Chapter 10 – The Eyes That Stayed
They came one by one, scattered over months. Different names, different accents, different stories. Some arrived with government funding, others with vague academic fellowships or cultural research grants. They all had credentials, fake or not. Well-dressed. Well-spoken. Well-trained. All women. All sent by agencies outside India—some European, others less traceable. Their goal was simple: get close to Thakur.
They had read his file, analyzed his rise, studied his network. Their superiors believed he was isolated, if not reckless—an egomaniac who'd built a little empire out of charisma and ancient nostalgia. Men like that, they said, always had one weakness.
Women.
They thought they could bait him.
They were wrong.
Thakur didn't chase women. He didn't entertain flattery. He didn't fall for beauty. Because he didn't want affection—he wanted understanding. And when someone didn't understand themselves, he found that even more interesting.
So when the women arrived, he welcomed them. He offered them space in his guest quarters. He arranged meetings, conversations, tea under banyan trees. And then… he let them reveal themselves.
He didn't ask probing questions. He just observed. Not their words, but their pauses. Their glances. Their trained responses. Their internal tension.
And slowly, without pressure, he would say something subtle. A phrase. A sentence. Sometimes just a look. And it would land somewhere deeper than the surface—inside their unresolved selves.
"You don't like being told what to do," he once said to a cultural anthropologist from Spain. "But you've always followed orders to survive."
She hadn't responded out loud.
She had come to his room the next night.
Another woman, a former journalist from Eastern Europe, was seated in the greenhouse during a silent dinner when Thakur had said, without preamble, "You miss your anger. It made you feel useful."
She stared at him, then quietly lowered her fork.
He never spoke about loyalty. Never promised them a place. He just showed them something they hadn't seen in years: clarity.
And for women trained in deception, sent to manipulate, that was disarming in a way no seduction could match.
Some broke sooner than others.
Some stayed longer.
A few left, then came back.
The ones who did return… didn't come alone.
They brought others.
Not as backup.
As offerings.
These were not passive women. They were not under control. They were trying to earn their place—not just by staying, but by proving they could bring more value. More intelligence. More beauty. More minds.
One brought a bio-engineer from Singapore, brilliant in neural mapping.
Another introduced a herbalist from West Africa, whose knowledge of root medicine rivaled Thakur's research staff.
They weren't trying to trap him anymore. They were trying to impress him.
They understood something the agencies never did: Thakur wasn't a man to be manipulated. He was a current. Either you learned to swim in it, or you drowned trying to redirect it.
Inside the mansion, they began blending in. Not as spies. As contributors. Some joined agricultural planning. Others began handling logistics, translating old texts, building upon his systems. He never asked them to swear loyalty. He never marked them. But each one knew when the moment came—that moment where he looked at her a second longer, spoke a phrase meant only for her—she had been seen.
And once seen by Thakur, they never wanted to disappear again.
He didn't sleep with all of them. That wasn't the goal. Some never even touched his hand. But they still competed—for his attention, his acknowledgment, his direction. Because in this space, being chosen by Thakur didn't mean intimacy. It meant relevance.
Still, there were nights when one or two would be seen leaving his wing. Always quietly. Always on their own terms. But in the morning, they would work twice as hard. Smiling less. Focused more.
Because in this mansion, his presence wasn't a reward.
It was motivation.
Amrita had watched this unfold with growing unease.
She saw the change in them. She heard how they spoke to one another—not like rivals, but like a silent order of women bound by something deeper than desire. Like soldiers under a commander they didn't fear—but deeply wanted to please.
She studied their eyes. The calm, the alertness, the devotion without desperation. None of them were under a spell. There was no hypnosis here. Just a kind of belief Amrita had never witnessed in trained operatives.
And the strange part?
They were happier now.
Their lives before—the missions, the noise, the manipulation—it all felt artificial compared to the grounded, ruthless clarity they experienced in Thakur's domain.
It wasn't love.
It was recognition.
And it terrified Amrita.
Because part of her was starting to want it too.
One evening, she saw Thakur walking along the garden path with two of the women—Harper and Sofia. He wasn't touching them. He was speaking softly, one hand behind his back. The women were listening, not in awe, but in deep presence.
He turned his head slightly and met Amrita's gaze.
He didn't smile.
But he didn't look away.
He knew she was still watching.
And he was letting her decide when to step closer or keep resisting.
That night, Amrita stayed awake for hours.
Because now she wasn't afraid she'd fail her mission.
She was afraid she'd stop wanting to finish it at all.
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