The drums thundered, the crowd cheered, and Maya’s wedding glowed like a fairytale come alive.Gold and maroon silks shimmered under a thousand chandeliers. The scent of sandalwood and roses filled the air as the shehnai wailed its haunting tune. Guests laughed, cameras flashed, and the Rathores smiled — masks of happiness stretched over faces that hid the night’s bloody secret.Svetlana stood at the edge of the courtyard, her fingers trembling as she adjusted her dupatta.Her reflection in the mirror looked alien — face pale, lips colorless, eyes ringed with shadows. No one noticed. Everyone was too caught up in the festivities.She could still feel the weight of Akash’s blood on her hands.It hadn’t come off — not really. The faint reddish stain clung to her skin like guilt.Every sound — every laugh, every drumbeat — echoed the same haunting word in her mind: Run.She had obeyed. Somehow, she’d escaped the study before Ravindra’s men could grab her. She had fled down the back corri

The moon was a pale, distant witness over Mumbai that night — half-hidden behind clouds, as though even it didn’t want to see what was about to happen. The Rathore estate gleamed like a citadel of gold and glass, but behind its lavish walls, something darker simmered — whispers, shadows, and the scent of blood waiting to be spilled.Inside a cramped safe house a few kilometers away, Akash was adjusting a transmitter inside his jacket, his expression hard and focused. The small room buzzed with tension — radio static, flickering lights, and the distant hum of city traffic bleeding through thin walls.Svetlana watched him from across the table, her face pale but resolute. Her arm was bandaged, her eyes still carrying the ghost of the wound she’d survived. Yet tonight, there was a different fire in them — not fear, but purpose.“Are you sure this will work?” she asked quietly.Akash looked up, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips. “It has to.”She frowned. “That’s not an answer.”He le

Mumbai — six months later.Rain hammered the skyline like a punishment from the heavens. Neon lights bled across the soaked streets, painting everything in shades of violet and red. The city never slept — it simply traded one kind of noise for another.And somewhere in the heart of that chaos, Akash Khan was alive.He moved through the crowded bazaar like a shadow, unrecognizable in his stubble and dark hoodie. The fire had taken half his past — but the other half had learned to hide. The world thought he’d died with Zain Singh and the Rathores that night.He’d made sure of it.Now, he was Aarav Mehta — a nondescript man with a forged ID, a small apartment in Andheri, and a ghost’s patience.But beneath the calm, his mind burned.On the table before him lay files — stolen, smuggled, encrypted.Every page was a thread that led back to one name: Singh Industries.The empire that killed his parents.The empire his blood belonged to.And the empire that still ruled from the shadows.Far a

The monsoon rain was relentless that night — pounding rooftops, drenching the alleyways, washing the sins of the city into its drains.Inside a dim warehouse on the city’s outskirts, Akash Khan stood over a flickering laptop, the glow reflecting off his face.Around him lay scattered maps, surveillance photos, and decrypted files — his world reduced to an obsession.Every thread led to one name.Devraj.He’d traced it for weeks — through Singh Industries, the Rathore network, and a dozen offshore accounts. But Devraj wasn’t a man. He was a ghost. No ID. No history. No face. Just whispers in encrypted messages and coded wire transfers.Tonight, that was about to change.Akash leaned closer as his program cracked the last layer of encryption from a server buried in Geneva’s financial system. The code broke — and a file appeared on his screen.A video.Timestamp: two months before the Rathore mansion explosion.He hesitated, then clicked.The footage was grainy — a hidden camera recordin

The clock struck eleven forty-five. The sky above Mumbai’s harbor was the color of bruised steel—thick clouds smothering the moonlight, the salty wind carrying the faint smell of oil and the sea. Dock 47 loomed ahead, silent and skeletal, its cranes stretching upward like the arms of sleeping giants.Akash parked a few blocks away and continued on foot, his black hoodie drawn low, blending into the shadows. His pulse beat steady but sharp, every sense alive. He knew this was a trap. The text had been too convenient, too sudden—sent right after Rathore found his secret room. But there was something about it he couldn’t ignore. The mention of the shipment.That shipment was what he’d been chasing for months. If he could intercept even a fraction of the cargo—drugs, weapons, or whatever poison Rathore was selling—he could finally link the Rathore empire to the underground network that ran half of Mumbai’s crime.He crouched behind a shipping container, watching the faint glow of headligh