It hadn't been more than an hour since Danny had wandered into the half forgotten hotel squatting near the city bus depot. The kind of place no one gave a second look.
His disguise was pathetic. A cleaner's uniform he'd borrowed off a friend and worn it with a kind of brittle confidence that he had been working as a cleaner from long time.
Room 103.
He'd noticed it too many times. Rajendra's spot. Always Rajendra's.
But Room 103 wasn't like the rest. This wasn't a stained bed in a peeling box of a room.
This one was a luxury suite in the Hotel Taj Ganga with a deep mahogany bar, a mattress big enough for a family, and a bathroom so large you could hide a couple of men in there. If they could bear the stink of overused bleach, cracked drains, and something faintly metallic.
That's where he was now.
Jammed inside the toilet space, leaning back into the cold of the door, feeling the faint tremor of the building through the frame. The smell was everywhere, inside his clothes, under his skin. It clung the way guilt does.
His heart wasn't just pounding it was thudding in a way that made his ribs ache.
Not with fear but Anger. A deep, raw kind of anger that had been brewing for months.
There was something filthy between SP Rajveer Sharma and Rajendra. Something that explained how his uncle the same man who used to stagger drunk through nights and smash bottles on the walls now sat pretty as the owner of All In One Coaching Institute.
Why would a senior cop would befriends with a man like Rajendra?
Danny intended to find out.
The smallest noises outside made his every muscle tighten. Footsteps in the corridor. The low hum of the lift arriving somewhere below. A muffled laugh far off. He caught himself holding his breath too often.
The lock clicked. Once. He froze.
With another click. The hinges sighed open.
Voices came. Low. Careful. Familiar.
First came Rajendra's voice. Wearing the lazy stretch of a man so sure that no one could touch him. Then Sharma's, older and tired sounding but with a quiet force in every syllable.
They were here. And if Danny could keep himself silent, he might finally stitch the pieces of this sickness together.
"Whiskey?" Rajendra's words came easy, like he'd already had a few.
"Make it a double Raju," Sharma said. "It's been a long day."
Danny leaned against the cold tile, straining through the gap under the door. The glow from the main room painted the floor in warm gold.
"You're jumpy, Rajveer," Rajendra murmured over the clink of ice. "Still brooding over the boy?"
"We should've done it cleaner," Sharma replied. Not angry, not loud. Regret, maybe. "Now Danny's going to start sniffing around."
Danny's stomach dropped. They were speaking about him.
"Sniffing about what?" Rajendra's words wobbled with drink but the arrogance was steady. "And even if he sniff something. He's a street rat at the end of the day. Who's going to believe him?"
"He's not a fool, Raju. And he's getting too close to my daughter. Yesterday she was asking me if I knew something about Danny. And I am telling you now. If he starts asking her questions…" A pause. "…I'm not dragging her into this filth."
The mop handle trembled in Danny's grip. His jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
"Let him talk," Rajendra chuckled, though the sound was sharper now. "Dead man's son against the SP of Scaredford? That's not even a contest."
"You're a fool Rajendra," Sharma snapped, though not too loudly.
"I'm sober enough to remember five years ago, when we dealt with that idealist Vinod." Rajendra said in a matter of a fact tone.
Danny's breath stopped. Dealt with. Not an accident. Not a drowning. It hit him cold they'd murdered his father.
"Shut your mouth," Sharma hissed. "Don't forget even the walls have ears."
"These walls?" Rajendra scoffed. "They can't hear us my friend."
Danny pressed in closer, his forehead nearly on the door. His father's face came to him then. Vinod, stubborn about right and wrong, the one man Danny had believed in fully.
"He was a problem," Sharma went on, his voice flat, methodical. "Asking too much about the land sales. About those of his coaching centres which were closing down while others got free passes."
"He was going to blow it open," Rajendra agreed. Sip. Swallow. "The money, the bribes, the fake licences. He left us with no choice."
"Drowning him was still risky. What if someone had seen us Rajveer?"
"No one's loitering at the river at two in the morning. And even if they had…" A lazy shrug in his tone. "…we'd still be here, wouldn't we?"
Danny's eyes blurred. His fists shook. They spoke about his father's killing, in a way men speak about paperwork.
"The loose end was Danny," Sharma said. "We should've closed it back then."
"Back then. He was thirteen and innocent Rajveer."
"But now he's eighteen. Smarter. And angry."
"So? What are suggesting?"
A pause. The clink of glass. The faint hum of traffic through the heavy curtains.
"The same thing we did to his father Rajendra. Pureflow river is waiting."
The mop fell. The clang against the bucket was deafening in the silence that followed.
"What was that?" Rajendra's voice tightened.
"Hey!" Sharma's bark was instant. "Who's there?"
Danny realized he had no way out. The bathroom had no window. Danny opened the door, slow, every muscle screaming at him to run.
"Just… cleaning, sir," he managed, keeping his eyes low while still facing the bathroom door.
"How long?" Sharma's eyes narrowed, his weight shifting, hand ghosting toward his weapon.
"Just came in sir."
But his eyes betrayed him.
"You," Sharma said, voice dropping. "Turn around."
Danny spun for the exit door instead. Rajendra caught him mid stride, fingers like steel on his arm.
"Well, well. Little spy," Rajendra drawled, close enough for Danny to smell the whisky.
"Let me go!" Danny twisted but it was useless.
"How much did you hear?" Sharma's steps circled.
"I heard Nothing! I Heard nothing!"
"Really?" "Lying to the police is not what good boys do," Rajendra said softly.
"Now tell the truth." Rajendra murmured, then his hand cracked across Danny's face. The marble floor hit back when he fell, bringing a mouthful of blood and stars.
"You heard all of it." Sharma's voice was quiet now, more dangerous than shouting.
"I won't tell," Danny spat. "I swear."
"Of course you won't tell anyone," Sharma said. "Because you won't get the chance."
"You killed him!" Danny roared knowing he was not getting any chance to run. "My father!"
Rajendra's laugh was rotten. "Run to the police, boy. Oh wait he is the police."
Their laughter tangled in the air like smoke.
"What's should we do now?" Rajendra asked.
"Same thing but not here. Here are too many eyes. The warehouse by the river Pureflow is perfect."
"Just like daddy," Rajendra grinned.
"Please," Danny's voice cracked, all dignity stripped. "I'll go. I'll disappear from Scaredford."
"Too late for that," Sharma said, checking the time.
"Put him in a sack, Sharma. Just like we did with Vinod."
The system screen flickered then vanished.
Rudra sat frozen, fists clenched, eyes wide. His pulse roared in his ears.
Danny had uncovered the truth.
And now they were going to kill him for it.
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