Chapter Twenty-Two Ajay

Ajay thought about kindergarten as he rode into the office. It was his earliest memory of knowing what he wanted to be when he grew up. His teacher had asked him to do a project where he dressed up and spoke to the class about his dreams.

He’d worn a suit and said he planned on leading a business like his father.

As he grew older, he knew his class project had just been a pipe dream. His brother was being groomed for the position. Besides, he couldn’t code like Zail or negotiate like Hem. All he had was determination and passion.

Now, as Ajay stepped out of his car and strode directly into his office building, he knew he needed to stop dreaming, to stop thinking that he couldn’t do the job that he’d always aspired to. He came from a long line of warriors, and he had to fight for what he wanted.

Rafael met him at the front entrance of the office, tablet in hand. “I cleared your schedule from now until the two o’clock meeting except for one commitment. The land developers out in Napa Valley need an answer today, so I left them on your calendar. Hopefully that’s a quick one.”

“Thanks,” Ajay said. He strode directly to his desk, dropped his bag, and booted up his computer. “I need to know the minute any family member walks into this office. Bhram. Hem. My mother. Mina. Zail. Literally anyone.”

“Done,” Rafael said. “Do you need me to stall?”

“No,” Ajay said. “But don’t let them come back here. Send them to the conference room. I have to do some research, follow up on a hunch about our leak.” He sat down in his high-backed leather chair and looked at the one friend who had always been by his side. Rafael had started as a consultant, worked his way up the ranks to executive assistant supporting his father, and now he was supporting Ajay. He was driven, smart, loyal, and a friend.

“Rafael, can you close the door?”

Without a word, Rafael did as Ajay asked. “What’s going on?”

“I was just thinking how long we’ve known each other.”

A hint of a smile curved at the corner of Rafael’s normally stoic face. “Long enough for us to have a few drinking stories together.”

“That is unfortunately the truth.” Ajay leaned back in his chair and straightened his tie, trying to think of the right words, the right thing to say. “If you were in my position, and you had an article written about your partner, what would you do?”

Rafael let out a breath. “Probably ask you for advice, I suppose.”

“No, seriously.”

“I am,” Rafael said. He sat down in one of the companion chairs across from the desk, tossed his tablet aside, and leaned back in his seat. “Ajay, you’ve always been the most levelheaded out of all three of your brothers, recent fistfight aside. You are a strategist, your memory is practically eidetic, and you make clients and competitors nervous because your brain can figure out the odds faster than most geniuses in the tech industry. If anyone has advice on how to clean up a shit show and do it right, it would be you.”

Ajay wanted to believe Rafael. He needed to believe it. But sometimes having faith in himself was his biggest challenge.

Which was why he needed to surround himself with the best talent, to make sure that he was always focused on the possibilities and not the doubts that circled his mind like vultures.

“I need to ask you something.”

Rafael readied his tablet again. “Okay.”

“Will you be my chief of staff starting in January when I take over the CEO position?”

Rafael’s jaw dropped. Ajay had never seen him so surprised before, and the reaction made him grin.

“Is this because I just gave you a compliment?”

“No, although that was a nice touch. You’re the best assistant I’ve ever had, but I’m going to need to lean on you more. We’re three months from the end of the year. Work with the head of HR and ask them to source résumés for a team. You build out that team for yourself. Set it up according to your specifications. Work with our experts in-house if you need help. Then find me a replacement for you. You’ll work longer hours but your pay will be triple.”

This time Rafael’s eyeballs bugged out of his head. “Wh-Why? Why this, and why now?”

“Because I trust you. And if there is anything I’ve learned after the last six months, it’s that trust is a very fragile commodity. So? What do you say?”

“I say yes.” Rafael stood, a smile still ghosting his mouth and shock in his glassy eyes. “I say yes because I know that no matter what happens today, you’re still going to get the CEO position, and sooner or later, everyone is going to respect you like I do.”

Ajay nodded. For the first time, he knew that Rafael was right. He was going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that his future was locked into place, just like it should be.

After clearing his throat, Ajay said, “Now I need you to call in Roshan, Tushar, and our FBI contact.”

“Sir?”

“I have a plan.”

“Then I’m on it.”

Time flew by faster than Ajay could’ve expected. He rushed through his call with the Napa Valley land developers and spent the rest of his time preparing notes, information, facts, and figures to get everything just right for his family and the board. He was able to verify the three people responsible for feeding information to the news outlet for the article, thanks to some connections, and then called Raj to let her know. She didn’t say much except to confirm that she was safe in his penthouse and working on her own fallout strategy.

Rafael popped his head in his office and interrupted Ajay’s train of thought at two o’clock. “Okay, they’re all here and in the conference room.”

Ajay’s stomach twisted even as he stood and grabbed his laptop. He handed it to Rafael and asked him to set it up while he started the meeting.

They entered the room together, and the first thing Ajay noticed was the clear divide on either side of the boardroom table. His father, Hem, Mina, Bhram, and Zail sat on one side, while Uncle Frankie and five of the other board members sat on the other. To get that many to agree to come at the last minute to a meeting was incredible.

He’d just have to use their presence to his advantage.

“Gentlemen, and Mina. I’m surprised you’ve all come on such little notice, but I guess that’s neither here nor there. We’ll have to use this time wisely.”

Uncle Frankie stood on his creaky old bones just as Ajay predicted he would. “I think we all know why we’re here, puttar—”

“Frankie, sit down.”

Frankie stuttered, his lips smacking with spittle. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You may have rallied some of the members here before our year-end meeting—god knows how if all of your calendars look like mine—but as interim CEO I control the agenda. Just because my father is here today doesn’t change that. When I open the meeting up for the room, you may speak then.”

“Deepak!” Frankie shouted. “Do you see this? Do you see what he’s doing?”

Ajay’s father shrugged before leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “Frankie, Ajay has a point. The CEO and chairman of the board leads the agenda. It’s in our bylaws. You really are out of line.”

“How dare you—?”

“Careful,” Ajay said with as much calmness as he could muster. “When you address my father, you speak to him with respect.”

Frankie scanned the room and when Ajay’s brothers gave him that same, even, measured look, he took a seat.

“Now, as I was saying.” Ajay faced his family first. Mina with her encouraging smile. Hem with his serious, concerned expression. His father, who looked at him with so much pride. “Singhs, it appears we’re missing a member of the family.”

“Your mother assigned me her proxy,” his father said. “She has business in the city she needs to attend to. The documentation is with Rafael.”

“Fine. Let’s start with the easiest and then go to the most difficult.” He looked down at his computer, at the notes he’d taken, and the carefully crafted persuasive arguments that he’d anticipated delivering to a room where everyone thought he was unable to do his job.

Well, almost everyone. Ajay smiled at his father, the reason he loved what he did in the first place, who sat patiently waiting for him to speak. The old man’s pride, he realized, was enough to help carry the weight of obligations that weighed on his shoulders.

“I know that you all want to discuss the acquisition and the potential nomination by my father to make me CEO of Bharat. I know that everyone is concerned about our stock prices, and whether or not I’m fit for the position.”

“I think that’s a good summary speech there,” one of the board members chimed in. “Are you going to do the right thing, then, and let us source a new CEO?”

“No,” Ajay said. He adjusted the silver kara on his wrist so that it rested over the cuff of his shirt. His faith gave him added strength. “I’m not stepping aside, and if my father nominates me, if the family supports that nomination, then I will take it. But for this one time only, I’m going to explain to all of you my reasoning behind the acquisition and the positive result of today’s news breach. Members of the board, it has come to our attention that we’ve had another leak in our company. Another part of our R D team has been compromised by WTA. We’ve been looking into this security breach.”

Whispers echoed on one side of the boardroom table. The Singhs and Mina remained silent. When the noise died down enough, he continued.

“Today, an article was published about Rajneet Kaur Hothi. Raj is the owner of RKH Collective, a company we are in the process of acquiring. Her services are a natural extension of what we already do, so it’s an excellent investment.”

More whispering.

“Because she is in the middle of a divorce, the acquisition has been blocked by WTA, which has ulterior motives, of course. The main one being that her future ex-husband is the representative for WTA on our shareholder calls.”

The whispers became a cacophony of noise that erupted from the board members. Again, the Singhs and Mina remained quiet, arms or hands folded in front of them.

Frankie jumped up and faced the other board members. “This is an abuse of power when we’re supposed to be focused on the new software! Deepak’s son is telling us there is a leak but he’s too busy with this woman who happens to be connected with our competitor!”

Ajay crossed his ankle over his knee and pointed to the recently vacated chair. “I am not done. You may want to hear the rest of it.”

“You can’t tell me what to do, puttar,” Frankie raged as he paced in front of the windows.

“I sure as hell can,” he said. “Now sit down.”

One of the other board members leaned over and whispered something to Frankie. Whatever he said must’ve worked because the old man finally slipped back into his seat.

Ajay scanned the faces at the table, savoring this moment. “An hour ago, police arrested our head of security, Sri.”

The conference room hushed until there was pin drop silence.

His father nodded.

“Sri was responsible for personally conducting a background check on Rajneet Kaur Hothi and RKH Collective in anticipation of the buyout. I was aware of her history before the article was published today, but because the acquisition was a good move for us, I proceeded.

“The information in the article is identical to Sri’s research and was also shared in tandem with Robert Douglass.”

“Wait, you’re saying Sri was the one working with WTA, not someone directly on the RD team?” Frankie said. “Impossible.”

“It’s possible. We have evidence, as well. We went into his access history and learned that he used Sahar Ali Khan’s access keys to pull data after Sahar had already been fired.”

Ajay had been told that there were also encrypted messages shared with one Guru Hothi. He hated having to tell Raj that her brother was involved, but he refused to withhold the truth from her.

She was strong. And if she couldn’t handle it on her own, he’d be there for her.

“What are the next steps, brother?” Hem asked. “Is Sri locked up?”

“Yes, but we’ll most likely have to provide testimony. Hopefully, with the help of RKH Collective, we’ll have a more robust security team so this situation never arises again.”

The intel had come in barely an hour ago from Roshan. Their FBI contact in white collar crimes, Ms. Hu, had been ready to assist.

“So Raj was right,” Mina said. She winked at Ajay. “She told me a while back that if our security team was having such a hard time finding out the mole in the company, we needed to fire them. She knew something was off before anyone.”

Ajay nodded with a bittersweet feeling—even though his company had succeeded in ousting the mole, his love was in pain because he’d been the root cause of her secrets being released to the world. “Raj’s life story has now been painted in the ugliest way possible in the news because of her dealings with Bharat, despite the positive outcome for us.”

Ajay shut the lid of his laptop and stood. “I know some of you blame me for the shit hitting the fan after Bharat went public two years ago. Before we were on the market, we were a growing, profitable business. The rest of you think I’m too young to fill my father’s shoes. Well, I’m here to tell all of you that I have no intention of filling anyone’s shoes. This is not a damn game of dress up. It’s a race, and the only thing that I’m getting from my father is the baton so I can run the next leg of the relay for Bharat.”

“Comparisons are inevitable,” one of the newer board members chimed in. “You’re his son, but you don’t program like he does and you stay out of the limelight. People are going to have to use what they know and make assumptions about you.”

“And that’s going to change,” Ajay said. He motioned to his family. “My legacy has been the most important thing in my life, which is why I’ve been focused internally. After this article about the company we plan on acquiring, I’m going to make major adjustments in the way the Singhs show up. Starting now.”

He fixed his tie and the buttons on his suit jacket. “You may have called this meeting out of concern for the decisions I’m making for Bharat. But whether you’re family or you’re a general board member, I have the same message for you. I’m going to be the CEO of this company. I’ll fight all of you for it, because I know I deserve this position. If you don’t like it, then get the fuck out. Are we clear?”

There were nodding heads from Bhram, Hem, and his father. The board looked like they’d been hit in the solar plexus.

“Bhai, do you love her?”

The question came from Zail at the far end of the table. He watched Ajay expectantly, as if the other people in the room didn’t matter.

“Zail, what does that have—”

“Do you love her? Answer the question.”

Ajay let out a breath. “I do. She’s a hell of a businesswoman, and a lady.”

Zail nodded. He looked down at his fingernails, then back at him again. “I’m sorry I misjudged you. You have my support.”

Frankie gasped. The old bastard let out a wheezing cough before he said, “What do you think you’re doing, Zail?”

“I’m supporting my family, Frankie,” he replied. “I made a mistake in bringing you into what should’ve remained family business.”

Ajay wanted to hug his brother, to slap him on the back and say that he loved him and he appreciated Zail’s support.

Ajay turned to the man at his right who’d taken his seat again. “Frankie, it looks like the family is voting unanimously. The question is, are you going to continue to be a pain in my ass?”

A knock on the door interrupted Ajay’s next thought. Rafael entered and motioned for him to check his phone.

“Excuse me,” he said, and pulled out his cell from his pocket.

RAFAEL:Raj is hosting a press conference in an hour. Emailing you the livestream link. We need to get everyone out of here so we can watch it.

Holy hell, Ajay thought. He had no idea what she was up to, but there was no way he was going to miss it. He looked up at the expectant faces. Some were whispering with each other again, and others had blank looks of shock.

“We’re going to have to cut this short.”

“Hey, future CEO,” Bhram called out. “What gives?”

Ajay threw all discretion out the window as he headed toward the exit. “My girlfriend is having a press conference.”.

He heard chairs and chatter clatter in an uproar behind him. He grinned as he strode toward his office. His family would be right behind him.

Good, he thought. Rajneet needed all the support she could get, and now that his family knew where he stood, they’d support her, too.

Come on, Raj. Whatever it is you’re doing, you have the Singhs behind you.