Page 57 of Wasted Grace

The door clicks open, snapping me out of my thoughts.

Advik walks in, Dev trailing behind him. My brain short-circuits for half a second.

He’s wearing a suit.

Fuck. I hadn’t seen him today. I forgot it was stupid ritual on contract signing days—he told me that once. Back when we were still...us.

And now?

Now he’s in that slate-gray suit, fitted and sharp, like he was carved to wear it.

Dev’s wearing one too, but it doesn’t matter. It’shim—Advik in a suit—that turns my blood fizzy and annoying.

He glances at me, and I catch it. That twitch at the corner of his mouth.

He knows.

Of course he fucking knows. The bastard.

I sniff and exhale sharply. “So?”

“We got him.”

Advik slaps the thick stack of signed contracts on the desk. The sound echoes more than it should.

I glance at the folder, then up at him. “Any last-minute changes?”

He shakes his head, smiling.

“Nope. Got him trapped.” It’s Dev who answers—far too excited for a man pushing fifty.

Right. Dev’s here too.

I’d... forgotten.

He’s been buzzing like a damn kid all week. I overheard him telling Advik this is themost fun he’s had since joining the security industry.

Fun.Right.

He doesn’t know about the trafficking. Not the real story.

Advik does. Partly.

Because I told him.

God. Why did I tell him?

I wasn’t even supposed to admit I was RAW. Not even GenVault’s CEO knows. Far as he’s concerned, we’re “law enforcement.” He probably thinks we’re CBI.

But when Advik asked—point-blank, three weeks ago—I blurted it out. Just like that.

And the look on his face...

Chagrin. Disbelief. Like he was replaying every moment we’d shared in our year and a half together—only this time with a dark, dangerous shadow hanging over it.

I’d tried to ease him out of that spiral. Told him I wasinactiveback then. That none of the life-threatening stuff had started yet.

A partial truth.