CHAPTER 1 ! THE DEVIL IN THE ROOM #2
"How much did we lose from that shipment?" Aryav asked, his voice casual, as if discussing the weather.
"Ten million, sir," Vivaan replied from two paces behind.
Aryav rotated his water glass, watching the ice cubes collide.
Clink.
Clink.
"Ten million," Aryav repeated
thoughtfully.
He turned his head slowly, his gaze pinning the trembling supplier to his seat. "Where do you think it went?"
"No idea, sir," Vivaan said, playing the part.
The man didn't just fall; he collapsed. He hit the marble with a sickening thud and immediately began to wail.
It was a pathetic, rhythmic sound-the sound of a man who knew he was already a ghost.
He begged for his children, for his life, his forehead hitting the floor over and over.
Aryav watched him with genuine, tilted-head curiosity. He looked at Vivaan.
"Did I say something offensive, vivaan?"
"No, sir."
Aryav looked back at the sobbing heap of a man. "Then why is he begging? I haven't even told him what I'm going to do to him yet."
He sighed, a sound of profound boredom.
" up," Aryav commanded. The softness was gone. The voice was now a razor.
The man scrambled up, his face wet with tears and snot, his body vibrating with a palsy of pure terror.
Aryav reached out and delicately brushed a speck of dust from the man's lapel.
The man flinched as if he'd been branded with a hot iron.
Then, the smile came.
It didn't begin in the eyes; those remained like twin pits of cold obsidian.
It was a slow, agonizingly lazy curling of the lips. It was a smile that didn't belong to a man, but to something ancient and predatory that had crawled into a bespoke suit.
It was the smile of an entity that viewed human morality as a quaint, distant joke.
Across the ballroom, the temperature didn't just drop; it curdled. The scent of the lilies and expensive perfume seemed to turn rancid, replaced by the metallic, cloying tang of impending violence.
The Police Commissioner, standing thirty feet away, felt the hair on his arms stand on end.
His hand instinctively sought the comfort of his service weapon, his knuckles turning a ghostly white.
Every instinct honed over decades of hunting monsters screamed that the greatest monster of all was currently sipping water at the bar.
But the Commissioner was paralyzed. You could not arrest a man for a look. You could not handcuff a shadow.
Aryav took a final, slow draw from his cigarette. The ember flared a violent, angry orange-the only bit of warmth in his immediate vicinity.
He exhaled a plume of smoke that hung in the stagnant air like a shroud, veiling his sharp, aristocratic features.
Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, he dropped the cigarette.
It skidded across the pristine marble, a tiny spark in the dark.
Aryav shifted his weight. His handcrafted Italian leather heel came down with the precision of a guillotine.
He didn't just extinguish the flame; he ground it. He twisted his sole slowly, the sound of the tobacco and paper being pulverized into black ash echoing in the unnatural silence.
It was a rhythmic, sadistic motion-the visual shorthand for what he intended to do to the man sitting beside him.
He reached for a crystal glass of red wine-a deep, bruised crimson-and ran a long, elegant finger around the rim.
The friction created a low, haunting hum that vibrated through the glass and into the very bones of everyone nearby.
"You are a reckless man, Rohit," Aryav whispered. The voice was a silken caress, yet it carried the chill of a tomb.
Rohit's throat clicked as he tried to swallow. He couldn't move. He was a moth pinned to a board.
"Your wife," Aryav continued, his voice dropping into a register of terrifying intimacy. "She's a dedicated woman. Still at the office, isn't she? The corner window on the fourth floor? The lights are still on."
A soft, strangled sound escaped Rohit's throat.
"And your daughter..." Aryav paused, letting the silence bloom into a flower of pure dread. "She's home. The yellow room with the stars on the ceiling. She's alone, Rohit. Waiting for her father to come home and tuck her in."
The blood drained from Rohit's face until he looked like a waxwork. His fingers began to twitch in a rhythmic, uncontrollable palsy.
Rohit's mind fractured. He looked at Aryav, searching for a hint of a joke, but found only the infinite, cold void of the man's eyes.
"If you do it now," Aryav's voice grew even softer, almost melodic, "your wife will finish her work and drive home safely. Your daughter will wake up tomorrow morning and wonder why you aren't there-but she will wake up. She will be alive, safe with better future."
Aryav's gaze sharpened, turning into twin blades of iron. "But if you make me wait... if you make me bored... I will ensure that their screams are the last thing you hear before I peel the skin from your frame. Do you understand the mathematics of this, Rohit?"
Rohit stood.
He didn't seem to be a living being anymore.
He moved with the stiff, mechanical gait of a man who had already died and was simply waiting for his body to catch up.
He walked toward the elevators, his eyes glazed and hollow.
The ballroom was a theater of the absurd. The Chief Minister, sensing the eyes of the elite upon him, forced a brittle, skeletal smile.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he croaked, "the cake."
Applause broke out-thin, desperate, and hollow. The Chief Minister raised the silver knife. The cameras flashed, capturing the image of a powerful man who looked like he was facing a firing squad.
He brought the knife down into the delicate frosting.
At the exact microsecond the blade touched the silver platter-Thud.
It was a heavy, wet, sickening sound. It wasn't loud, but it carried a finality that silenced the room instantly.
The massive floor-to-ceiling glass windows vibrated.
The silence that followed was absolute. Then, a woman near the window looked down.
Her scream was a jagged, high-pitched thing that tore through the ballroom like a serrated knife.
Outside, sprawled across the white marble of the courtyard fountain, was Rohit.
His limbs were bent at angles that defied anatomy. A dark, viscous bloom of red was spreading rapidly across the stone, staining the water of the fountain.
Chaos erupted. Guests scrambled back, glasses shattered, and the Chief Minister dropped the knife, the silver clattering against the floor like a death knell.
Aryav Rai Shinghania remained at the bar. He didn't turn around to look at the corpse. He simply lifted his wine glass toward the Police Commissioner, who was staring at him in a fugue of horror and rage.
Aryav gave a slow, mocking tilt of the glass-a toast to the inevitable.
He stood and walked toward the Commissioner.
The crowd didn't just part; they threw themselves out of his way, hitting tables and knocking over chairs in their haste to avoid his shadow.
Aryav stopped inches from him. He was taller, broader, and radiated an aura of such absolute power that the Commissioner felt his own authority evaporating.
"I was standing right here, Commissioner," Aryav whispered, his voice smooth as silk. "I was drinking whiskey. I was talking to you. Hundreds of witnesses saw me. How could I possibly be on the roof?"
He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a predatory growl. "I am a law-abiding citizen. You, on the other hand, look like you've seen a ghost. Perhaps you should retire before you start imagining things."
Aryav turned his back on the man-a gesture of supreme, lethal disrespect-and walked toward the Chief Minister.
The politician was shaking so violently he had to lean against the cake table for support.
Aryav didn't speak at first.
He reached out and, with a terrifyingly slow movement, dipped his index finger into the white frosting of the birthday cake.
He lifted the finger to his lips and tasted it. His eyes never left the Chief Minister's.
"I was in such a rush to celebrate your birth," Aryav said quietly, "that I forgot to bring a gift."
He pulled a silk handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his finger with clinical precision, and then-with a flourish of supreme contempt-dropped the soiled cloth directly onto the center of the cake.
"But don't worry," Aryav's voice dropped to a rumble that vibrated in the Minister's chest.
"Your real gift is coming. I've already sent the first installment."
He turned and walked toward the exit. Vivaan was already there, holding the heavy mahogany doors open.
The Maybach was idling outside, a dark beast waiting for its master.
As the car pulled away, the whispers finally broke the silence of the ballroom.
"He isn't a man," one industrialist muttered, wiping sweat from his brow.
"He just executed a man in front of the CM and the Commissioner," another added, his voice shaking. "And we all watched. We all let him."
Like we or anyone can stop him .
Near the back, an older woman clutched her prayer beads, her eyes fixed on the bloodstain in the courtyard.