He was a mid-level manager at a cybersecurity firm.

Arjun. The Dubai data center flagged an unauthorized backdoor entry last night. The entry point was your VPN credentials. We need to talk. Now.

She’d given him that look. The one that said, You are not listening to the problem; you are just offering a solution.

His thumbs flew across the screen. He typed:

He stared back at the PDF. The bill wasn’t a bill. It was a digital autopsy report of his own professional murder. The ₹29 lakh was just the price tag.

He looked down. The PDF was still open. A single line at the bottom, in tiny, almost invisible grey text, caught his eye:

His thumb hovered over the ‘Delete’ icon. Then, a memory surfaced.