The man pressed his lips together.
Samarth waited.
"I'll ask once more," he said pleasantly.
"Kabir," the third man said, before the first one could make whatever calculation he'd been making. "Kabir Malhotra. He paid us. Fifty lakhs. He wanted the woman—wanted her taken to a location he'd prepared. Said she wouldn't be hurt, just held."
Samarth stood.
He looked at the first man.
"You put your hands on my wife," he said.
The first man understood, in that moment, that nothing the third man had said was going to matter.
He was right.
The Car - 4:43 PM
Abhay drove. The partition was up.
Nimisha was in the back seat with Samarth, and she was trying very hard not to fall apart.
She was failing.
The first sob came out of nowhere—not built to, not warned of, just suddenly present. Wrenched up from somewhere deep and involuntary.
He had her against his chest before the second one came, his arms pulling her in completely, one hand pressed to the back of her head.
"I've got you," he said against her hair. "You're safe. I've got you."
"They were going to—" The words broke apart. "The van—there was a van—"
"I know." His arms tightened until breathing required effort and she was glad of it, glad of the pressure, the realness of him. "They're not going to get the chance. Not now. Not ever again."
"I bit him," she said, which was somehow what her mind produced. "I bit his hand."
"Good." His voice was rough. "I hope it hurt."
"Bruno came." She was shaking, she realized. Had been shaking since the floor of the bookstore. "I don't know how he found me."
"He's been following you for weeks." Samarth pressed his lips to the top of her head. "Without my knowledge. I found out two weeks ago and decided not to stop him."
She pulled back enough to look at him. "He's been following me?"
"Everywhere you went without me. Staying far enough back that your security didn't notice." Something moved across his face. "Apparently, a hundred-and-thirty-pound dog can be quite stealthy when he wants to be."
She laughed. It came out wrong—cracked in the middle—but it was a laugh.
He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing the tears from her cheeks with an attention that made her chest ache.
"I've got you," he said again. Like the repetition was as much for him as for her.
Master Bedroom - 6:15 PM
He carried her from the car.
She didn't protest, which told him more about the state of her than anything she'd said in the car. Nimisha didn't accept being carried. She didn't accept being helpless.
