[POV: Rajesh]
My penthouse office felt like a conspiracy theorist's basement. The giant glass desk was now buried. On the left: printed financials from Malhotra Holdings, my "cover" work. On the right: the real mission. Amit's bank statements, printed and highlighted. The grey paint flake in a ziplock bag. A photo of the twisted buckle. A map of the industrial zone with the school circled in red marker.
I'd sent Divya the coordinates for tonight: The Roof Top cafe at Khan Market. Public, noisy, lots of exits. Neutral ground.
But first, I needed data. I couldn't show up with just theories. I needed evidence. Cold, hard, financial evidence.
The problem was access. Amit's accounts were locked, soon to be frozen as part of his estate. His grandparents didn't know online banking from a toaster oven. The official route was a dead end.
So, I took the back door.
I pulled out my laptop and opened a secure VPN, routing my connection through a server in Singapore. Then, I clicked on a discreet icon—a program called "LedgerLink," a "diagnostic tool" a guy in my fintech seminar had built. He'd joked it could "persuade" banking APIs to be more… forthcoming. I'd paid him five thousand rupees to forget he ever showed it to me.
This is illegal, the CEO part of my brain noted. This is wire fraud. Ten years minimum.
He's dead, the brother part answered. And someone killed him.
I typed in Amit's basic info—his full name, date of birth, the last four digits of his phone number I knew by heart. The program spun, a little digital lockpick searching for a seam in the bank's firewall.
My own phone buzzed. A call from Dad.
I let it go to voicemail. It buzzed again immediately. Persistent.
I answered, putting it on speaker, my eyes on the screen. "Yes?"
"Rajesh. The Liang merger documents. I've reviewed your notes. They're emotional. Imprecise. You're distracted." His voice was the sound of a spreadsheet calculating disappointment.
"Amit died last week," I said flatly, watching the program run its scripts.
"And the world continues to turn. The board is concerned. Your mother is concerned. This… wallowing is beneath you."
Wallowing. I was hacking a bank while plotting a revenge investigation, and he called it wallowing.
"I'm handling it," I said, my voice tight. "The notes are fine. The logic is sound. If the board has specific, actionable criticisms, have them email me. Otherwise, I have work to do."
"What work could possibly be more important than securing the future of this family?" The question was genuine. He truly couldn't imagine an answer.
The program on my screen chimed softly. ACCESS GRANTED. QUERY READY.
"Something that should have been important to this family," I said quietly. "A friend."
I hung up before he could reply. I muted my phone and tossed it onto the sofa. It landed next to the black blazer I'd worn to the funeral. The world of Malhotra Holdings dissolved. There was only the glow of the screen and Amit's financial life laid bare.
I started with the obvious. The last month.
There were the usual beats. A transfer to his grandparents for rent. Spotify subscription. Zomato orders (always for two—him and Divya). A payment to an art supply store. A small deposit from the gallery that sold one of his smaller pieces.
Then, three weeks ago: ₹85,000.00 - Debit - CASH WITHDRAWAL.
I sat up straighter. Eighty-five thousand. In cash. That wasn't a normal Amit move. He was a digital wallet guy. He'd wave his phone and say, "Behold, the future!" This was old-school, untraceable money.
I highlighted it in yellow. Where did it go?
I cross-referenced the date with his messages. I'd exported his chat logs with me before his phone was destroyed. That day, he'd texted:
Amit: Met with the truth-seeker today. Feels weird. Like I'm in a spy movie.
Me: The P.I.? Don't pay him upfront. Get a contract.
Amit: Too late. Cash on barrel. Said it keeps things "deniable."
Me: That's not deniable, that's stupid. You just got scammed.
The P.I. Arjun. The ₹85,000 was the retainer. Paid in cash. Deniable.
So the P.I. was real. And Amit had paid him. Had he gotten anything for his money?
I kept scrolling. A week later, a smaller, stranger transaction: ₹2,500 - Debit - UPI to V_Spectra Ltd.
I'd never heard of it. A quick web search pulled up a shell—a "spectral imaging consultancy" with a website that was just a landing page and an email. The kind of front you set up in an afternoon. Who was V? Vikram?
My phone buzzed on the sofa. A text from an unknown number. Different from the last one.
Unknown: Mr. Malhotra. Your digital footprints are becoming muddy. Cleaning services are advisable. A friendly reminder.
They were watching my online activity now. My blood went cold. They knew I was digging. They had to be monitoring Amit's accounts for queries. Or they had someone inside the bank.
I didn't reply. Instead, I took a screenshot and saved it to the encrypted drive. Threat #2.
I went back further. Six months. A pattern emerged. Small, recurring transfers to a charity: The Sunlight Foundation. ₹5,000/month.
I knew this one. Amit volunteered there. It was a community art center for kids in the slums near his grandparents' place. He taught painting every Sunday. He never talked about donating money, though. He didn't have it to spare.
Why hide that?
A new thought, ugly and cold, slithered into my mind. What if it wasn't a donation? What if it was a payment? For what?
I opened a new tab, my fingers flying. I searched for The Sunlight Foundation's corporate filings. It was a legitimate NGO. But the board of directors… I scanned the names.
The third name down: Vikram Sharma. Treasurer.
Ice water flooded my veins.
It was a funnel. A clean, charitable funnel. Amit's "donations" were going right into a charity his uncle controlled. Was it guilt money? Hush money? Or was Amit documenting the flow? The ₹85,000 to the P.I. made sense now. He wasn't just looking at the family trust. He was tracing his own money into his uncle's pet charity.
My desk phone rang—the landline. Few people had that number. I picked it up. "Malhotra."
"Rajesh, beta." It was Dadi-ji, Amit's grandmother. Her voice was thin, strained. "A man came to the house. From the bank. He said there was suspicious activity on Amit's account. That someone was trying to access it. Was that you?"
Shit. They weren't just sending texts. They were applying pressure through his grandparents. Scaring them.
"Yes, Dadi-ji. It was me. I'm… I'm helping to organize his finances for the estate." The lie tasted bitter. "Did the man have a name?"
"He gave a card. Mr. Khanna. He was very… insistent. He asked if we had given permission to anyone. He said it looked like hacking."
"Listen to me," I said, my voice dropping into its most calming, CEO tone. "That man does not work for the bank. He works for the people who want to hide what Amit found. Do not talk to him again. If he comes back, call the police first, then call me. Do you understand?"
A shaky breath on the other end. "Beta, what is happening? What did Amit find?"
"I don't know yet. But I will. I promise you. Just trust me, and do not be afraid of men in suits with cards."
I hung up, my heart pounding. They were escalating. The texts were warnings. The visit to the grandparents was a threat. Back off, or we hurt the old people you love.
It should have scared me. It did scare me. But underneath the fear was a white-hot coal of rage. They'd taken my brother. Now they were threatening his family. They thought I was a spoiled kid playing detective.
They had no idea what I was becoming.
I looked at the clock. 6:30 PM. Time to meet the asset.
I quickly printed two key documents: the highlighted statement showing the ₹85,000 cash withdrawal and the charity ledger showing Vikram's name. I didn't take the originals. I stuffed the prints into a plain manila folder.
As I shrugged on a leather jacket over a simple black tee (not auditing the location, Divya), my eyes fell on the grey paint sample in its bag.
A thought connected. Grey paint. Corporate. Bland. The colour of a company car. A security van. Something institutional.
I grabbed my keys and headed for the door, the manila folder under my arm. The mission was no longer a theoretical puzzle. It was a war with real-time consequences.
And tonight, I had to brief my new, chaotic, grieving, and utterly necessary partner on just how deep and dangerous the rabbit hole went.