He killed her.
Whether he meant to or not.
SEVEN
Aadya
TEN MONTHS AGO
“Is that it?” I ask, my voice as flat as I can manage.
“Yeah... that’s all I have for the past year and a half.”
I shift in my wheelchair, wincing as pain shoots down my side. I haven’t been out of this damn contraption in months. Not since Afghanistan.
Coming back to life is harder than anyone ever admits. The mundane hurts more than the blood ever did.
I wasn’t expecting Sahil—my PI—to choose today of all days to deliver the report. A year and a half’s worth of data. All abouthim.
I’d forgotten I’d even left that job running in the background.
Somewhere between being gutted—literally—and pieced back together, I stopped caring enough to cancel the task.
But Sahil kept collecting, apparently.
Kept watching.
He’d told me Advik never stopped looking. Not for the first six months. He burned through every connection he had, reached every corner he could.
And then... I left.
No closure. No goodbye. Just vanished. And I forgot Sahil was still watching.
Forgot that a full fuckingdocketwould be waiting for me once I came back from the dead.
I hang up without ceremony and stare at the drive.
It’s all here.
Everything that happened in the year and a half I was gone.
The year and a half I spent thinking I wouldn’t survive.
Funny. Idid.
I log into the secure server and begin to dig.
The first few notes and images aren’t a surprise. Advik. Searching. Desperate.
He even reached out to Pratham Taneja. The DGP.
Which is laughable—because I outrank that man by amile.
But of course Pratham wouldn’t have access to me.
Not to Aadya.
Maybe toGreesha Das.
