Arvind Rathore
"Find him."
The order left my mouth sharp and final.
Rayan was a loose wire—panicked, emotional, stupid. Men like that don't survive pressure. They talk. They beg. They collapse.
"He won't last," I said, turning from the window. "The moment he resurfaces, we end it."
Avinash stopped pacing.
"No."
I looked at him then. Really looked.
He was calm. Too calm.
"If Rayan dies now," Avinash continued, voice measured, "he becomes a signal. A missing link. The court will smell blood."
I clenched my jaw. "He's a liability."
"He's a suspect," Avinash corrected. "And suspects who vanish raise questions. Dead men don't testify—but they also don't shut cases. They reopen them."
I exhaled slowly.
Sera's face crossed my mind again. Not angry. Not desperate.
Certain.
Avinash stepped closer. "Let him live. For now. Let the trial end. Once the verdict is sealed, nothing else matters."
I hated that he was right.
"Keep eyes everywhere," I said finally. "Hospitals. Shelters. Borders. If he surfaces, I want to know before she does."
Inside, something coiled tight.
Sera was not searching blindly anymore.
She had changed the rules.
Avinash Gupta
Arvind thinks in outcomes.
I think in patterns.
Killing Rayan now would be crude. Emotional. Sloppy. And Sera thrives on sloppy mistakes. That's how she dismantled me once—by letting me believe I was winning.
I won't give her that satisfaction again.
"She's stalling," I said calmly. "Buying time. Making us restless."
Arvind scoffed. "She has nothing."
"She has control," I replied. "And control doesn't come from evidence. It comes from making the other side react."
Rayan was alive. Somewhere. Afraid.
Good.
Fear makes people predictable.
"She'll try to use him," Arvind said.
"No," I corrected softly. "She'll let us think she is."
I straightened my jacket. "Final trial. We win clean. No blood. No noise. After that—whatever happens to Rayan becomes irrelevant."
Arvind studied me for a moment, then nodded.
But as I turned away, a thought clawed at the back of my mind.
Sera had looked at us that day like she already knew where this ends.
And the most terrifying possibility wasn't that Rayan would talk.
It was that he already had.
And that she wasn't waiting to save him—
She was waiting to finish us.