Married in Vengeance (Dynasty Rebels #4)

Chapter 30

Thirty

AADHYA

As Aadhya worked her way through her overflowing inbox, something niggled at her. She was missing something. She wasn’t sure what, but her brain knew something, and it wasn’t letting that fact float to the surface.

Fatigue dragged at her as she popped a paracetamol to stave off the fever she knew was coming on. She turned the air conditioner off when she started to shiver. The office boy appeared with a steaming mug of coffee which she took gratefully.

She sipped it as she clicked through the server looking for the relevant files. The project they were being targeted on was not saved on the current, active folders. She frowned as she clicked through to the archived ones. She found it buried at the back. It hadn’t been saved per the proper procedure. Which was odd, because Aadhya had worked on these files with the team and she knew exactly where it was saved. Or rather she’d known. But someone had moved it.

Her heart started to pound as she started to search for the document she was looking for. She kept searching, riffling through endless drawings and cost estimates and coming up with nothing. That couldn’t be right.

She went back to her personal laptop and pulled up the folder of work documents she had there. It wasn’t on that. But she always backed up her completed projects on a hard drive. Something her paranoid brain had insisted on. A tiny, little fact she’d hidden from everyone because she hadn’t needed them making fun of her for being so anal about her work.

She unlocked her side cabinet and pulled out her stash of hard drives looking for the one with the right timeline on the label. She found it neatly catalogued in the middle of the pile and pulled it out, plugging it into her system.

Teeth worrying her lower lip, she scanned the documents saved on it. There! She opened up the excel sheet, her gaze running through the columns of numbers. Exhilaration coursed through her as she verified her hunch.

“Aadhya.”

She glanced up at Aarush’s voice, a wild grin on her face. A grin that died when she saw who was with him. Her gaze went from Aarush to Virat to Karthik and finally to Ram. Her wildly thrumming heart stuttered to a stop when her eyes met Ram’s shuttered ones.

“What’s going on? Why is everyone here?”

Why is he here?

“We need to talk.” Her brother looked unusually grim, even for the fact that they were caught in the middle of this whole mess.

“About?” Her gaze went back to Ram, whose stone face gave nothing away. Unease settled in her gut as she contemplated his presence and what it meant.

“Let’s go to my room,” Aarush said. “There’s more space there.”

“Wait.” She stopped her brother before he marched off. “I have something to show you.”

“Bring it,” he told her, ushering the others out of the cabin. “We’ll use the big screen in my room to view it.”

He was gone with Virat on his heels before she could argue. Karthik looked between Ram and her, cleared his throat uncomfortably and then disappeared before she could say anything to him.

“Has your fever spiked since morning?” Ram asked, moving closer to where she still sat clutching her hard disk.

“I haven’t checked.” She watched him as he stalked towards her, a deer caught in a predator’s gaze. Her butt stayed frozen in her chair; her head tilted up to look at him.

Ram frowned, placing the back of his palm to her forehead. “You don’t feel warm.”

“I took a tablet,” Aadhya replied huskily, realizing she was eye level with the front of his pants.

“Without checking your temperature?” Ram sounded appalled. “You can’t just pop pills like that. It’s irresponsible.”

Yup, definitely appalled. She eyed his crotch and wondered if this was her present or punishment for the day.

“Why are you here?” she asked his pants.

Ram froze, his hand dropping away as he went down to his haunches in front of her.

“Aadhya, I-“ he exhaled, his hands reaching to take hers. He held them in his, palms cupped in a prayerful gesture.

Aadhya stared at their joined hands in amazement. Maybe she was feverish. High fever did cause delusions or delirium, right?

“What’s going on?” she asked him.

A knock on the door interrupted them before he could answer.

“Aadhya Madam, Aarush Sir is calling.” The office boy’s eyes widened at the sight of them holding hands, but he disappeared after delivering his message. Must be running down the hallway to spread his fresh gossip.

“We should go,” she told Ram who seemed reluctant to release her hands and rise. “I have something to show Aarush Anna.”

He nodded, slowly rising to his feet and pulling her to hers in the same motion. Aadhya tugged at her hand, but Ram didn’t let go.

“Ram-“

“You asked me to choose,” he interrupted her. He raised their joined hands to his lips and kissed her fingers. “I did.”

Happiness erupted in a confused rush inside her. He chose her? Why? What was with the sudden change of heart? Something inside her reminded her that she’d thought he’d chosen her the day he married her too. But she’d been wrong.

“Why?” she asked, struggling to process all the chaos in her life, both personal and professional.

“We’ll talk,” he told her, giving her a fiercely possessive look. “But for now, let’s go fix this mess.”

This mess. Her mess. A chill ran through her, a premonition that she was sitting on the lip of a volcano.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know that now.” Ram’s expression took on a predatory gleam, one that had a shiver snake down her spine. “And we’ll find the bastard who did this and nail him to the wall.”

“Madam.” Another employee stuck their head through the door before she could process his comment and reply. “Aarush Anna is asking you to come to his cabin now.”

“We’re coming,” Ram replied, twining her fingers with his and pulling Aadhya towards the door. She grabbed the hard disk as she passed her desk and followed him.

The niggling feeling was back. She was missing something again. Something she knew but couldn’t quite put her finger on. It felt like there were endless layers to this situation and she needed to keep peeling it back until she found the core of the problem.

Because no matter what lay behind Aarush Anna’s office doors, she knew they were nowhere near the core. The core, the rotten core, still stayed hidden.