Page 59 of Power

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, but to be honest, I didn’t know what to say since it’s such a recent thing.”

“Well, whatever it is seems serious, judging from the way he looks at you. If you’re happy, then I’m happy for you. No hard feelings.” The softness in his eyes and smile on his lips let me know his feelings were genuine.

I returned the smile. I was glad we had cleared the air to maintain a friendship. He was a sweet person and would no doubt find a great girl one day.

“Were you going somewhere just now?” he asked.

Our conversation had distracted me from my mission. “Oh, yeah, I just wanted to check on something in my office.”

“Forever the hardest worker at the company. They should pay you overtime.”

“If only!” I laughed. “Hey, let’s get together after you come back from California?”

“That sounds great. Happy holidays, Amelia.”

“Happy holidays!” I said, before rushing off to the elevators.

I rode the elevator alone. No one at the party cared about work tonight. They were all too many glasses of champagne in to care about anything work related, so there was no one on the higher floors.

I ran into my office, keeping the door open and the lights off since it would only take me a couple of minutes to check the report and the light from the hallway was enough for me to see. I logged into my computer and loaded the software.

“Come on,” I whispered impatiently as the results loaded.

When they finally appeared on the monitor, they showed coordinates of26.9124° N, 75.7873° E. I entered them into Google.Jaipur, India.I looked at the map and saw that it was southwest of the capital of New Delhi. And close to Shyam’s base in Punjab. Salena had been there. But had Tarun been there too? He must have been, right? He would be with his fiancée, even if he were forcing her to marry him.

Another notification popped up on my screen. It was from the facial-recognition software. A match had been found to one of the pictures stored on the cloud. I clicked the alert and the program opened. The photo of Salena in her engagement outfit loaded from our shared cloud. I had seen the picture before, but it was still difficult to see a woman with eyes so dead. Her outfit was beautiful, and her jewelry was impeccable, but she looked like a ghost. It was so eerie that it gave me chills. My heart broke for her, even though she was my Shyam’s ex-girlfriend. No woman deserved to be treated the way she had.

Bright blue arrows outlined a spot on the glass window behind her.What?Why would the glass trigger a match? The software was usually accurate if it found a match. I was confused.

I zoomed in on the area that was highlighted. It looked like a smear on the glass. I zoomed in even further.

“Fuck!” I gasped. A face. It was a man. I pulled up the photo that it was being compared to by the software. It was one of the ones I had altered of Tarun’s brother, stripped of his prosthetics. The reflection in the window had a face like Vik’s, but it was thinner and had hollow cheeks. Was this Tarun? It had to be either Vik himself or a relative for it to be a match. A large dark spot was visible on the neck of the person. A birthmark. I pulled up the old photo of Tarun, where he was chubbier. His neck had a large brown birthmark.It’s him!

I had to tell Shyam. I grabbed my phone to send him a text.

Just then, large hands grabbed my waist from behind and covered my mouth. I thrashed my body around to free myself, but I couldn’t break loose. I tried to scream, but no sound came out.

“Boss didn’t tell me you’d have such a tight little body,” a raspy voice hissed into my ear. Its owner had a thick Indian accent. Hot breath blew on my neck. “Maybe he wouldn’t mind if I tried out this cunt before I deliver you.”

The monster used the hand that was on my waist to grope my vagina through my dress. Tears poured from my eyes. I tried to push away from him, but he was too strong for me.

“Stay still, sweetheart. You’re going to like this.” I could feel his hard-on press into my back. I wanted to vomit and pass out all at the same time. This couldn’t be happening to me again. I remembered from the time I had been mauled at Nirvana that the element of surprise was how Shyam had defended me. I bit down hard on my attacker’s hand until I was rewarded with the metallic taste of his blood. He cursed and let go of me in surprise.

“Fucking bitch!”

I screamed and ran around the desk, and the bottom of my dress caught on its metal leg. I stumbled toward the door and ran into a hard chest that felt like a wall. I fell backward onto the floor.

Another man hovered over me, holding a gun pointed at my chest. His smile was gnarly, and his neck and arms were covered in tattoos. He looked familiar.At the bar.He was one of the men who’d been sitting at the bar that night I was with Nat, before I had gone home with Shyam for the first time.

I inched back further into the room, away from him.

“You’re going to be a challenging one, huh?” He laughed like a maniac. He had an accent too. He grabbed my ankle and yanked hard, pulling me closer to him. I screamed again, hoping someone would be able to hear me. He flipped me over onto my stomach and held my back down with his knee. Terror spread through my body.

I felt a quick pinch in my neck. Confusion made me turn my head back to see what had caused it. The last image I saw was of the giant beast pinning me down, before everything went black.

Chapter XXX

Shyam

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