The door clicks open, snapping me out of my thoughts.
Advik walks in, Dev trailing behind him. My brain short-circuits for half a second.
He’s wearing a suit.
Fuck. I hadn’t seen him today. I forgot it was stupid ritual on contract signing days—he told me that once. Back when we were still...us.
And now?
Now he’s in that slate-gray suit, fitted and sharp, like he was carved to wear it.
Dev’s wearing one too, but it doesn’t matter. It’shim—Advik in a suit—that turns my blood fizzy and annoying.
He glances at me, and I catch it. That twitch at the corner of his mouth.
He knows.
Of course he fucking knows. The bastard.
I sniff and exhale sharply. “So?”
“We got him.”
Advik slaps the thick stack of signed contracts on the desk. The sound echoes more than it should.
I glance at the folder, then up at him. “Any last-minute changes?”
He shakes his head, smiling.
“Nope. Got him trapped.” It’s Dev who answers—far too excited for a man pushing fifty.
Right. Dev’s here too.
I’d... forgotten.
He’s been buzzing like a damn kid all week. I overheard him telling Advik this is themost fun he’s had since joining the security industry.
Fun.Right.
He doesn’t know about the trafficking. Not the real story.
Advik does. Partly.
Because I told him.
God. Why did I tell him?
I wasn’t even supposed to admit I was RAW. Not even GenVault’s CEO knows. Far as he’s concerned, we’re “law enforcement.” He probably thinks we’re CBI.
But when Advik asked—point-blank, three weeks ago—I blurted it out. Just like that.
And the look on his face...
Chagrin. Disbelief. Like he was replaying every moment we’d shared in our year and a half together—only this time with a dark, dangerous shadow hanging over it.
I’d tried to ease him out of that spiral. Told him I wasinactiveback then. That none of the life-threatening stuff had started yet.
A partial truth.
