“You’re okay right, Sophia? You’re fine?” Nakul asked at last.
Sophia laughed. The loneliest sound in the world. “Yeah. I am fine. I have no choice but to be fine. I have to go now. I love you.”
Nakul echoed the sentiment and then Sophia swapped the SIMs back and went back to join the ConCon attendees.
~~~~~
As Sophia got ready for her next shift, she idly wondered if tech wonder boy Bharat Shrinivasan was indeed here.
Nakul was so angry with him. And justifiably so. Bharat’s reckless actions had cost their family so much, financially and otherwise.
She knew her brother had every reason to hate the guy and yet…yet, she wondered. What would she do if she ever met him face-to-face? This man who’d unknowingly taken her future from her.
Then thinking time was over and she conferred with Jing Tao, the running pit boss, for her next assignment, was given blackjack again. At the same table.
Sophia flicked her hair back and took her place at station number four.
Stetson sat down at her table. She splashed him a wide smile. Great. Maybe she could squeeze 5K more out of him.
A couple came next, giggling and holding hands under the table. They worked for rival investment firms, if her recall was correct and it usually was. They were Romeo and Juliet all over again.
“We’d like some champagne please,” the Asian woman said in an American accent. She was dainty, built like a doll with razor straight hair and ice-pick cheekbones.
Sophia blinked at the happiness emanating from the woman, undone by the sheer anger she felt toward the woman. It was weird how she was jealous of a complete stranger’s happiness.
It proved that she wasn’t as control as she wanted to be. Which was bad for her personally and professionally.
Sophia motioned for a waiter to come over and drinks were served around the table.
A fifth person completed the group as he slid into the last chair.
“Welcome to the table sir,” she said automatically as she shuffled the cards on the deck. “Please, place your buy-in on the table and…”
Sophia looked up. Saw the calm brown eyes of the one man she’d boarded this ship for.
He was…different from all the pictures on his social media.
His bow tie was askew and hanging from the kerchief pocket. The designer jacket barely contained his shoulders and he took up entirely too much room around the little table. He didn’t smile at her, regarding her with those inscrutable eyes.
Yes, he was different from what she thought he would be.
He was calmer. Contained. Dangerous.
She didn’t know how she knew that but she did.
He was Bharat Shankar Shrinivasan and he didn’t know it yet but he had done irreparable damage to her.
Chapter Three
Bharat heard her laugh first.
He’d was making small talk with his Valley mentors, the people who’d helped him when he’d come out of the rehab center in Knotty Pines, Arizona, the one Shiv had driven him down to. They had been more supportive than he’d expected and so he was extra nice to them tonight.
After all, he wouldn’t be here without his VCs, the money guys backing him.
In fact, Todd Henry set him up in a small Airbnb down at Menlo, a one room dump where he ate, slept and wrote shit code till he’d come up with the core idea for Caliban. Bharat had arrived at San Francisco International where Shiv had met him with non-judgmental silence. He’d driven him to the rehab center the next morning when Bharat had requested him to.
He’d spent the next three years living in the little dump that Todd Henry had set him up in. Then, he’d driven down the coast one night to clear his exhausted brain and ended up back in Pasadena, where Shiv lived when he was back Stateside.
That night, luck smiled on him for the first time in years. Shiv bought him a sparkling water at Geeks Will Be Geeks and Bharat pitched him Caliban.
Shiv had been onboard, ever since. Since the very first beginning.
Bharat always felt a little guilty because Shiv, who’d helped so much with setting up the program, was not listed as co-founder on the official papers. That he wasn’t here, tonight, enjoying the fruits of his labor. Even if Shiv himself had insisted he didn’t want any part of it.
Sure, Shiv had Naina but did it really compare to knowing every venture capitalist in the vicinity was lusting for their tech, for Caliban?
The sad answer was yes. What Shiv had with Naina was incomparable. So, Bharat shut his guilty conscience up and stuffed it in the recycle bin of his brain.
Tonight, even the guilt couldn’t keep him from enjoying the moment. It was a bit exhilarating to sit and talk about those days without feeling that unbearable burden of ruined potential, guilt, and lost chances.
Three years of therapy set him on the straight and narrow.
Not drinking and gambling ever, in any capacity, ensured he didn’t screw up ever again. Not so he lost everything.
So, Bharat was now that rarest of species. A man in supreme control of himself, the situation, who didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of him.
He was interested in the job, period. Distractions bored him, even though they were fun while they lasted. Truth be told, a lot of things bored him now.
His single-minded focus and concentration led him to this place, here tonight. When he could reinvent the future. Reinvent himself.
But it also meant half a decade of having practically no life – no serious vices, no slip ups, nothing to take away from the ultimate goal.
And, sure, he wasn’t going to jeopardize one precious minute of his second chance.
But, god, he was bored. And restless.
This boat was anathema to him. It was a thing meant for action, and it was going nowhere. What the fuck was he doing here?
Thierron clinked glasses with him. “Where are you, Bharat?”
Over the years, the men had learned to say his name properly, rolling the r’s and stressing on the th. It was the least he could do after Bharat began to roll out patent after patent in successive order like a good little robot for the company Thierron and Henry and Donald Dunt owned. The company which Bharat had finally been able to buy a stake in, three months ago.
“Are you already thinking of Caliban?”
Bharat shook his head. He clinked the glass back, champagne to still ice water. His preferred drink of choice. His only drink of choice.
“Caliban is fine. I don’t spend all my time thinking about work,” he murmured.
They all laughed.
Bharat took a sip of his water. It tasted clean, fresh. Every single time. Only a former alcoholic and junkie could ever understand the desperate freedom one got from wanting that one last drink. One last time.
And only a former alcoholic knew how difficult it was for that one last time to remain the last.
The water represented who he had become now. Clean. Good. Decent. It symbolized that he’d done right in his life. The things he wanted to continue doing right as long as he lived. One day at a time.
It was the classic recovering addict’s motto. I won’t take a drink today. I won’t snort coke today. I won’t be an asshole today. I can’t promise for tomorrow but I won’t become a nightmare today.
Of course, he was bored after six years of denying himself all the pleasures.
It had been an uphill climb, changing the very fundamentals of himself to the person he’d become now. Remote, untouchable, focused on nothing but the goal. Nothing but Caliban.
And he’d rather enjoyed the challenge - the daily grind of building up his heart, his brain and body till he was in peak condition – where nothing could hurt him.
After all, if he’d been able to live past seeing his creation, his beloved company, being sold for a fraction of its worth after his actions had driven it to the ground and not shoot himself with the nearest semi-automatic (the US did not consider low-key, depressed suicidals a threat to the system y
et), he could live through anything.
~~~~~
“When is the meeting with the Singapore people? We have two of them tomorrow, don’t we?” Thierron Goddard checked email for confirmation.
Thierron was the youngest of Bharat’s mentors, in his late twenties like Bharat himself. He was the founder of two successful companies which had been acquired by two larger giants in their respective spaces for a healthy chunk. He called himself an ‘angel investor,’ someone who provided financial assistance to companies he believed in, when absolutely required but really he was so much more hands-on than that.
Henry had made Thierron Bharat’s point man when he’d first showed up in their offices with a known hacker, a check for two million rupees and a ruined future.
“Yes,” Bharat confirmed. “Pen Yang and Associates want a full pitch with all of us present. They’re springing for lunch. They want to see the pitch and presentation firsthand, since we have no material available anywhere. Not even a website.”
This was one point, they all – investor and inventor – agreed on unanimously. Caliban would appear as a working demo, not as literature floating somewhere on the internet, easily available, even more easily stealable.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if someone decides to take it into their head to screw around with us and leaks the tech onto the Dark Web. We should at least have a damned website, Bharat. This gag order idea of yours is lunacy,” Henry muttered.
Todd Henry was the oldest and most conservative of the trio. Also, the one Bharat trusted the most when it came to anything. Henry had experience, wisdom and he had cojones.
When no one else would have allowed Bharat Shrinivasan, the enfant terrible of the Indian startup ecosystem near their investment offices, Henry took him out to lunch and listened to his ideas. Fantastic, unexecutable ideas. He’d validated them and made Bharat feel that there was stuff still worth fighting for.
These men and the impact they’d had on his life was immeasurable.
Bharat felt the slightest bit guilty at Henry’s remark about Caliban leaking onto the Dark Web. The unthinkable had happened.
Caliban was out in the Dark Web before Bharat and Shiv shut it down, before Thanksgiving.
The problem had been contained in a few minutes, thirty minutes at most, he reminded himself.
Mara Sanchez, Shiv’s sociopath hacker ex, still had some respect for original work and only released the barest fraction of Caliban’s source code. Of course, it was still a fraction of the source code, an unacceptable breach. But Shiv had worked to seal the breach as soon as it had sprung up and Bharat had rewritten those lines so their functions were now subsumed by other, better qualities.
It was how he’d justified not telling his partners about the hack.
Now he smiled. A slow insouciant action that did absolutely nothing to dispel the blankness in his eyes.
“It might be lunacy, Henry,” he began quietly. “But people heard of Caliban and what it can do from the people we spoke to. And we were able to get fifteen meetings for the next five days. Some gambles pay off, gentlemen.”
He toasted them with his glass and drained the ice water, feeling it slide down his insides, through every inch of his rigorously maintained body. The body he worked hard and took proper care of.
He was thinking of going back to his room – the night had lost its charms a long time ago and he wasn’t going to give his hard earned money over to alcohol or games of chance.
Not tonight, not anymore.
And, that was when he heard it.
Low, throaty, essentially female laughter.
~~~~~
The laugh was clear as a bell, filled on a boat with close to three hundred people. As if the sound was meant to be heard only by him. On some secret SONAR.
He turned his head in the direction of the laugh, almost against his will. It originated from a table of people playing a game. By the crowd gathered he surmised it was either craps or blackjack.
Bharat couldn’t see the source of the laughter which arrowed right to his cock and jumped under his spine.
His reaction was instinctive. Inexplicable. Entirely male.
He wanted her. Wanted to see her. Period.
“If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go try my luck at the tables.”
“Good luck. Don’t bet something you can’t afford to lose.” Donald Dunt gave him a soft knowing smile.
Donald was mid-thirties, married with kids. His numbers game was incredible and, from the get go, he’d had a soft corner for Bharat. Although Donald looked like a soccer dad, he was far more perceptive than anyone ever gave him credit for.
Bharat gave him a slight nod of acknowledgment which Donald returned by raising his glass. “I’ll keep that in mind, Don. Guys.”
Bharat stood up, adjusted the cuffs of his rented tux and made his way to the table. By then, the players had dispersed and the woman with the laugh was gone.
But he took vigil at a nearby table. He nursed another glass of water and waited for the table to be filled again.
In the last few years, the most important change that had occurred in Bharat’s psyche was this – he had learnt the art and reward of being infinitely patient.
He could wait for everything he wanted.
And, right now, he wanted to see the woman who possessed a laugh that had awoken long dormant parts of him.
Chapter Four
Sophia couldn’t believe it. She wanted, quite desperately, to blink and find Bharat gone. This was not how and where she wanted to meet him!
This wasn’t part of the plan – meeting him tonight - even though she knew the odds of running into him were slim instead of none.
She instantly remembered Nakul’s words.
I’m not an incompetent businessman, Sophia. Unlike our sainted father who trusted that asshole Shrinivasan and left me to clean up his goddamn mess.
Now, by some perverse twist of fate and good luck, that asshole was here.
At her table.
Staring right at her with those intense eyes.
She’d seen pictures of Bharat Shrinivasan, everyone in India had. For a year before he moved to America and fell into total infamy and its colder cousin ignominy, social media and the business websites had been buzzing about his exploits, his kaarnaame. The drugs, the partying, the women.
He was like some genius millionaire bad boy from a romance novel come to life. And she was as fascinated and disgusted by him as the rest of them.
He’d been classically handsome back then. Tall, dark, with saturnine good looks that had slowly deteriorated under the onslaught of addiction.
She’d even admitted to crushing on him for a brief moment when he’d been the talk of Delhi scandal town.
But that was all before. Six years before.
In the now, he was tall and broad-shouldered, like he worked out regularly with Salman Khan’s personal trainer. It was unnatural how the jacket didn’t fit him properly, his biceps bulging inside it with healthy muscle.
It was in in stark contrast to the last publicly available photo – the one they’d gotten the day he’d been fired from his position as CEO - his arms riddled with track marks and about a quarter mass of what they were right now.
Once upon a time, Bharat had been skin and bones. Haggard.
Destroyed.
This man looked like a Marvel superhero come to life. His hair was slightly long, curly in a way men’s hair usually wasn’t.
His face had changed. It was no longer so handsome. It was lived in. His nose was broken and slightly out of alignment, while the rest of him was filled out as admirably as the shoulders and biceps.
This Bharat Shrinivasan was a supremely fit male specimen.
Unbidden, unwanted came the tiniest ember of attraction. A curl of white-hot desire that warmed the perpetual cold inside her.
Sophia silently held his gaze as he reached one hand out and placed the requisite number of chips on the green baize. She took the
chips without allowing their fingers to touch and placed it next to the neat pile of chips held by the others.
“Would you like something to drink, sir?” she enquired politely, just as she had everyone else. She hoped no one caught onto the huskier tone of her voice. She would be professional in just a second. “Something to nibble on perhaps?”
His eyes said, you.
She blinked.
The expression was wiped clean as if it never existed. “Just water, please. Still, with three cubes of ice. Thank you.”
She nodded and the order was placed. The water came and he held it in one hand, wrapping strong fingers around the cut glass tumbler.
Sophia shot him covert looks under her eyelids while she expertly distributed the first hand. The house card was a five of clubs.
Everyone else looked at their cards. Everyone except Stetson and Bharat.
Stetson was on his phone. Bharat continued sipping on his ice water and watching her intently.
It was unnerving, a little bit sexy.
Sophia stopped herself from making any uncoordinated movements like biting her lip and shaking her head in a nervous gesture. She restricted to curling and uncurling her toes in her second hand, high-heeled shoes which pinched and gave her painful blisters every night she took them off.
She was extra measured when she laid the cards face up.
Sophia noticed Bharat was sitting low, very low. He had a three and a nine – both spades. Stetson was hanging on too. The investment couple was too busy making out between cards to really care.
The house was at fourteen.
“Tell us another story, sweetheart,” Stetson invited, right before she dealt the last hand.
She raised startled eyes to him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Tell us another story. Like you did the last time. I think it might be my good luck charm at this table. I won because of you. And I’d like to win again.” Stetson winked broadly to add to the drama of the moment.
Against All Odds Page 3
