father took your child?” he said, his voice low and full of menace and his hand clenching at his side.

Vikram inhaled a sharp breath as tears coated his cheeks. “I couldn’t stop him.”

Rabin exhaled a long, slow breath, nodded, and stepped back. “Zarya, stay here and watch them.” He turned to Yasen. “You, come with me. We have a date with my father that’s long overdue.”

Slowly, Yasen rose to his feet. Zarya watched a message pass between the two men. They’d never been friends until the last few months, but the abuse they suffered at the nawab’s hands bonded them in a deeper way.

“Then, let’s do this, Commander.”

Rabin clapped him on the shoulder. “Just call me Rabin. That isn’t who I am anymore. I haven’t been that man for a very long time.”

Yasen laughed softly, and they both turned to Zarya.

“We’ll be right back,” Rabin said, and she nodded as they left the room, their quick steps echoing against the walls.

“Where are they going?” Vikram asked Zarya.

She looped her elbow through his. “To get your daughter.”

Several hours later, Rabin and Yasen landed in the Jai Palace courtyard. It hadn’t taken long to arrive at the Ravana estate, where Rabin had found the baby in the nursery with her nannies.

They screamed when he’d reached into her crib and lifted her up, carefully nestling her in the crook of his arm. Then he’d gone with Yasen to find his father.

The nawab was alone in the library when Rabin found him. That was his father’s first mistake. He’d demanded the child be returned to Vikram, but Gopal refused. That had been his second mistake.

Now, Yasen slid off Rabin’s back with the little girl cradled in his arms. Rabin shifted and then retrieved her, peering into the tiny face of the child. His niece. When he’d found her helpless in her crib, a fierce sort of possessiveness overtook him.

He’d never thought much about becoming a father but holding this precious life in his arms opened his heart to the possibility.

Zarya had never talked about children, but maybe they’d consider it someday. She had so much love in her heart and would make an amazing mother.

“You, okay?” Yasen asked. “You’re getting blood on her blanket.”

Rabin looked down at himself. “I think that was you,” he answered, nodding towards Yasen’s blood-spattered coat.

Blood.

His father’s blood.

“Come on,” Rabin said, and they entered the Jai Tree. Zarya sat on the steps next to Vikram with his head still buried in his hands.