Viraj almost smiled. Ram exhaled once.
Bharat’s gaze remained steady. “Focus on finding the Singapore connection,” he said.
Samar's smile widened slightly. “Of course, bhai.”
The call ended.
The screens went dark one by one.
The room went quiet.
Bharat stood at the table for a moment.
He walked to the window and looked at the snow-capped mountains outside.
His thoughts shifted. Not to the consortium or to the next step in the counterattack.
To her.
Yamini in the factory office, sitting on his lap as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Pulling up that social media page. Telling him, with a mischievous smile that four lakh women were fascinated by his cheekbones.
Then he thought of her face a few hours ago. She had frozen and looked horrified when she saw her ex-husband among the press reporters, saying things that deliberately tried to demean her.
She had looked shocked and vulnerable.
He disliked remembering it.
For two weeks, she had sat beside him in the evenings and listened while he talked. He had told her things he had never said aloud to anyone. About the boy who bit through his tongue. About temple bells that felt like knives. About a grandmother's voice calling him mad.
He had told her, expecting her to finally understand why she should leave.
She had listened, and stayed, and looked at him in the mornings without anything different in her eyes.
He had spent his entire life waiting for people to see the full picture and step back.
She kept stepping closer.
He didn't have a word for what that did to him.
He left the office and walked through the quiet corridors.
He paused at the bedroom doorway.
She was asleep. The bedside lamp was on, casting a soft glow across the room. Her hand rested near her collarbone.
The emerald fish pendant lay against her skin.
He stood still for a moment.
She had put it back on the night she found the studio and came back to the palace. She hadn't mentioned it. She had simply worn it again, the way she had before everything broke.
As if it had always belonged there.
As if she had always belonged here.
He stepped closer.
She stirred slightly in her sleep. Without opening her eyes, she shifted toward his side of the bed. Her hand reached across the empty space beside her.
