Shehnaaz jhooth nahi bolti. Koi bhi jhooth bol le, magar woh kabhi nahi..

Siddharth was perplexed. Shehnaaz was standing in front of him, her head bowed. The chaos in the office was something inexplicably hell-like. Everyone was screaming and shouting  accusations, while in the midst of it stood her, Shehnaaz, unblinking, unmoving, mute. 

This was not so much of a big deal. Why was she like that?

Siddharth wanted to hear her defend herself. He wanted her to say something, anything to help him make sense of the whole situation. 

"Shut-up! Shut-up, right now. This is your workplace, not a fish-market. We won't reach any conclusions this way, you understand?" Siddharth said firmly. 

For the next few seconds, there was complete silence in the office. Siddharth walked up to the cubicle where Shehnaaz worked and saw a number of tabs open on her computer. 

"Have you logged in or out of anything, since this started?" Siddharth asked Shehnaaz who shook her head, still not talking. 

"Has anyone touched this PC afterwards, at all?" 

Shefali raised her hand, "I was trying to go through the browser history, in order to find something more. I was told not to. I was the one who opened the Mail tab."

Siddharth nodded. 

"First of all, that's never a good idea. You could've butchered any evidence that we still had the chance to get at. Second, if she had done it, she'd not be foolish enough to leave the history on there. She's the tech genius of SGI. Give her some credit." 

Shehnaaz smiled weakly at Siddharth. There was still hope. 

Shehnaaz took a step towards her cubicle and Siddharth stepped aside, giving her enough room to access the contents of the cubicle if she needed. "I didn't do it Siddharth." She said quietly. "I didn't. I swear."

"Stop lying to him, We all saw that the leaked designs were traced back to you." Paras exclaimed. 

Siddharth looked at Shehnaaz, who shook her head. "I didn't." She whispered. 

"I'm not saying that you did." Siddharth said gently, typing away at the keyboard. "I gave you access to those designs a week ago, correct?"

"Yes." She mumbled. She opened the drawer and extracted a few sheets of paper. "I needed to get them printed for reference and record."

Siddharth leafed through the papers, "Yeah." 

"Sir, The Dhimans clearly made a fortune with those stolen designs, they might have split a part of profit with her." Someone said from the back of the room. 

"Excellent theory, Rajni." Siddharth responded.

"We'd definitely get something if we dug through her bank records." Someone else suggested. 

"We've already traced the source E-mail back to her computer, what more proof do you even need?" Sharon exclaimed impatiently. "She's friends with a highly placed guy over there."

Shehnaaz sighed, Siddharth looked amused at the newest piece of information. "What was that?" 

Sharon smirked. "I've seen her a few times with the guy. They.. they might have been planning the whole thing weeks in advance." She said looking pointedly at the girl who gasped. 

"I always knew she was a bitch. She'd do anything for the bucks.." Param seconded the thought.

"Sir, I think we should call the cops." Shefali said firmly. 

Shehnaaz looked terrified. "I have not done it. I am not lying." 

Siddharth rested his hand gently atop her shoulder, "Relax Shehnaaz and everyone let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is the company's internal matter. We don't need the cops to investigate company frauds if they can still be handled by us." He said firmly. "SGI still has a reputation that you are expected to safeguard." 

"Calling the cops won't help, Ma'am." Siddharth said when he saw Shefali opening her mouth to argue. 

Siddharth then turned to the girl beside himself. "You've got friends at Dhimans?" 

"I do, but I don't know who she's referring to. Vishal and Vivek are my friends. We've met a couple of times and.." 

"I know." Siddharth said. "I know you've not done this." 

Param jumped up in defense. "Sir, there's clear proof." 

Siddharth inhaled and exhaled loudly, "I know that Mr. Chabra. I don't care what it says,  because I don't believe the proof." He said with a small shrug of his shoulder. 

Param stared at him surprised. 

"She cheated you." He mumbled, confounded.

Siddharth rolled his eyes, "She's a freaking technology genius, Mr Chabra. For the love of God, give her credit! I trained this girl. I know what she's capable of and she god-damn well is capable of not getting caught if she ever really decided to do something like that. She's capable of destroying the company and she'd probably get away with it." He said impatiently. 

Everyone stared at him open mouthed. They had never heard their boss praise someone like that. They'd never heard him say something nice to anyone ever. 

"Shehnaaz has told me what I needed to hear from her. She has not done it." Siddharth said seriously.

"She's lying Siddharth sir. We may need time to investigate further, but as of now, she's looking like the culprit. The odds are all against her." Sharon said. 

"Ma'am I won't say this twice, I believe her. I believe that she's not lying. Shehnaaz Kaur Gill kabhi jhoot nai bol sakti... Koi bhi jhoot bol le, lekin Shehnaaz kabhi jhoot nai bolti.. Mai likh k de sakta hu!" Siddharth said flatly. 

The staff didn't have much to say after that, neither did they have anything to go on with. 

"Siddharth.." Shehnaaz's voice was barely audible, but he knew the emotion that it conveyed. Gratitude. 

"However, I won't stop you people from pursuing this situation in any manner you want, as long as you promise not to involve any external authorities into it. You think Shehnaaz is the culprit? You want to get her punished? Give me hard proof. Dig. You were going to dig through her bank records? Try. See where you get from there. But, don't go around putting baseless accusations upon a co-worker just because you've traced one email back to her computer. That is not proof enough for me to fire an employee that's been nothing but an asset to me all these years." Siddharth said curtly. 

Shehnaaz pressed her lips together. 

"Am I allowed to dig on my own, Siddharth? I am allowed to prove my innocence?" She asked hopefully. 

"Yes you are. I expect you to revert back to me in an hour." Siddharth told Shehnaaz. "The rest of you will have till 7 in the evening. Capiche?" 

"Why--?" 

"She's the tech genius and she's friends with 90% of you. She'd rip you apart if she had till 7. My records are off limits to you Shehnaaz."  Siddharth said, patting her shoulder.

"It won't stop me."

"That's my girl." Siddharth smiled. He turned to the rest of the staff. "Go wild."

Siddharth was about to leave when Shehnaaz stopped him. "I have a question, Do I have to provide them with my bank records?" 

"Why would you do that? Tum apni personal records kisi ko bhi aise hi kyon dogi? They insist on digging. Let them. You're not obligated to help them at all." Siddharth said casually "I'm sure there are plenty of geniuses in the B Team. Let's give them a fair chance to show off, why don't we?" 

Shehnaaz sighed, "Right." 

"I'll see you in an hour. Your time starts.." He looked at his watch, for a brief second "..now!"

Shehnaaz walked back to her PC, smiling softly. It didn't matter what the others were saying about her, because she had the vote that mattered the most. 

Siddharth Shukla's 

"Are you f*cking him?" Sharon asked curiously. 

"I'm sorry?" Shehnaaz asked, clicking away on her computer. 

"The way he defended you, there's clearly something going on with you and him." Param said smugly. "What's your rate?"

"Stop talking." Shehnaaz groaned. 

"Scared?"

"Just stop. Y'know. I'm serious." Shehnaaz said, her fingers danced gracefully on the keyboard. "I think you're forgetting that you're on a deadline."

"If you can do it, so can we." Sharon smirked. 

Shehnaaz sighed, but refrained herself from responding to her. Instead she focused on getting her work done. 

After all, she was on a deadline too

***

Forty eight minutes later, Siddharth heard a sharp knock on his cabin door, he smiled. 

"Come on in Naaz." 

Shehnaaz entered the room holding a small pen-drive. "I didn't need to get into your records, but had an extra second. I broke into the SGI intranet database. We have to work on strengthening your firewall." 

"You'll break into that too, eventually. What have you got?" Siddharth asked her, taking the pendrive from her and plugging it into his laptop. 

"Two names. Security camera footage and E-mail conversation records." Shehnaaz responded. "Ajay Dhiman contacted Ms. Sharon and Naitik Sharma. Sharon tried to hack into my computer from hers about a week back to get the designs but I was alerted."  

"The designs were sent from my computer. 3:18 PM. I was at home then. I think a senior tech employee helped them. I will need some time to confirm their identity but I'm pretty sure because only you and the three topmost tech people know my passwords. The pendrive has Sharon-Naitik and Ajay Dhiman's e-mail conversation. I tapped into my webcam to see who accessed my computer at the time. It was Naitik. I checked the SGI database for hacking activity. Sharon transferred the designs from Shefali Singh's PC three days ago. There's security footage in there to account for that." Shehnaaz concluded. 

Siddharth smiled. "Good work." He pulled her closer to himself. "I'm proud of you." 

Shehnaaz hugged him tightly. "I thought you won't.. I thought tum bhi sochoge kay sab mene kiya.." She said uncertainly. 

Siddharth kissed her forehead. "Bilkul pagal hai tu. Ek dam gadhi.." 

Shehnaaz looked up at him. "Sab aise itne yaqeen se bol rahe the mene kia hai. You know.. mere liye kitna easy hota yeh karna. You said that yourself toh tum ne mujhe galat kaise nahi samjha?" She asked 

"Kya dil kabhi apne dhadkan ko galat samjh sakta hai?? Nahi na!! Shehnaaz baby, tu meri jaan hai.. Tu meri dhadkan hai.. Mujhe tujhpe utna yakeen hai jitna mujhe shaayad khud pe bhi nahi hai.. vaise bhi tu meri genius hai. You won't make any rookie mistakes. Out there, there were so many mistakes and mess-ups. It's not your style." Siddharth said seriously. 

Shehnaaz giggled. "Thank you Siddharth.."

Siddharth kissed her forehead. "Mera baby.. thank you kis baat ka. Chal aaja, Ms. Sharon aur Mr. Sharma ki band bajane chalein." 

Shehnaaz nodded, Siddharth took the pendrive with him and led her out of his cabin. 

Happy (late) Christmas everyone!

Hope you like this one!

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