"I had the beginning of a hypothesis. I didn't have what you just told me." He paused. "How long have you been sitting on this?"
"Six weeks." She looked at her hands. "I didn't know what to do with it. If I go to my father — it becomes a political disaster. If I go to the authorities independently — I'm directly implicating my future in-laws in financial fraud, and I have to think about whether my family's name—" She stopped. "I've been paralysed," she said. It cost her something to say it. "And now someone is trying to kill me."
"I believe so," he said. Without softening it, because she had asked for honesty. "The incidents escalate. He's trying to frighten you into silence. If that doesn't work—"
"It won't work," she said. The exhaustion was there, and the fear beneath it — she wasn't pretending not to be afraid — but under those things was something that was simply who she was. "I'm not going to let a man commit fraud and then threaten me into covering it up because it would be inconvenient for my family's political calendar." Her voice was entirely steady. "So. What do we do?"
Arjun looked at her across the table. In the low light of her apartment, with her hands still holding the chai cup and the folder of evidence she had compiled closed beside her — she was, he thought, one of the most genuinely remarkable people he had met. He thought about the line he had written and deleted in the stairwell three weeks ago.
"We build the case," he said. "Properly. Completely. Evidence that cannot be contested or buried." He leaned forward. "What you have is the start. I have more. Together, we have something that goes to the right authority — the Enforcement Directorate. Not the police first, not a journalist."
"My father needs to know before it goes anywhere," she said.
"Yes." He paused. "And Priya — you cannot be alone. Not now, not while we're building this. If he figures out you've talked to someone—"
