Aadya Gupta.
Aadya.
Derived from the Sanskrit rootaadi—meaning “first” or “beginning.”
How ironic.
Because I was never the first. Never the beginning.
If anything, I was theaftermath.
I still think it was a cruel joke—whoever at the agency decided to rename me from Greesha to Aadya.
Greesha meant watchfulness.
And Aadya? Aadya is what came after. Aadya is what I became when all that watchfulness failed me.
But I put myself first, didn’t I?
Even when no one else around me could.
This is the third name I’ve carried since I turned twenty.
I was bornGreesha. Then came the other aliases. Then came Karim. For him, I wasMarzia.
And now, once again, I’ve been rewritten.Aadya.
The first.
The only, hopefully.
But this name will always carry blood with it. It will always be the one tied to my failure. The one I wore when my vigilance slipped.
My eyes flutter halfway open.
Viraj is above me, gently wiping sweat from my forehead, eyes fixed on mine as he moves inside me with steady, practiced rhythm.
He’s been my handler for almost three years now.
But he learned tohandleme in other ways, too.
After Karim—after that mission nearly ended me—Vir was the one who picked up what was left.
Karim’s knife missed my heart. Barely. But it was enough to make me flatline. Enough to scare Vir within an inch of his own life.
It’s been a year since then.
A year of brutal healing. Three months of physical therapy.
Countless nights waking up drenched in sweat, screaming Karim’s name in terror.
And Vir?
He stayed.
He was there through every minute of it.
There when I couldn’t bear the idea of anyone touching me. My fear of penetration was hard to crack.
