The HQ interrogation cell buzzed with a cold, sharp energy. Metallic echoes bounced off concrete walls as officers paced with growing frustration. The early morning sunlight filtered in through high-barred windows, casting long shadows across the steel table where Rudhra and Viper sat handcuffed, bruised but still defiant. Their eyes darted from officer to officer, jaws clenched, lips sealed.
Kiaan leaned against the observation glass outside, arms crossed, the sling still on his arm from the bullet wound. Despite the pain, his eyes were focused, calculating. The mall case had been buried for now—they'd handed over everything they seized to the higher-ups, just as ordered. But Kiaan had never been the type to let a fire go out just because someone blew on it. He needed to know the roots, the web behind the mess.
Inside the room, Dev Malik banged the table, voice sharp. "You think you're being smart by staying quiet? We already have you for trafficking and obstruction. You talk now, or I promise you, the silence will only dig your grave deeper."
Viper scoffed, leaning back in his chair, a smug grin dancing across his busted lip. "You think threats work? You boys don't even know who you're dealing with."
Rehaan stepped forward, cracking his knuckles. "No, but we're about to. You're either giving us names and routes, or you're watching yourself rot in here."
Kiaan finally stepped inside, calm but heavy with authority. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. His silence carried weight that made even Viper glance up, momentarily unsettled.
He pulled out a chair and sat across from Rudhra, eyes never blinking. "I don't need you to tell me everything today. But make no mistake, I will find everything. And when I do... you won't just be behind bars—you'll be erased from the game completely."
Rudhra laughed faintly, though his jaw tightened. "You're just an over-confident kid playing with fire."
Kiaan leaned forward slowly. "Maybe. But I've watched fire consume better men than you—and I never flinch."
As the tension in the room thickened, Tara entered, her laptop in hand. She didn't speak to the suspects. Instead, she walked straight to Kiaan and murmured beside him, "We need to talk. Now."
They exited the room and moved to the hallway, away from prying ears. Tara opened her laptop and showed him a set of encrypted files she'd managed to start decrypting.
"I'm working on tracing the real identity of Viper. Something's off," she said quickly. "His records are too clean for a man with that much street power. Even his past aliases are patchy—someone's been wiping him off the grid every few years."
Kiaan's eyes narrowed. "So, he's protected. Like Reyaan."
"Exactly," she nodded. "I think this Viper… isn't just muscle. He's tied in with something much larger. Maybe directly linked to Reyaan's web."
Kiaan's fingers tapped against the sling on his arm. "Then dig deeper. I want original IDs, fingerprints, global movements—anything you can find. We need to break his protection layer and expose who he really is."
Tara gave a firm nod. "On it."
As she walked away, Kiaan turned and looked back through the glass at Viper, who smirked as if he could feel the eyes on him.
But this time, the smile didn't bother Kiaan.
He knew… the deeper they dug, the closer they'd get to Reyaan Malhotra.
And once that name was backed by evidence—
There would be no shadows left to hide in.
________________________________________
[Swindon — inside a company office]
Inside the sleek, glass-walled office in the heart of Swindon, the air was unnaturally still. The skyline blinked in the distance, but Rex—clad in a fitted charcoal suit, sleeves rolled up, a glass of whiskey untouched beside him—stood frozen, his sharp eyes fixed on the digital board sprawled across his desk. The soft hum of high-tech servers filled the silence.
The flickering hologram of the Indian agents file hovered before him—encrypted, layered, and locked with digital security thicker than any government file he had cracked before. But his obsession wasn't with the team anymore. It had narrowed, intensified. All night, one face replayed in his mind—the boy from the pub, the strange fire in his eyes, the gentle but unshakable aura. The same boy who'd led the raid and sealed his multi-million empire with calm precision. A face that didn't match the storm it brought.
Just then, the heavy office door opened. One of Rex's trusted lieutenants stepped in, voice low and cautious.
"Boss," he said, bowing slightly, "just got confirmation. The agents… they dropped the mall case. All assets returned. Seal's off. Our people can re-enter."
Rex didn't look up. He took a slow breath and muttered, "Hmm... they backed off?" There was a tight twist of suspicion in his tone. "Too neat."
His fingers moved quickly, picking up his phone. With a flick, he opened his last thread with Aarav Mehra—the young cyber deviant who made digital walls look like paper sheets.
Rex: Where's the rest of the file? Especially on the boy. I want full background—Kiaan Verma. All of it.
Seconds later, three dots danced on the screen.
Aarav Mehra:
Boss, his record is layered like a government lab rat. Classified. No school records, no residential trails beyond basics. His identity is shielded under a special ghost-level encryption… but I cracked it halfway.
Another message came in, this time a PDF document, titled:
"KIAAN VARMA: LEVEL 9 CLASSIFIED – LEAD FIELD AGENT [EIS/IA Division]"
Rex clicked it.
The screen lit up with deep-level data: Age – 21.
Field rating – Top 3%
Clearance – Ghost Access
Status – Active
Specialization – Extraction / Undercover / Tactical Disruption
Languages – 6
Field Records – 29 sealed, 1 open: Operation Orion (only case partially visible)
The lines blurred as he scrolled.
Images:
One showed Kiaan, younger, standing amid a busted arms warehouse. Another—blurred CCTV footage—showed him walking away from a burning convoy.
Then a final one: a candid shot. Kiaan walking through the rain in a hoodie, his injured hand tucked into his pocket, eyes sharp as knives.
Rex stared.
That wasn't a boy. That was a phantom trained to look like one. An operative raised to infiltrate exactly the kind of empire Rex had built. And he had touched it.
His grip tightened around the phone, veins twitching with adrenaline and fascination.
The door creaked again.
"Sir?" his man asked. "Should I call back operations at the mall?"
Rex's eyes didn't leave the screen.
"No," he said quietly. "Let them feel like they've won. Let the mall run again. We'll make it cleaner this time. Invisible."
A smirk spread across his lips.
"But Kiaan Verma… he just made it to the top of my list. Tell Aarav to go deeper. I want to know what this boy eats, breathes, who he meets, who he protects. Everything. This ghost has walked into my world..."
He leaned back slowly, the screen still glowing with Kiaan's face.
"…and I want to see what happens when a ghost meets a devil."