[POV: Rajesh]
The cafe was my pick. "Brew & Binary" in the cyber hub. It was all exposed brick, industrial lighting, and the low hum of a hundred tech bros on MacBooks discussing seed funding. The perfect place to be invisible. Two students "networking" over coffee wouldn't raise an eyebrow.
I'd been here fifteen minutes, strategically positioned in a corner booth with a clear view of both exits. I had my back to the wall. I'd already run a network diagnostic on the café's Wi-Fi—it was clean, no unusual packet sniffing. Paranoia was just operational security.
I saw her before she saw me. Hood up, head down, moving through the crowd with a new, tense awareness. She'd changed. The floaty, artistic chaos was gone, replaced by a sharp, almost severe focus. She looked… capable. It was unsettling.
She slid into the booth opposite me, not meeting my eyes, scanning the room just like I had. Her gaze landed on the exit, the barista, the guy in the glasses three tables over. She was learning.
"You're late," I said, tapping my watch. "Four minutes."
"I circled the block twice. In case I picked up a tail." She finally looked at me. Her eyes were clear, but there were shadows under them no amount of concealer could hide. "I saw your Audi. You're terrible at blending in. It's parked like it owns the street."
"It does. I pay the taxes." I pushed a black ceramic cup toward her. "Green tea. No caffeine. Your heart rate was probably through the roof after that little reconnaissance mission. You don't need a double espresso."
She stared at the tea like it was a personal insult. "I hate green tea."
"It's not for enjoyment. It's for operational stability. Drink it."
"You're not my nutritionist, Malhotra."
"No, I'm your mission coordinator. And the asset needs maintenance. Drink."
She made a face but took a sip. Her shoulders dropped half an inch. Good. The adrenaline was wearing off.
"Report," I said, opening a blank note on my tablet.
She pulled out her phone, swiped to a photo. "The building at 14 Connaught Place. It's a glorified post office. 'Virtual Office Solutions.' Four floors of mail drops and bored receptionists." She zoomed in on the photo. It showed a generic lobby directory. "V_Spectra Ltd. is listed on the third floor, suite 308."
"Did you go up?"
"No. But I watched the elevator bank for twenty minutes. Suite 308 is serviced by the single, oldest, slowest elevator. It's the only one with a keycard slot. Everyone else used the other two elevators or the stairs. Whatever's on three-oh-eight, they don't get visitors."
That was… good. Sharp observation. "Logistics?"
"No deliveries while I was there. But…" She pulled up another photo, taken through the glass front door. It was blurry, but showed the back of a man in a grey uniform exiting the secure elevator. "He came out just as I was leaving. No logos on the uniform. Just… grey. He was carrying a hard-shell black briefcase, handcuffed to his wrist."
My pulse quickened. Handcuffed briefcase. That wasn't logistics. That was high-value transport. Cash. Jewels. Or data.
"Did you get a look at his face?"
"No. But I got this." She swiped to a third photo, a tight shot of the man's shoulder as he'd turned. The emblem on his sleeve was still blurry, but clearer than my screenshot. It was a geometric design: a circle with a diagonal slash through it, and a stylized 'V' in the centre.
"V_Spectra logo," I murmured, saving the image. "Good. That's a direct visual link. The grey uniform, the logo. It's them."
"So what is it?" she asked, leaning forward, her voice low. "A security company? Why the secrecy? And what does it have to do with Amit?"
I took a breath. This was the part where I had to share my side. The part that felt like betraying him. "I cracked the Sunlight Foundation donor list deeper. V_Spectra donates twenty-five lakh a year."
Her eyes widened. "That's a huge donation for a shell company."
"It's not a donation. It's a fee. For services rendered."
"What services?"
"Look at their corporate filing. 'Secure transport and asset protection.' I think Vikram is using the charity to clean his money, and he's paying his own security company—V_Spectra—with the clean money. It's a perfect, circular wash."
She blinked, processing the corporate jargon. "So… he steals from the family trust, funnels it to the charity, then pays his own private army with it?"
"Essentially."
"And Amit found out."
"He didn't just find out," I said, pulling up the USB drive files on my tablet. I showed her a spreadsheet. "He was documenting it. Look at these transfers he highlighted. Every quarter, like clockwork. He was building a case. Not for the police. For his grandparents. For the family."
She stared at the screen, her face pale. "He was going to expose his own uncle. That's why he was scared."
"And that's why he's dead." The words were cold, factual. I needed them to be. "He wasn't suicidal. He was a threat to a multi-crore embezzlement scheme with a private security force. They eliminated the threat."
Divya was silent for a long moment. She twisted the bracelet on her wrist, the charms clicking softly. "So what's the next play, CEO? We can't go to the police with a spreadsheet and a blurry photo. They'll laugh us out of the station."
"We need physical proof. Something that links Vikram directly to V_Spectra and to Amit's death. The grey paint could be it, if we can match it to one of their vehicles. Or the buckle."
"How do we get that? Walk into their keycard-locked suite and ask for a company car for a test drive?"
The old dynamic flickered. Her sarcasm, my impatience. "We don't walk in. We find their garage. Their depot. Where they keep the vehicles." I pulled up a map of Delhi's industrial areas. "They have to have a base of operations. Somewhere with a secure lot, maintenance bays."
"You want to find a secret security depot? In a city of twenty million?"
"We have a clue. The paint sample." I pulled out the ziplock bag with the concrete flake. "It's not automotive paint. It's cheaper. Heavier. More likely industrial or commercial fleet paint. Used on trucks, vans, maybe the interior of a garage bay."
She took the bag, holding it up to the cafe's light. "So you want me to go back to the materials archive? Try to match industrial paints?"
"No. I want you to hack the system."
She almost dropped the bag. "Me? Hack? I can barely get the library printer to work."
"Not digital hack. Social hack. You're a design student. Your final project is… a series on urban decay. You need to document 'authentic industrial textures.' You're scouting locations. You're looking for old factories, garages, with specific grey paint finishes."
She stared at me, understanding dawning. "I'm not looking for their garage. I'm just an art student being annoying. If I find it, I take pictures. Samples, even."
"Exactly. Low-risk, high plausibility. You have the perfect cover."
She nodded slowly, a plan forming behind her eyes. It was a good plan. It used her skills, her identity. It wasn't my way—the digital blitzkrieg. It was stealthier. Better.
"Fine," she said. "I'll do it. But I need something from you."
"What?"
"Your 'finance bro source.' The one you're leveraging. I want to know who it is. If I'm going into the field, I need to know all the players. Even the sketchy ones on our side."
I hesitated. Exposing Arnav was a risk. But she was right. Full transparency. "His name's Arnav. He works at the bank that handles the Sharma family trust. He has a gambling debt. I'm… helping him with it. In exchange for information."
Her eyebrows shot up. "You're blackmailing a banker?"
"I'm leveraging a mutually beneficial arrangement. He gets to keep his kneecaps. I get transaction histories."
"That's blackmail."
"It's resource optimization. Don't be naive."
We glared at each other over the green tea. The old barbs were back, but they were different now. They weren't about winning an argument. They were about calibrating a partnership. Testing boundaries.
"Fine," she said finally. "Just… be careful. Your 'resource optimization' sounds like a great way to get both of us killed."
"Noted." I checked the time. "We've been here twenty-seven minutes. Time to disperse. I'll compile the V_Spectra depot data—likely zones based on city permits and vehicle registration clusters. I'll send you a list of target areas tomorrow."
She stood up, pulling her hood back up. "Send it to the dummy email. Not my student account."
"Obviously."
She started to walk away, then turned back. "Rajesh."
"What?"
"The green tea… it actually helped. Thanks..."
She was gone before I could respond, melting into the crowd of tech bros.
I sat there for another five minutes, finishing my cold americano, watching the exits. No one followed her. The cafe was clean.
On my tablet, I opened a new file. PROJECT: AVENGER - PHASE 2.
Objective: Locate V_Spectra operational depot.
Asset: D. (Cover: Art project.)
Support: R. (Data analysis, remote surveillance.)
Risks: Exposure, physical confrontation, asset compromise.
I looked at the photo she'd taken of the man with the handcuffed briefcase. This wasn't a college project anymore. We were tangling with professionals. The kind who made problems disappear.
I thought of Amit, scared but determined, writing Confrontation = Truth in his sketchbook.
He'd been brave. But he'd been alone.
We weren't. We were a chaotic, argumentative, deeply dysfunctional team. But we were a team. And we had a list of targets, a bag of grey paint, and a burning need to set the world right.
It would have to be enough.