The days that followed were a blur of activity.
Aarohi threw herself into her work. She went to the hospital. She treated her patients. She sat with Anjali. She performed the careful dance of being Mrs. Kabir Raichand.
Behind the scenes, she was building something new.
The Council had accepted her conditions. She was officially a partner. She had access to their resources, their intelligence, their networks. She used every bit of it to hunt the people who had killed her father.
Rohan worked around the clock. His arm healed. His mind stayed sharp. He found the hunter's trail.
Faint. Fragmented. But real.
Someone had been tracking The Architect for years. Someone was using methods that predated her existence. Methods her father had taught her.
"You are sure?" she asked.
"I am sure." He pointed to the code on the screen. An encryption protocol she recognized. A signature she had thought was unique. "These are your father's patterns. The hunter is using your father's techniques."
Which meant the hunter was someone her father had known. Someone her father had trusted. Someone who had learned his methods and turned them against his daughter.
"Who?" she asked.
"I do not know yet. But I am close."
She left the safe house that night with more questions than answers. Her father's ghost grew closer with every step.
Kabir was waiting for her in her suite.
He sat on the edge of her bed. His office clothes were rumpled. His face was drawn with exhaustion. When she walked in, he looked up. She saw something in his eyes that she had not seen before.
Fear.
"Aarohi," he said. "We need to talk."
She closed the door. "What is wrong?"
"I have been investigating the bombing. The one at the hospital." He stood and walked toward her. "I found something. Something I do not understand."
He pulled out his phone and showed her a photograph. The image was grainy, taken from a security camera. A figure in dark clothes entered the hospital the day before the bombing.
The figure wore a mask.
A carbon fiber mask. The same mask she wore as The Architect.
"That is the person who planted the bomb," Kabir said. "Whoever it is, they are connected to the person targeting my foundation. Targeting my family." He looked at her. "Do you know who this is?"
Aarohi stared at the photograph. The mask was identical to hers. The build was similar. But it was not her. She had been at the hospital that day, in her white coat, visible to a hundred witnesses.
Someone was framing The Architect for the bombing.
"I do not know," she said. "But I will help you find out."
Kabir nodded slowly. His eyes searched her face.
"I hope so," he said. "Because whoever this is, they are getting closer. I will not let them hurt you."
He left. Aarohi stood alone in her room. The photograph burned in her memory.
Someone was wearing her mask. Someone was using her methods. Someone was trying to destroy everything she had built.
She had no idea who.