CHAPTER 48
RAGHAV
Few minutes ago – Night
I stand behind the dense row of trees, overlooking the abandoned house hidden deep within Shivtara Valley.
From here, the house appears dilapidated, with crumbling walls, sections of the roof already collapsed, and dark, empty windows.
The perfect place for a rat like Samarjeet to hide.
Dozens of his armed men are guarding the area.
It looks like Samarjeet has gathered every loyal dog he has left and brought them here.
A faint crackle comes through my earpiece.
“Rukmini Vardhaan’s tracker is still active,” Krish whispers. “Shows the same coordinates.”
He’s positioned a few feet away behind a rock formation, his fingers dancing across a tablet connected to three different encrypted feeds. Satellite imagery, tracker signal, and drone surveillance.
Further ahead, Ayaan crouches behind another rock with his rifle already positioned. “Thirty-seven hostiles visible,” he reports. “Could be another sixty or seventy hidden.” Then he glances towards me. “We stick to the plan.”
F*ck the plan. The plan didn’t save Siya from Samarjeet’s bullet, nor did it protect her mother from being abducted tonight. So this time, I’m not relying on any plan. I’m trusting the one thing that has never failed me. My instinct.
Krish continues to study the tracker feed on his phone while Trisha adjusts the blade strapped beneath her sleeve.
Ayaan raises two fingers, and the GLEN’s operatives immediately spread through the rocky terrain like ghosts, positioning themselves, flanking, and taking cover.
But every second we spend waiting here is costing us, giving Samarjeet more time to hurt Siya’s mother.
Even a fraction of a second delay could make things worse, and I can’t risk that.
A fresh wave of rage burns beneath my skin.
No. I’m not waiting anymore. I load my weapon and start moving.
The moment Ayaan sees me, his voice cuts through the comms. “Raghav, wait for my command. We still don’t know how many hostiles are around the perimeter.”
I don’t respond.
“Raghav, stand down.”
I keep moving straight towards the house.
“Raghav,” Ayaan shouts again.
“Raghav, sniper on your left,” Trisha screams.
She hasn’t even finished the warning when I raise my rifle and pull the trigger at the man half-hidden behind a rock formation almost three hundred meters away. He’s dead before he ever gets a chance to pull his trigger.
Everything erupts after that. The guards surrounding the house instantly become alert.
Weapons are drawn and bullets begin firing through the rocks.
Ayaan and his team immediately open fire, covering me as GLEN operatives emerge from their positions and advance from every direction.
Grenades begin flying from both sides. I pull the pin from one and hurl it towards a cluster of Vardhaan’s men firing at us.
The explosion rips through the air, sending bodies and debris flying as I keep moving through the firefight, straight towards the house where Siya’s mother is being held.
One of the men steps into my path, and I slam my fist into his face hard enough to send him crashing to the ground.
When another raises a rifle, I put a bullet through him before he can blink.
Bodies fall. Blood stains the rocks. But my eyes never stop searching.
Hunting for the man who dared to shoot my wife and take her mother away.
I kick the broken door open and barge inside while Ayaan and the rest of the team handle the war raging outside.
The place stinks of damp wood and dust, and my eyes immediately fall on an empty chair with cut ropes lying beside it.
It’s clear that Siya’s mother had been tied up here.
But she’s gone now. How? The tracker still showed she was here, right inside this house.
My eyes hurriedly sweep across the room, trying to find any other exit from where he could have taken her.
That’s when I see a small glint near the chair.
My heartbeat stops as I crouch down and pick it up.
It’s her ring. The same ring connected to the tracker we used to find this location.
Maybe Samarjeet figured out that this ring led us here and left it behind before taking Siya’s mother with him as his ticket out, or maybe it slipped off her fingers during her struggle. Either way, it means she’s no longer trackable now.
F*ck! I can’t believe I came this far only to be seconds too late.
That’s when I hear movement behind me. I turn around, my gun pointed at whoever’s inside the house, thinking it’s one of Samarjeet’s men.
Instead, I find Kriti standing there. Rage crawls beneath my skin on seeing her.
I can barely hear the gunfire still raging outside.
All I can see is the woman who chose to help Samarjeet, the one responsible for this entire f*cking mess.
Kriti stands a few feet away, frozen in fear and visibly shaken, but I don’t give a damn.
Suddenly, every ounce of control I’ve been holding on to since the moment Siya collapsed in my arms begins to slip away.
I cross the distance between us in two strides.
The next second, my hand closes around her throat, and I push her backwards.
The weak wooden wall behind her rattles violently as I pin her against it, my grip tight enough to make her gasp, but not enough to hurt her yet.
She immediately grabs my wrist in an attempt to pull it away, but I don’t let her go.
Because every time I look at her, all I can see is Siya bleeding in my arms and her mother still out of my reach.
“How dare you help that b*stard touch my family,” I snarl.
Panic spreads across her face, and she immediately crumbles. “Raghav, leave me... please.”
“You have no idea what happens to people who come after my family.”
Her eyes widen as she clutches my wrist with both hands, trying to loosen my grip. “I’m sorry.” She lets out a desperate apology. “I didn’t know Samarjeet was going to hurt you. I did this because I wanted you. Because I love you.”
“And I love Siya,” I snap. “She’s the only woman I want, and the only woman I’ll ever love. I trusted you, Kriti, and you betrayed me. You are a traitor.”
Kriti’s face crumbles completely, but I don’t give a damn about her tears or her feelings anymore. There’s only one thing I need from her now.
“Where is Siya’s mother?” My grip tightens around her throat, just enough to remind her how far I’m willing to go if she doesn’t tell me what I need to know. Panic fills her eyes, but she still hesitates. My patience snaps again.
I lean closer until she has no choice but to look directly into my eyes. “It won’t take me a second to kill you. So, tell me where Samarjeet took Siya’s mother?”
A second later, Trisha enters the room. Her eyes quickly move from me to Kriti, then to my hand still wrapped around her throat. But she doesn’t interfere. She knows me well enough to understand that if I truly wanted Kriti dead, nobody in this room could stop me.
Finally, Kriti breaks. “He took her through the back exit,” she says, pointing towards one of the walls.
At first glance, it looks completely normal. But the moment I follow the direction of her finger, I realise it’s a hidden door built so seamlessly into the wall that nobody would notice it.
I release her instantly. She stumbles forward, coughing violently as she struggles to drag air back into her lungs. I don’t spare her another glance. I just grab her arm and shove her towards Trisha, who catches her before she hits the floor.
“She’s all yours.”
I cross the room and slam my shoulder hard against the concealed door, forcing it open. Cold air rushes in as I storm out into nothing but darkness and forest beyond it. F*ck!
I don’t waste another second. I run. The gunfire, the explosions, all of it becomes distant noise as I go deeper into the woods.
I know Samarjeet is somewhere ahead of me with Siya’s mother, and I need to find them before he disappears into this forest completely.
Fortunately, it’s a full moon night, and the moonlight is bright enough to illuminate the path.
But within moments, the path splits into three different directions.
One narrow path curves to the left. Another disappears deeper into the trees.
A third route slopes downwards through dense undergrowth.
Which path had he taken?
I cannot go wrong here. I stop for a second, trying to think and look around for something, anything, like a broken branch, footprints, and disturbed soil. I need some sign that tells me where they have gone. But the darkness makes everything harder to see.
Instinctively, I touch my earpiece. “Krish,” I call out, but there’s no response.
“Krish,” I try again, but again silence.
F*ck. The signal is gone. The forest must be blocking communication, which means I can’t reach Krish or ask him to pull up the aerial feed and look for movement from above. I’m completely on my own now. I close my eyes for one brief moment and force myself to breathe.
Think, Raghav.
Charging blindly in the wrong direction could cost me everything. Panic gets people killed. So I stand completely still and listen. To the wind… to the trees… to the silence. Then I think about Samarjeet. The kind of man he is and what he would do when cornered.
Slowly, the pieces begin falling into place.
I open my eyes and look at the darkest trail of them all, one that disappears downwards into the dense forest. Most people would avoid it, especially at night. Which is exactly why Samarjeet would choose it. Trusting my instincts, I start running.
RUKMINI VARDHAAN