She closed her eyes and let herself lean into him.
Behind them, the room was silent. Saroj and Raghbir exchanging a long, loaded look. Shaurya's expression was carefully blank. Kritika in the doorway, watching her best friend hold his wife like she was his entire world.
Understanding settling over all of them.
Whatever this marriage had been, it wasn't that anymore.
Something had changed.
Something irreversible.
And whether they welcomed it or not, the Ranawat family was about to learn that the woman they'd overlooked for a year had become indispensable to the one person in this family who mattered most.
CHAPTER 17
Elysium Basement - 9:47 PM
The informant's name was Deepak Rao, and he'd been feeding information to Rajput's gang for three months.
He sat in the metal chair in Elysium's basement, zip-tied, bloodied, and terrified. Two of Samarth's men had softened him up already. Now it was Samarth's turn.
He crouched in front of the man, his expression empty.
"The shipment routes," he said quietly. "All of them."
"I don't know—"
Samarth stood and drove his elbow into Deepak's jaw with clinical precision. Not excessive. Just enough.
The man's head snapped to the side.
"The shipment routes," Samarth repeated.
"They'll kill me—"
"And what do you think I'll do?" Samarth's voice was conversational, almost gentle. That was what made it terrifying. "I'm The Executioner, Deepak. I didn't earn that name handing out warnings."
He picked up the knife from the table beside him and examined the blade with detached interest.
Deepak broke.
Names. Dates. Locations. Routes. Everything Samarth needed poured out of him in a desperate, stumbling confession.
Samarth listened. Committed every detail to memory. Gave no indication of what would happen when the information ran dry.
Abhay typed rapidly on his laptop in the corner, recording everything.
When Deepak finally ran out of words, silence fell.
Samarth stood there, knife in hand, and his mind—without his permission—drifted.
To Nimisha.
To her face when Tanisha's hand had connected with her cheek. The way she hadn't cried out. Hadn't reached for comfort. Had simply stood there and absorbed the blow like she was accustomed to absorbing pain without acknowledgment.
That's the role.
He looked at Deepak, shaking and bleeding in the chair, broken open by pain and fear and the unbearable pressure of being taken apart by someone who knew exactly which points to press.
