The storm, when it came, did not arrive with a thunderclap from the finance ministry. It began as a whisper, printed in black and white on the front page of the Indian Financial Chronicle.
Sujata Desai's byline was small, but the headline was a bomb: "The Mauritius Mirage: Opaque Funds Fuel Market Frenzy."
Harsh read it standing in the doorway of his Malabar Hill apartment, the paper delivered with his morning tea. His heart didn't hammer; it seemed to stop, to become a cold, heavy stone in his chest. The article didn't name him. It didn't name Varma. It was smarter than that. It named the fund—the very Mauritius-based entity Mehta used. It detailed its recent, massive inflows and its pinpoint investments in stocks like ACC and Tata Steel. It quoted "financial experts" expressing deep concern about the source of these funds and their potential to distort the market. And then, the killer blow: a single, pointed sentence. "Sources suggest regulatory authorities are examining the beneficial ownership of such funds, with a particular focus on any links to domestic political figures."
It was a warning shot. A public, unignorable flare launched directly over Harsh's intricate web.
The phone rang. It was Mehta, his voice stripped of all its usual calm, shrill with panic. "Sir! You have seen—"
"I've seen," Harsh cut him off, his own voice unnervingly flat. "Is there a direct trail? To us?"
"Not yet! But the questions… the regulators… they will freeze the fund's assets pending investigation! They will demand to know where the money came from! Our leverage… it is built on sand! If they look too closely…" Mehta's sentence ended in a strangled gasp.
Harsh looked out at the serene sea view. The city below was waking up, oblivious to the seismic shift that had just occurred in its financial bedrock. He felt a strange detachment. This was the reckoning he had chosen to meet with fire.
"Pull the trigger, Mehta," Harsh said.
"Sir? Pull what—?"
"The Singapore loan. The one we secured against the Mauritius fund. Draw it down. Now. Every last dollar. And use it to short the Nifty index. Heavily."
There was a silence so profound Harsh could hear Mehta's ragged breathing. "Short the market? Now? Sir, the article will create a panic! The market could crash! We are leveraged long! We will be wiped out!"
"Precisely," Harsh said, a terrifying clarity settling over him. "We will be wiped out on our long positions. But we will make a fortune on the short. We bet on the rise. Now, we bet on the fall. We are not just riding the tiger, Mehta. We are steering it off the cliff and betting we have the only parachute."
It was the most audacious, suicidal gamble of his life. He was using the last of his borrowed credibility to bet against his own empire. It was financial self-immolation with the hope of rising from the ashes.
"Execute the order, Mehta. That is my final instruction."
He hung up before the broker could protest further. He needed to be alone with the consequences.
But solitude was a luxury he could no longer afford. The next call was from his office. His secretary's voice was trembling. "Sir, there are men here. From the Income Tax department. They have a warrant. They are asking for all financial records for Patel Holdings, and… and for you personally."
The cage was being rattled. Sujata Desai's article had given the bureaucrats the scent they needed. This was no longer about stock market manipulation; this was about tax evasion, about the legitimacy of his entire operation.
"I'll be there in an hour," he said, though he had no intention of going. His presence would only add fuel to the fire.
He had one last call to make. He dialed Priya's hostel. He needed to hear her voice, to grasp for a fragment of the reality he was losing.
She answered, but her voice was different. Cold. "Harsh."
"Priya. I… something has happened."
"I know," she interrupted. "I read the paper. My father showed it to me at breakfast. He said, 'This is the kind of thing that destroys lives.' He looked at me when he said it."
Harsh closed his eyes. "It's not what it seems."
"Isn't it?" Her voice broke. "You're involved with these people, Harsh. These shadowy funds, these politicians. This isn't ambition. This is… a sickness. I told you you were changing. I didn't know you were becoming this."
"I did it for us. To build something no one could ever take away."
"You built it on lies!" she cried, the anger and pain finally erupting. "And now it's all falling down, and you want me to believe it was for me? Don't. Just… don't."
The line went dead.
Harsh stood alone in the silent, opulent apartment. The weight of the air was crushing. The journalist's expose, the tax raid, Priya's rejection—they were the first cracks in the dam. He had felt like a prisoner in his gilded cage. Now, the walls were cracking, and the real world was flooding in, a world of consequences, of ruined reputations, and broken trust.
He had chosen to meet the reckoning with fire. Now, he was standing in the center of the inferno, utterly alone, watching everything he had built—and everything he truly was—begin to burn.
The first crack had appeared. And Harsh knew, with a chilling certainty, that it would not be the last.
(Chapter End)