“Yes.”

“Of course. You were in charge.” He produced a smile so false she wondered how and why others fell for it.

Payal, however, had no issue with the way Lalit chose to present himself to the world. Her issue had to do with the fact that he was a psychopath. “You’re in my way,” she said when he didn’t step aside. She made sure her voice was lacking in tone, and she didn’t break eye contact.

Their father often denigrated changelings as “animals,” but her brother was as territorial as any animal, and he had far less reason for the violence in which he indulged whenever he thought he could get away with it. “I have a meeting with Father.”

One side of his mouth pulled up. “Off you go, golden child.”

She moved on without responding. Both of them knew the truth—after Varun’s execution, it was Lalit who’d become the favored child, the one Pranath Rao had intended to succeed him to the throne of the Rao empire.

Payal had initially been a distant third in line, behind Varun and Lalit. Their father had only retrieved her from the school because he was a man who preferred more than one insurance policy. After they buried Varun, her job was to be a silent threat to Lalit. Because by then, their father had caught Lalit torturing a stray cat—and even Pranath Rao knew that to be a bad sign.

The threat had appeared to work, with Lalit toeing the line.

Then three senior members of the staff had caught eighteen-year-old Lalit cutting up the yet-warm corpse of a homeless human man he’d abducted off the street. To Pranath, the problem hadn’t been the act itself—but that Lalit had been distracted enough to get caught. The head of the Rao family was fine with psychopathic behavior so long as it didn’t draw negative attention to the family.

Payal, still half-mad and with a scream at the back of her head, had nonetheless known that was wrong. She might be a murderer, but she’d acted to protect, and while the kill haunted her, she’d never go back and undo it—because that teacher had been wrong in brutalizing his students.

As Lalit was wrong in harming his victims.

He was the reason why there were no small domestic creatures in Vara, even though a medic had once suggested Payal would socialize better if she had a pet. Therapeutic animals were permitted under Silence in rare cases. Payal now had the power to make such decisions on her own, but she’d never bring an animal into this house.

Lalit would use it as a weapon—and the poor creature would end up abused and dead.

“The beggar is dead,” Lalit had said that day, his voice calm. “No one will talk. There is no problem.”

Their father had steepled his fingers on his desk, his eyes a pale amber-brown that burned against the darker brown of his skin. Lalit had inherited those eyes, inherited most of Pranath’s features. “My investigators tell me that you’ve been less than discreet on multiple occasions. There is no way to stop the information from spreading, though I’ll do my best to ameliorate matters by buying people off.”

Their father’s face had been a chill blank as he looked at Lalit. “Thankfully, your targets have all been human. They’re too afraid of our power to make trouble—and the others who know will keep their mouths shut if paid.”

“We can afford it.”

“The settlement money is just the start, Lalit.” A tone in Pranath’s voice that had Payal going motionless—the last time she’d heard it, she’d then had to witness a brother dying in agony. “If it gets out that my heir and successor is unstable, the family will lose millions upon millions. Our race does not tolerate mental instability.”

“I’m not mentally unstable.” No change to Lalit’s tone, no hint of fear or of any other emotion. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“I’d have let it go if you’d been discreet, but I can’t trust you now.” Pranath had shifted his attention to Payal with the speed of a cobra. “You’ll never have Lalit’s way with clients and collaborators, but at least you’ve proven capable of controlling your aberrant mind.” A glance at Lalit. “I don’t have to be concerned that she’ll surrender to the urge to torture someone midnegotiation.”

“She’s an anchor. They’re murderers barely leashed and she’s already been blooded.”

Pranath’s eyes boring into Payal’s. “Do you feel any urge to kill again, Payal?”

“No, sir.” A lie. The madness inside her had constantly wanted to slam a blade into Lalit’s jugular, end his evil. But she’d been too young and untrained, and he had a predator’s instincts.

“Payal will be my putative successor for the time being.” Pranath’s statement had rung around the room. “We can reconvene on the topic in another decade. Keep your nose clean in the interim, Lalit, and anyone who’s aware of your indiscretions to date may decide to forget them.”

Payal had never been meant to actually take up the mantle. But then two things had happened in quick succession.

Pranath Rao had suffered his accident.

And Lalit had been caught by their paternal aunt doing something for which there could be no rational explanation when he was meant to be in full control of his urges: using a knife to carve shapes into the body of a teenaged maid employed at Vara for domestic duties. He’d been in an unlocked room with an old lattice window that allowed passersby a view inside should they glance that way.

Payal had been lucky that day—she’d happened to walk by as their aunt confronted Lalit. Using Lalit’s distraction as cover, she’d teleported to the girl, then out with her to an undisclosed location. She’d made a point of building a mental database of locations Lalit couldn’t access, including an old farmhouse that she’d bought with money from a small business venture.

That far in the countryside, it had cost less than nothing—and the caretaker wasn’t aware it was in his name. He just knew that the owner paid him handsomely to look after the place and take care of any guests. Because while Payal hadn’t been able to save the homeless man, the maid was far from the first person she’d taken to the sanctuary of the farmhouse.

Leaving the wounded maid to be tended to by a rural human doctor who never saw Payal, only the caretaker, she’d then made her way to her father’s secure recovery suite—a month after his accident and he was back at work, though under medical watch. He’d also already ordered renovations to the basement area he intended to turn into his long-term base of operations. She’d made her report about Lalit’s relapse while her brother was still in the midst of telling their aunt she needed to forget this for her own good.