Arjun brought Vikram up from the basement on the fifth day.
The lawyer looked smaller than Aarohi remembered. His bruises had faded to yellow and green. His expensive suit had been replaced by grey prison clothes. His eyes still held the same cold intelligence, but something else lurked behind them now. Desperation.
Kabir sat across from him at a metal table in the estate's secure room. Arjun stood by the door. Aarohi watched from behind a one-way mirror in the adjoining space.
"You have been in my basement for five days," Kabir said. "No one knows you are here. No one is looking for you. You are a ghost."
Vikram smiled. "I have been a ghost for thirty years. This is nothing new."
"You are going to tell me everything. Every operation. Every contact. Every member of the Council."
"Or what? You will kill me?" Vikram leaned forward. "Go ahead. Kill me. My people will take over. The Syndicate will continue. The Council will find a new Surgeon. You will have accomplished nothing."
Kabir's face did not change. "I am not going to kill you. I am going to destroy you. I am going to take everything you have built and turn it to ash. Your money. Your networks. Your legacy. All of it will disappear. And you will spend the rest of your life in a prison cell, knowing that you lost."
Vikram's smile faltered.
"You cannot touch the Council. They are untouchable."
"The Chairman offered my wife a partnership. He wants The Architect at his table." Kabir's voice was soft. "Imagine what she could learn from the inside. Imagine what she could destroy."
Vikram's face went pale. "You would let her join them?"
"I would let her burn them down from within. And you are going to help her."
"I will never—"
Kabir stood up. He walked to the door and knocked twice. The signal.
Aarohi walked into the room.
She wore her mask. Her voice modulator was active. Her tactical suit hugged her body like a second skin. She was The Architect in full form.
Vikram stared at her. His composure cracked.
"You," he whispered.
"Me." She sat down across from him. "You have been hunting me for sixteen years. You killed my father. You killed Kabir's mother. You ordered the bombing of my hospital. And now you are going to help me destroy the people who have been protecting you."
"You think I will betray the Council?"
"I think you have no choice." She leaned forward. "The Chairman does not know you are here. He thinks you are still hunting me. If he finds out you failed, if he finds out you are in Raichand custody, he will cut you loose. You will be nothing. Less than nothing. A liability to be eliminated."
Vikram's hands trembled.
"What do you want?"
"Everything," Aarohi said. "Every name. Every operation. Every weakness. Give me the Council, and I will give you something in return."
"What?"
She removed her mask. She let him see her face. The face of the woman he had underestimated.
"I will make sure you live long enough to see them fall."
Vikram stared at her for a long moment. Then he laughed. It was a broken, hopeless sound.
"You are your father's daughter," he said. "He had the same fire. The same stubbornness. The same refusal to bend." He shook his head. "I should have killed you when I had the chance."
"But you did not." Aarohi stood up. "And now it is too late."
She walked out of the room. Behind her, Vikram began to talk.