Married in Vengeance (Dynasty Rebels #4)

Chapter 28

Twenty-Eight

AADHYA

Aadhya swallowed hard as she stared at the folder full of documents in front of her. She sat down in her seat carefully, her legs shaking too hard to hold her up. The last thing she needed to do was collapse and disgrace herself completely.

Sweat beaded her brow as she slowly leafed through the papers, her hands trembling with each error her gaze picked out. If she could see it now, how had she not earlier?

“I-“ She stopped when she realised she was croaking. She picked up the glass on her table, water sloshing over the rim as her hand shook. Aadhya took a careful sip, wetting her throat, and tried again.

“Anna, I-“

“Don’t.” Aarush’s hard voice brought her stumbling, pathetic excuse to a stop. He got up from his chair and walked over to the door of her cabin, shutting the door so no one could hear them.

Aadhya shut her eyes as her brother walked back to her desk, shame coursing through her. “I’ll resign,” she said quietly.

“Like hell you will.” Aarush leaned on her table, his palms braced on it.

Aadhya squared her shoulders and met his furious gaze, her heart fluttering like a trapped butterfly in her chest. “Anna-“

“I know you didn’t fuck up, Aadhya.”

“You do?” she gaped at him.

“Of course I do,” he replied irritably. “Do I look stupid to you?”

Years of annoying her sibling almost had her responding with yes but she bit her tongue at the last moment.

“No?” she asked meekly.

He glared at her, shoving his hands into his pants pockets and pacing in the small space in front of her table.

“Why are you here today? I thought you were sick.”

“I’m better,” she lied, even as her legs did another quaky, quivery move under the table.

Silence fell between them as she continued to stare at the damning file on her table and Aarush paced like he needed to meet the whole day’s step count in the next five minutes.

“You know what your problem is, Aadhya?” he said finally.

“I’m sure you’re about to tell me,” she retorted dryly.

Aarush ignored the sarcasm, stopping his frantic pacing and coming to stand before her table.

“You’ve never believed you deserved this position.”

“That’s not true,” she snapped automatically. “I’m a gold medalist who has worked her butt off to earn not only the certifications required but also the practical experience. I was the one interning with Nanna and suffering through his tough love regime of passing on real world experience while you farted around the States!”

“Then why are you so fucking apologetic about sitting in that chair?”

“Because I’m half the age of the people who report to me!” Aadhya shouted. “And a woman to boot. Not to mention the fact that I’m the owner’s daughter. Don’t you see how they kick back at my authority?”

“Then you kick harder,” Aarush told her coldly. He leaned forward and tapped one finger on the file that lay between them. “I know you didn’t make these mistakes. One or two maybe but so many and so consistently? There is no fucking way. Someone is fucking with you and we’re going to find out whom.”

Aadhya stared at his finger, fury igniting through the haze of worry and shame.

“Look at me, Chinna.”

She looked up and met his furious gaze.

“Someone fucks with you. They fuck with us all. We’re going to find them and we’re going to bury them.”

Aadhya nodded, the fire her brother’s words lit in her bringing her fighting spirit to the fore. “Let’s do it,” she said, smiling for the first time in a while.

Aarush glanced down at his phone and smiled. “Perfect timing,” he muttered.

“For what?”

“I called for reinforcements.” A knock sounded on the door a second later and Aarush strode over to open it.

“Come in man,” he told someone who stood out of view of Aadhya’s line of sight.

Oh God no! If Aarush had called Ram in for this, she was going to disown her brother. But when Aarush finally stepped away from the door, Aadhya sagged with relief to see Virat smiling at her.

“Hi Aadhya,” he said, his smile carefully polite and meticulously devoid of any personal interactions they might have had.

“Hi,” she said weakly. “I didn’t know things were bad enough to merit hiring you.”

Virat didn’t bother correcting her assumption. If he was here, things weren’t just bad. They were catastrophic.

“We’re being sued.” Aarush stepped forward, his hands going back into his pants pocket, a nervous tell of his from childhood.

“Sued?” Aadhya repeated.

“By the investors and the homeowners.”

Sued? If they were being sued because of the structure collapsing…

“I’m being sued,” she said numbly, her lips feeling cold and rubbery. It was her signature on the drawings that were issued to the municipality so it would be her name on the lawsuit.

“You and the company,” Aarush admitted. “But we’ll beat this.”

She could feel her pulse pounding in her throat as she stared at them. “Shit,” she whispered. “Shit.”

“Aadhya.” Virat came to crouch in front of her, his hand reaching to tip her chin up. “I need you to breathe right now. Air is your friend.”

“Air is my friend?” A strangled laugh burbled out of her at the statement.

“Yes it is.” The polite but chilly smile he’d given her earlier warmed a fraction. “I need to tell you something.”

Aadhya struggled to take another clear breath but it still hitched in her chest. “What?” she managed around another puff of air. Air was her friend. The words swirled through her brain, floating around like spilled cotton candy at the fairgrounds.

“I’m very good at what I do.” He took her cold, shaky hands in his. “Very, very good.”

Aadhya looked at that ridiculously handsome face and saw only the fierce intelligence in his dark, intense eyes.

“Is this just about massaging your ego or were you actually going somewhere with this?” she rasped.

Virat laughed, white teeth flashing in that swarthy face. A shark, that’s what he was, she thought dimly.

“Repeat after me,” he told her, gripping her hands hard. “We’re going to bury the bastard who did this.”

Aadhya nodded, her fingers stilling in his grip. “We’re going to bury the bastard who did this.” She paused before adding, “Bastard or bitch.”

Aarush laughed and she looked over at him. “Thank you,” she said simply.

“For what Chinna?”

“For believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself.”

“You’re a lot of things, sister dearest. But stupid and incompetent were never part of it.”

“Oh?” Aadhya arched her brow. “And what was?”

“I’ll email you a list,” he told her, laughing. “It’s a long one.”

Virat rose to his feet, his smile disappearing like it had never existed. “Before I get started Aarush, I’d like a word with you in private.”

Wait, what? Aadhya glanced from Virat’s impassive face to Aarush’s surprised one.

“Sure,” Aarush said, glancing at her and shrugging.

What was that about, Aadhya wondered, as the men left her room to walk over to Aarush’s office. A second later, one of her architects knocked on her door with a question and Aadhya shoved the niggling mystery aside and focused on him. She had a reputation to salvage and she wasn’t going to be able to do it without focusing on work and nothing else.

Nothing and no one was going to distract her.

Not an enigmatic fixer or a secretive brother. And most certainly, not an obtuse, overbearing, arrogant, ass of a husband. One who’d spent the last two days holding her hair back while she puked, sponging her forehead, threatening doctors and forcing food and medicines down her throat.

Nope. She wasn’t going to be distracted by any of it. She wasn’t!