The Langham Hotel
The room was dark.
The only light came from the laptop screen. It was blue. It was harsh. It cut through the dark like a welding torch.
Esha sat on the edge of the bed. She was wearing a hotel robe. It was too big. It felt like a towel that was swallowing her. Her hair was wet. It dripped onto her neck. Drip. Drip. Cold drops.
She stared at the cursor.
It blinked. On. Off. On. Off.
It was waiting.
Esha cracked her knuckles. Her hands were cold. The hotel room was cold. London was always cold.
She put her fingers on the keys.
She started to type.
It wasn't magic. It wasn't like the movies. There were no green numbers falling down the screen. It was just text. It was syntax. It was boring.
import requests
import time
target_url = "api.helixsecure.net/v2/auth"
She typed the script. It was a simple loop. It would send thousands of login requests to the Helix API every second. It would overload the buffer. It would confuse the server. The server would panic. It would shut down to protect itself.
Project Icarus.
Arjun's project. His baby. His three years of work.
She was killing it with twenty lines of code.
She stopped typing.
She looked at her hands. They looked like normal hands. They didn't look like murderer's hands. They had nail polish on them. Ballet Slippers. A soft pink. A nice girl color.
She thought about Arjun.
She thought about him at the gala. He looked tired. He had grey hair near his ears. He was stressed. He was trying to prove himself to his father. He was trying to show Vikram Roy that he wasn't useless.
If she pressed Enter, she proved he was useless.
She felt a wave of nausea. It rolled in her stomach like dirty water.
She stood up. She walked to the minibar. She opened a bottle of water. It was glass. expensive. She drank it. It tasted like nothing.
She looked at the chair in the corner.
Zaviyar's jacket was there.
She hadn't sent it to the laundry. She had hung it up. It looked like a person sitting in the dark. It looked like him watching her.
I like my scent on you.
She shivered.
She walked back to the laptop.
"Do it," she whispered to the empty room. "Just do it."
She sat down. She finished the script.
She set the timer.
schedule.run_pending()
target_time = "2026-03-15 09:00:00"
Launch day. Nine in the morning. The exact moment Arjun would stand on a stage and present his project to the world. The exact moment the system would crash.
She hovered her finger over the Enter key.
It was a small key. Plastic. Cheap.
Click.
She pressed it.
Done.
The script was armed. It was sitting on a remote server in Estonia. Waiting. Counting down.
Esha closed the laptop. The blue light vanished. The room went black.
She felt heavy. She felt like she was made of lead.
She crawled into the bed. The sheets were stiff. Hotel sheets. They smelled like bleach.
She closed her eyes. She tried to sleep.
She saw Arjun's face. He was smiling. He was handing her a candy bar. Here, Little Shadow. Don't tell your dad.
She rolled over. She buried her face in the pillow.
She wanted to cry. But she couldn't. Anya Sharma doesn't cry. Anya Sharma sleeps.
The Text
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
It was loud in the quiet room.
Esha jumped. Her heart hammered.
She reached for it. The screen lit up. It blinded her for a second.
New Message: Unknown Number.
She unlocked the phone.
It was a picture.
A picture of an old bicycle. A red bicycle with training wheels. It was rusted. It was sitting in a garden.
Below the picture, a text:
Found this in the garage. Pretty sure this was yours. You crashed it into the rose bushes. Dad was so mad. - A
Arjun.
He had her number. How did he get her number?
No. He didn't have Esha's number. He had Anya's number. He must have got it from the gala directory. Or maybe Zaviyar gave it to him.
No. The text...
Pretty sure this was yours.
He thought he was texting Esha. But he was texting Anya's number.
Wait.
Esha sat up. She turned on the lamp.
She looked at the number. It wasn't her Anya phone. It was her Esha phone.
She had two phones. The encrypted brick for her father. And the sleek iPhone for her cover.
Wait. No.
She looked at the phone in her hand. It was the iPhone. The Anya phone.
But the text was personal. This was yours.
Arjun knew.
He knew who she was.
Panic. Cold, sharp panic. It flooded her chest.
If Arjun knew she was Anya, then Zaviyar knew. If Zaviyar knew, she was dead.
She stared at the text again.
Found this in the garage...
She looked at the contact info. Arjun Roy.
Why would he text Anya Sharma about a childhood bike?
She read it again.
Message sent to: +44...
She realized.
He didn't send it to Anya. He sent it to Esha. He sent it to her old number. The number she used when she was a teenager. The number she still kept active for emergencies.
She had both SIM cards in the same phone.
Dual SIM.
She let out a breath. A shaky, jagged breath.
He didn't know. He was just texting his cousin. He was feeling nostalgic. He was reaching out.
She looked at the rusted bike. She remembered that day. She crashed into the roses. She scraped her knee. Arjun cleaned it up. He put a band-aid on it. He told her not to cry.
He put a band-aid on you, she thought. And you just put a bomb in his server.
She didn't reply.
She couldn't reply. What would she say? Haha, yes. Also, your career ends in three weeks. Sorry.
She put the phone face down.
She turned off the lamp.
She lay in the dark. She felt the weight of the lie pressing down on her chest. It was heavy. It was crushing her ribs.
The Morning
Coffee.
She needed coffee. Black. Bitter. Hot.
She stood in the break room at Khan Global. The coffee machine hissed. It sounded like a snake.
She was wearing grey today. A grey suit. Grey silk blouse. She looked like smoke. She felt like smoke.
"Rough night?"
Esha didn't turn. She knew the voice.
Daniyal.
The brother. The spare heir.
He leaned against the counter. He was wearing a pink shirt. He looked bright. He looked annoying.
"I slept fine," Esha said. She grabbed her cup.
"You look like a zombie," Daniyal said. "A hot zombie. But a zombie."
"Thank you, Daniyal. You are charming as always."
"Zaviyar is looking for you," Daniyal said. He took an apple from the fruit bowl. He tossed it in the air. Catch. Toss. "He's in the War Room. He's pacing. He does that when he's excited."
"Excited about what?"
"You, probably," Daniyal said. He bit the apple. Crunch. "You're the new favorite toy. He likes toys that are sharp."
Esha walked past him.
"I'm not a toy," she said.
"Everyone is a toy to Zaviyar," Daniyal called after her. "Even me. Especially me."
Esha walked to the War Room.
The glass walls were frosted today. Privacy mode.
She swiped her card. Beep.
The door opened.
Zaviyar was there. He was standing at the head of the table. He was looking at a map.
He looked up.
He looked awake. Alert. Dangerous.
"Is it done?" he asked. No hello. No good morning.
Esha walked to the table. She put her coffee down.
"It's scheduled," she said.
"The script?"
"Yes. It runs on launch day. 9:00 AM."
"And the vulnerability?"
"It works," Esha said. "I tested it on a mirror server. It crashes the authentication loop. They won't be able to log in for at least twelve hours. By then, the press will destroy them."
Zaviyar smiled.
It wasn't the shark smile. It was a real smile. It reached his eyes.
"Perfect," he said.
He walked over to her. He stood close.
"You did good, Anya."
He reached out. He touched her shoulder. His hand was heavy.
"You look tired," he said.
"I'm fine."
"You are not fine." He looked at her eyes. He looked deeper. "You feel guilty."
Esha stiffened.
"I don't do guilt," she said. "I do results."
"Liar," Zaviyar whispered.
He moved his hand up. He touched her neck. His thumb brushed her pulse point.
Her heart jumped. Thump.
"Your heart is racing," he said. "Why?"
"Because you are standing too close," Esha said. "And you are my boss."
"I am not your boss right now," Zaviyar said. "Right now, we are just conspirators."
He leaned in. He smelled like coffee and mint.
"Tell me the truth," he said. "Did you feel bad? When you wrote the code?"
Esha looked at him. She wanted to lie. She wanted to say no.
But she was tired. She was so tired.
"Yes," she said. "He worked hard on it. It is good code."
Zaviyar nodded.
"Good," he said. "If you didn't feel bad, you would be a psychopath. I don't hire psychopaths. I hire killers with a conscience. They are more careful."
He dropped his hand.
"Go to your office," he said. "Get some rest. We have a meeting with the investors at two."
Esha nodded. She grabbed her coffee.
She turned to leave.
"Anya," Zaviyar said.
She stopped.
"The jacket," he said. "Did you bring it?"
Esha didn't turn around.
"No," she said. "I forgot."
"Don't wash it," Zaviyar said. His voice was low. "I meant what I said."
Esha walked out.
She walked fast. She walked to her glass box.
She sat down. She put her head on the desk. The glass was cool against her forehead.
She was the killer with a conscience.
And the conscience was killing her.