The room was dark enough that the man kneeling in the centre could barely see beyond the circle of light above him.
He could hear someone moving in the darkness.
That was worse.
His hands trembled against his thighs. Blood had already dried beneath his nose from the first blow, but he didn't dare wipe it away. Somewhere ahead of him, beyond the reach of the hanging light, a chair scraped softly against the floor.
Then came the voice.
"Didn't you tell me Rana's daughter was done for?"
The man swallowed. "Sir, I—"
"Didn't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then why is she alive?"
The question came quietly.
The man would have preferred shouting.
"The dose was enough. Everything went exactly as we planned. She shouldn't have survived."
A figure moved at the edge of the light.
His face remained invisible.
"Shouldn't have?"
"Sir, I swear—"
The blow came so suddenly that the man didn't even see the hand.
His head snapped sideways. Blood sprayed from his mouth and struck the concrete floor.
He collapsed onto one hand.
Kaal stepped back into the darkness.
"I didn't ask what should have happened."
The man coughed, wiping blood from his lips.
"I asked why Riya Rathore is alive and well."
"We don't know."
Another blow sent him sprawling across the floor.
His shoulder struck the overturned chair.
"Sir—please."
"Of course you don't know."
Kaal's voice remained infuriatingly calm.
"You don't know why she survived. You don't know why my assassination plan failed. And apparently you don't know how Druve ended up personally involved either."
The man's breathing quickened.
"Rajveer went to Rana's house. Druve went with—"
"Don't insult me."
The words stopped him instantly.
Kaal stepped forward just enough for his shoes to enter the light.
"I know Rajveer and Rana are friends."
"Yes, sir."
"I know exactly how long they've known each other. I know their families visit one another. Druve walking through Rana's front door doesn't concern me."
He crouched.
His face remained swallowed by shadow.
"Druve staying does."
The man said nothing.
"Druve putting his own men around that house concerns me."
Kaal's fingers closed around the man's collar.
"Druve personally deciding that Riya Rathore stays alive concerns me."
"I'll find out why."
Kaal released him.
The man almost collapsed with relief.
"We can still correct this, sir. Give me another chance. I'll finish her."
Silence.
Kaal stared at him from the darkness.
Then he laughed.
It wasn't loud.
That somehow made the man visibly more afraid.
"You'll finish her?"
"Yes, sir."
"Now?"
The man hesitated.
"Yes."
Kaal's laughter disappeared.
"You won't touch a hair on her head."
The man blinked.
"Sir?"
"Did I stutter?"
"No."
"As long as that woman is under Druve's protection, none of you goes near her."
"But we can find another way. We don't have to enter the house. An accident, maybe, or—"
Kaal kicked him hard enough to send him onto his back.
The man cried out.
Kaal was on him before he could move.
"You still don't understand who you're dealing with."
Another strike.
Blood splashed across Kaal's hand.
"Do you think taking Sruthi from Druve was easy?"
The man stared up at him.
Kaal caught his shirt and dragged him closer.
"I couldn't get near her."
There was no embarrassment in the admission.
Only anger at the stupidity of the man who had forced him to explain it.
"Do you understand me? I could not get near that woman while Druve was around her."
He shoved him back onto the floor.
"I watched. I waited. I planned. And every time I thought I had a way to reach Sruthi, there was Druve."
Kaal straightened.
"Then he left."
The room went quiet.
"Two months."
Something almost bitter entered his voice.
"Two months without contact. Something I hadn't arranged. Something I couldn't have forced even if I tried."
He gave a short laugh.
"The universe handed me the one chance I had spent months waiting for."
The man on the floor watched him carefully.
"That is how I got Sruthi."
Kaal's voice dropped.
"Not because I defeated Druve."
A pause.
"Because he wasn't there."
The distinction mattered to him.
"If Druve had been there when I took her, do you think I'd be standing here talking to you?"
No answer.
Kaal leaned slightly closer.
"I'd have been six feet under before I ever got Sruthi through that door."
The man lowered his eyes.
"So don't tell me how easy it will be to kill Riya now."
Kaal's voice hardened.
"Yesterday, she was a target."
He stepped back.
"Today, Druve has decided she lives."
The man remained silent.
"That changes everything."
"But, sir, if we wait—"
"We survive."
Kaal looked down at him.
"Druve doesn't need the whole truth. He doesn't need my name. He doesn't even need my face."
He lifted one blood-covered finger.
"He needs one clue."
The room seemed to shrink around the words.
"One."
Kaal's voice lowered.
"One careless man. One payment. One call. One vehicle. One trail that shouldn't exist."
His hand dropped.
"And once he gets it, he'll tear this place apart."
The man swallowed.
"He'll tear every one of you apart until someone gives him the next clue. Then he'll follow that one. And the next."
Kaal stepped closer.
"Until he reaches me."
There was something strange in his voice when he spoke about Druve.
Hatred, certainly.
But beneath it was something far rarer.
Respect.
Kaal knew exactly what his enemy was capable of.
That was why he was still alive.
"So we stay away from Riya."
"For how long?"
Kaal looked down at him as though the question itself offended him.
"Until the universe gives us a chance."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then we wait longer."
The man opened his mouth.
Kaal's fist struck him before a word came out.
Once.
Twice.
The man fell.
Kaal followed him down.
The first few blows brought screams.
Then pleas.
Then nothing coherent at all.
Blood sprayed across the concrete, streaked the leg of the overturned chair and spotted Kaal's shirt.
Still, he didn't stop immediately.
Every failed plan seemed to live beneath his fists.
Riya surviving.
Druve appearing.
Seven years of unfinished revenge.
And Sruthi.
Especially Sruthi.
By the time Kaal finally straightened, the man beneath him wasn't moving.
Kaal stared at the body.
His breathing remained steady.
"Since the day that bitch Sruthi died…"
He wiped a streak of blood from his hand.
"…nothing goes the way I planned."
A second man stood near the door, pale and wisely silent.
Kaal held out his hand.
A cloth was placed into it immediately.
"Get rid of him."
"Yes, sir."
"And make sure everyone understands what I said about Riya."
"No one goes near her."
Kaal looked at him.
The man corrected himself immediately.
"No one touches a hair on her head while Druve is protecting her."
"Better."
Kaal walked toward a desk at the far end of the room.
The second man glanced at the body.
"Anything else, sir?"
"Stay."
Kaal sat.
The laptop on the desk came alive.
Cold light spread across his hands but never reached high enough to reveal his face.
The man by the door knew what was coming.
He had seen this before.
Whenever Druve angered Kaal, sooner or later, Kaal opened this folder.
Sruthi.
Dozens of recordings filled the screen.
Kaal selected one.
The video began.
Sruthi sat against a wall.
This recording was years old. She was already thinner, already bruised, already carrying the exhaustion of captivity, but something of the woman she had once been still survived in her face.
The door opened.
Two men entered.
Sruthi looked up.
The change in her expression was immediate.
She understood their intention before either touched her.
"Stay away from me."
One laughed.
The other locked the door.
Sruthi backed away.
"Don't."
They kept coming.
"Don't touch me!"
One grabbed her.
Sruthi screamed and fought, but the second caught her before she could get away.
For a few seconds, there was only panic.
Pure helplessness.
And perhaps that was what finally broke something open inside her.
She had already lost Dev.
She had lost her baby.
She had screamed, begged, fought and watched pieces of her life disappear while being powerless to stop any of it.
Now they were trying to take something else.
Sruthi stopped pleading.
One of the men loosened his hold for barely a second.
That was enough.
She moved.
Fast.
Desperate.
Brutal.
She seized what she could reach and struck.
The man went down.
Sruthi went with him.
She hit him again.
And again.
The second man shouted.
Sruthi didn't stop.
Blood struck her face.
Another blow.
More blood.
The man beneath her had stopped fighting.
Sruthi hadn't.
It was almost frightening how completely the terrified woman from seconds earlier had disappeared.
Something else was protecting her now.
Something born from every loss she had been forced to survive.
Something without mercy.
By the time Sruthi looked up, blood covered her hands.
The second man took a step backward.
Her eyes followed him.
"Come near me."
Her voice shook, but there was nothing weak in it.
"Try."
He ran.
The moment the door slammed, Sruthi's expression changed.
She looked down at the man beneath her.
At her hands.
The rage vanished.
The weapon slipped from her fingers.
She stumbled backward until she hit the wall and sank to the floor.
Her entire body shook as she cried.
Kaal paused the recording.
For several seconds, he simply stared at her.
That day had changed the rules.
After that, Sruthi had been kept restrained. Never properly rested. Never given enough strength to make another opportunity easy. Darkness had become another restraint.
Kaal had learned what happened when Sruthi was cornered with enough strength left to fight.
He hadn't made the mistake twice.
And somehow, years later, she had still found a way to escape.
The man behind him finally spoke.
"You watch these every time Druve makes you angry."
Kaal didn't turn.
Another recording began.
Sruthi screamed somewhere beyond the camera's view.
Kaal leaned back.
In his mind, it was never only Sruthi watching him from that screen.
There was always someone else sitting where he sat.
Druve.
Seeing what had happened to her.
Seeing what seven years had done to the woman he loved.
Seeing every wound he hadn't prevented.
Every scream he hadn't heard.
Every moment he had been searching while she had been suffering.
The thought calmed Kaal more effectively than anything else ever had.
The man hesitated before asking, "Then why don't you send them to him?"
Kaal's fingers stopped.
"Sir, you have all of it. Why keep imagining his reaction? Send him the videos. Let him see her like this. You could torture Druve without ever going near him."
Kaal slowly turned his head.
"And then?"
The man frowned.
"Sruthi is dead."
"Yes, sir."
"What does Druve have left to lose?"
Silence.
"Nothing."
Kaal turned back to the screen.
"If Sruthi were alive, I would have sent these to him."
His voice held almost a trace of regret.
"He would know she was somewhere waiting for him. He would watch every second and imagine what might be happening to her next."
A faint smile touched Kaal's mouth somewhere beyond the darkness.
"He would stop thinking."
Kaal tapped the screen lightly.
"He would come running."
The smile disappeared.
"But Sruthi is dead."
The recording continued.
"Send these now and what do I give Druve?"
The man thought for a moment.
"Pain."
"No."
Kaal's answer was immediate.
"Purpose."
The man fell silent.
"Right now, Druve has nothing to lose. Show him what happened to Sruthi and he won't break the way I want him to."
Kaal's voice became quieter.
"He'll get angry."
A pause.
"Then he'll get clear."
His gaze remained fixed on Sruthi.
"And once Druve is clear-headed, he'll start looking."
One clue.
That was all it would take.
The man understood now.
"So you wait."
"Yes."
"For what?"
Kaal smiled.
"For Druve to see light again."
The man frowned.
Kaal continued before he could ask.
"Let him find something that makes him want to live."
His voice softened, almost contemplative.
"Let him wake up one morning and not hate the fact that he did."
He looked at Sruthi's frozen face.
"Let him laugh again."
A pause.
"Let him be happy."
The man stared at him.
"Then?"
Kaal's smile returned.
"Then I give Sruthi back to him."
His finger touched the screen.
"Like this."
The cruelty of it settled slowly into the room.
"Every video."
Kaal's voice dropped.
"Every scream."
A pause.
"Every scar."
He leaned back.
"And when Druve finally has a life worth losing again, I'll make him watch what happened to the woman he couldn't save."
The man beside him was silent.
"That is when these will destroy him."
"It's not that you don't want to send them."
Kaal laughed softly.
"Oh, I want to."
His gaze never left Sruthi.
"I've wanted to for years."
Then the amusement disappeared.
"But the time isn't right."
He closed the video.
The screen went black.
For a moment, the only thing visible in it was the suggestion of a man's silhouette.
No face.
No identity.
Only Kaal.
"Revenge isn't about hurting someone the moment you can."
He rose from the chair.
"It's about knowing when it will hurt the most."
The man near the door nodded.
"And Riya?"
Kaal's expression disappeared completely into the darkness.
"We wait."
"Until Druve stops protecting her?"
"Until there's an opening."
"And if Druve doesn't give us one?"
Kaal walked past the blood still staining the floor.
"Druve didn't give me Sruthi."
He stopped at the door.
"The universe did."
Two months.
One unexpected separation.
One chance Kaal had never been able to create for himself.
He had waited then.
He would wait now.
"Stay away from Riya," he said. "Watch from far enough that Druve never knows you're watching. No one approaches her. No one threatens her. No one tries to be clever."
"Yes, sir."
Kaal glanced once toward the dark laptop screen.
Sruthi had taught him what happened when someone desperate was given a single opening.
Druve would be infinitely worse.
"Once he finds even a small clue, he'll tear this place and all of us apart."
His voice carried no fear of admitting it.
Only certainty.
"So we don't give him one."
Kaal opened the door.
"We wait until the universe makes another mistake."
Then he disappeared into the darkness.