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“Yes,” Veda said amicably. “This outfit,” she gestured to her heavy dancer’s attire and jewellery, “is perfect for murder attempts.”
“Param, wait outside,” she told her bodyguard. He hesitated but nodded when she smiled reassuringly at him.
Virat stepped in and she shut the door, sealing them into the damp, dusty room. To Veda’s bemusement, he pulled out some weird dildo looking gadget and pointed it around the room.
“No bugs,” he said, pocketing the dildo again.
“I take it you’re not talking about that variety,” she said drily, pointing to a cockroach scuttling across the floor.
“Ganesh tried to frame you in the pandemic fund scam.”
The blunt words landed like a bomb in the middle of the room. Veda’s mouth fell open as she stared at him.
“Me?”
Virat nodded. “I found the evidence.”
Veda sat down with a thump on the only chair in the room. It creaked with the sudden weight.
‘B-but-“
“I wanted to take it to the cops. It nails Ganesh to the scam. But it also implicates you.”
Veda stared at him dumbly.
“So, why aren’t the cops here?” she asked, her lips feeling cold and numb.
“Agastya made me scrub it, remove all trace of you. It weakens his case, but he made me do it.”
It felt like the ground was tilting beneath her feet.
“Isn’t that illegal?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“You don’t honestly expect me to answer that, do you?” He grinned.
Veda wanted to smack him. She looked away from him and towards the wall in the corner. A spider was busy weaving its web, blissfully ignorant of the drama playing out with the humans in the room. Or the web that Veda herself seemed to be caught in.
“Imagine my shock,” Virat mused, drawing her attention back to him, “When the upright, principled, forever right Agastya Kodela stepped over the line between good and bad.”
Was there enough oxygen in the room, Veda wondered dimly. It felt like there wasn’t.
“I know all about the idiotic, marriage plan he came up with,” Virat continued. “His moment of brilliance that was incredibly stupid.”
“He didn’t step over the line for that,” Veda defended automatically. She’d gone over this a million times in her head. Agastya had walked a fine line there, one that broke her heart but it hadn’t…
“No. He’s the master of that, finding the sweet spot that doesn’t cross the line. But he didn’t just cross the line for this, Veda. He obliterated it along with a sure shot chance of proving his and his father’s innocence.” Virat looked at her, his gaze unreadable. “In protecting you, he’s left himself wide open.”
All sound emptied out of the room as she looked at this man, this stranger who’d shattered whatever was left of her already broken life.
“What do you want from me?” she asked him.
“Help. I want help.” The simple answer brought with it a million questions. “Give me signed access to all your data, digital and otherwise. I can get it another way but the information I obtain won’t stand up in court.”
The daughter of a man who dealt in information didn’t hand over something like this without a fight. She’d learnt to guard her life, online and offline with a ferocity that belied her otherwise gentle nature.
“I’d like to speak to my brother,” she said. “I still don’t know if I should trust you.”
Virat handed over a small, ordinary, not-very-smart phone wordlessly. “You can call him from this.”
