Vihaan's POV:
After the hearing, it was time to face the deadliest part of this investigation—walking straight into Liam's territory. I was supposed to go alone, but Ama insisted, and when she insists, there's no denying her. We both took a taxi, changed our looks just enough to stay unrecognizable.
"You sure you still want to join?" Ama asked Jia.
"Three working together is better than two," Jia replied firmly.
Soon, we were standing in front of Liam's house. The air itself felt heavy, like the walls already knew why we were here.
"Be safe. If you sense any trouble, don't wait—leave. Don't wait for the others," I said. But deep down, I knew that if the situation turned bad, I'd be the first to break that rule.
We nodded in silent agreement and slipped into different directions.
"Hey, where are you going?" one of Liam's men barked at me.
"I'm the newly recruited bodyguard of Mr. Liam Salvatore," I answered smoothly, handing him an ID.
He scanned it once, then waved me through. I entered, keeping my stride confident, every step carefully measured. Along the way, I started planting small hidden cameras in every possible corner, weaving our silent eyes into Liam's home.
Amara's POV:
The closer I walked into this house, the harsher my memories clawed back. This was the hall where I used to play with my mother. This was the place where I once belonged—before it all burned down in blood and fear.
"Are you the maid, Adeline?" a voice snapped me out of the haze.
I turned. A familiar face stood there—a woman older now, but recognizable. A maid who had been in this house for as long as I could remember.
"Yes… it's me," I replied, forcing calm.
She smiled politely. "Hi. I'm the supervisor here. Call me Sheriff." She extended her hand.
I took it, my grip steady. "Hello. Yes, I'm Adeline."
Soon, she showed me around—the kitchen, the dining area. The interiors had changed, but when my eyes landed on the dining table, a sharp pang hit me. That part hadn't changed at all.
When she finally left me alone, I wasted no time. My fingers worked quickly, attaching cameras to every hidden corner, every shadow that could watch without being seen.
Jia's POV:
I carried a set of Liam's discarded case files I had "borrowed" weeks ago through another contact. Dressed in a crisp formal suit and glasses, I looked like a consultant, maybe an intern for Liam's associates.
One of the guards barely glanced at me. "What department?" he asked lazily.
"Legal accounts," I answered flatly, shoving the papers under his nose with a hint of annoyance. He didn't bother questioning further. Men like him didn't argue with clipped, irritated women in office clothes.
Inside, I slipped into Liam's study. No one followed. The room was colder, almost staged—papers arranged too neatly, pens aligned like soldiers. I scanned quickly. Nothing was in plain sight, of course. Liam was cruel, but not careless. My eyes caught a ledger tucked inside the lower shelf. I pulled it out—transactions, offshore accounts, coded but decipherable. My throat tightened with both fear and triumph. This was enough to tie him to the fraudulent transfers. Maybe even enough to reopen the murder file.
I quickly photographed each page, hands trembling, knowing every second in this house was borrowed time.
As we finished everything, we headed back toward the house.
"You guys are done?" I whispered into the hidden Bluetooth.
"Hm. Work's done. We should leave before any trouble," Vihaan's voice came, steady but low.
One by one, we slipped out—like shadows dissolving into the night. No alarms, no shouting, no suspicious eyes following. It almost felt too easy.
By the time we reached home, the weight of the night had settled over me like dust. I spread the papers we had collected across the table.
"These are some incomplete transactions and some really shady property transfers. No proper dates, no timelines… just properties suddenly shifted into Liam's name overnight. And the worst part? Every single one of the previous owners is dead now," I explained, my voice tighter than I intended.
Vihaan leaned closer, scanning each page with a lawyer's sharp eyes. "It's good. Enough to corner him on property fraud and money laundering. Enough to secure another hearing. But not… enough to finish this."
His words sank like lead.
Ama exhaled, rubbing her temples. "So we're still chasing shadows."
Amara's POV:
I connected the cameras we planted to each of our phones, each screen flickering to life with corners of Liam's house. It gave me a momentary sense of control, but my gut twisted even as the feeds stabilized.
"We need to be careful," I said quietly, my eyes not leaving the screen. "Liam isn't careless. Sooner or later, he'll know. And when he does…"
The thought cut itself off, sharp as a blade. None of us dared finish the sentence.
The kitchen light was low, a single lamp painting the living room in warm amber. The papers lay in a careful, chaotic fan across the table—evidence by daylight, memories by night. Outside, the city went on with indifferent noise; inside, for the first time all day, we let the fight relax out of our shoulders.
Vihaan sat at the head of the table, sleeves rolled up as if pretending this was just another midnight paper-push. He had that tired, precise look: eyes that catalogued, fingers that smoothed edges. Jia offered tea in mismatched cups and moved like a small, steady current—efficient, warm, practical. I watched them both and felt for a few suspended seconds that the world might still be ordinary.
"We're close," Vihaan said softly, not looking up from the files. "Close enough to force a hearing. Close enough to make them sweat." He tapped a page, assembling a sequence in his mind. "We'll have a timeline, a ledger, chain-of-custody. We'll get the forensics in place."
Jia laughed once, the sound brittle but hopeful. "And then we slap them with paperwork until they crumble."
I plugged the last camera into my phone and watched the tiny feeds settle—corners of Liam's house I'd planted eyes in: the library's lower shelf yawning in silent darkness, the corridor with the antique mirror, the dining table's carved edge. Each little red dot in the corner of the frames felt like a promise.
Vihaan leaned back and finally met my eyes. "Go rest, Ama. You did more than anyone asked."
"Only because I want them to answer for this," I said, and there was no bravado in it—only the quiet steel of a woman who had learned not to flinch.
We ate something small—leftovers warmed on a plate, the kind of domestic normalcy that pretends everything can be ordinary again. We traded small comforts: Vihaan teased Jia about her dramatic sighs; Jia complained about my habit of writing in the margins; I felt hands warm around mine and tried not to let the tremor show.
There were jokes, too — small, ridiculous things that make people look silly and human. A laugh from Vihaan cut the tension like a little knife of light. For a sliver of time, it was almost peaceful.
When Vihaan rose to leave — work calls to make, a judge to brief, things that only he could do in person — he kissed my forehead the way he always did: brief, anchoring. "I'll be back before dawn," he promised, and though the promise was small, it steadied me.
He locked the door behind him, the click solid and familiar. Jia double-checked the windows and the chain on the door as if to prove to herself that we were safe. I walked the rooms once, checking that each camera feed was live, that every battery hummed, that every file had a secure copy.
I set my phone on the coffee table with the live feed open—three tiny screens, the house in miniature. The red recording dots blinked steadily; the library's angle showed the shelf where we'd slipped in the buried transfers, the corridor one caught the antique mirror in which my reflection blurred.
I lay down on the couch with the lamp dimmed and the papers folded near my head. My breath eventually slowed. Sleep came like a reluctant visitor—hesitant, then accepting.
Somewhere in the house, the refrigerator clicked. The city thrummed. I let my eyes close to the hush.
For now, everything held.