WebNovels

Chapter 13 - Chapter 13 – The Warning

(Anaya's POV)

The building's lower floor had a different kind of silence — the kind that carried secrets in its hum.

Anaya hadn't meant to end up here. She had followed a trail of a mislabeled document request, which somehow originated from an account tagged A. Mehra. It wasn't uncommon for internal cross-checks to misfire, but this one had surfaced through Kabir's project directory — which meant someone had access they shouldn't.

Her steps echoed against polished concrete. She should have gone back upstairs. But curiosity was its own quiet rebellion, and she had never been particularly obedient to comfort.

"Looking for someone?"

The voice came from behind — smooth, low, deliberate. Anaya turned.

Aryan Mehra stood by the half-lit corridor, sleeves rolled, ID tag swinging slightly as if he had just walked out of a storm and hadn't quite dried off. His presence didn't announce itself; it arrived.

He looked nothing like she had imagined — less boardroom, more shadow.

"I— I was tracing a document route," she said, careful, professional.

"Of course you were," he murmured, as if he already knew. His eyes flicked briefly to the folder in her hand. "Kabir's project?"

She nodded once.

Aryan smiled faintly — not warmth, but recognition. "Then you shouldn't be here."

Something about the way he said it — not like a warning, more like a prediction — tightened the air.

"Meaning?" she asked.

He took a slow step closer, just enough for her to notice the detail in his tone: calm, controlled, dangerous. "Stay away from this phase of the rollout. Especially from Veer Malhotra."

Anaya's pulse steadied even as her mind raced. "That sounds like advice."

"It's not," he said. "It's a boundary. Some people build walls. Others build traps."

"And you?"

He smiled again, faint, almost sad. "I build exits."

Before she could respond, he walked past her — no sound, no explanation — and disappeared into the elevator at the end of the hall.

The silence that followed felt heavier than before.

Anaya stared down at the folder. The paper inside looked harmless, but something in her gut whispered otherwise. Aryan's tone hadn't been casual — it had been measured, the way Kabir's often was. But where Kabir used precision to protect, Aryan used it to conceal.

When she finally returned upstairs, Kabir Mehra was still in the conference room, eyes fixed on the screen, Veer Malhotra seated across from him — both of them too composed, too still. The kind of stillness that came before movement.

Veer looked up first. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Maybe I have," she said quietly, setting the folder down between them.

Kabir's eyes flicked to the label — A. Mehra. His expression didn't change. But the faintest pause in his breath told her everything.

He knew exactly who that was.

And now, so did she.

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