DANGEROUS DAD

The chandeliers in the banquet hall glared harshly, refracting champagne flutes into beams of false light. I held my glass, standing at the center of the crowd, the number 1500 crore still clinging to my lips. But Sandy Chadha—Delhi’s king of catering, my father’s old rival—was staring at me with slick, mocking eyes, as if watching a cockroach crawl across the carpet. "A little shrimp like you talking about partnerships?" He chuckled, tapping his wine glass. "The surrender contract your father signed on his knees? I still keep it—use it as toilet paper." Laughter erupted around the room. I tightened my grip on the glass, knuckles turning white. Then the door opened. A man in a pink suit strolled in, unhurried, yet the temperature in the room plummeted. No one recognized him. The waiter said no guest by his name had been cleared. Security moved in, but he merely smiled, pulling a photograph from his inner pocket and placing it gently on the table. In the photo: my father and Sandy, shaking hands in a dim alley twenty years ago. Behind them, a burned-out restaurant sign smoldered: “Chadha & Son — Never to Reopen.” "You're all so noisy," he said softly, as if telling a bedtime story. "One of you has forgotten how he started. The other doesn’t know how he survived." He walked toward me, tilting his head. "Viraj. Did your father never tell you? That fire wasn’t an accident. Your mother lit it." I stepped back sharply. He smiled. "I’m Avni Nagpal. You can call me uncle… or 'ghost.'" His phone rang before the words faded. The caller ID was blank. He answered, listened for just a second—and his face changed. "They found the ledger in the basement?" Silence swallowed the room. Slowly, he raised his gaze, sweeping it over me and Sandy. "Know why tonight’s dinner only has three courses?" He paused. "Because the menu… is the same one that burned twenty years ago."