Chapter 4
The city was a blur outside the taxi window, neon lights bleeding into the misty drizzle.
Vedika barely noticed.
Her mind was a battlefield of court documents, affidavits, and witness statements.
The past few hours had been a mad scramble.
Meetings with terrified residents.
Late-night calls to honest bureaucrats willing to leak internal reports.
Collecting photographs, notarized declarations, demolition orders illegally signed.
Every piece of evidence she gathered was another weapon in her arsenal — but it still wasn’t enough.
She needed something bigger.
Something irrefutable.
And she knew where she would find it: the land registration office.
Rathore Enterprises was powerful, but corruption left fingerprints.
Fake deeds. Shell companies.
Paper trails created by arrogant men who never thought they’d be held accountable.
Vedika’s chest burned with exhaustion and rage.
She squeezed her phone tighter, scrolling through the list of contacts she’d cultivated — journalists, activists, a few honest police officers who hadn’t sold their souls.
Tomorrow, she’d approach the Assistant Registrar herself.
Today, she just needed to get home, shower, and hold herself together.
⸻
The taxi pulled up outside the small, aging apartment building in West Delhi where she lived with her mother and Kabir.
The elevator, as usual, was broken.
Vedika trudged up the stairs to the third floor, every step heavier than the last.
The door creaked open before she could even knock.
Her mother stood there — a thin figure wrapped in a faded cotton saree, her forehead creased with worry.
“You’re late,” Shanta Sharma said softly, pulling her daughter into a tight hug.
“You didn’t answer my calls.”
Vedika closed her eyes briefly, inhaling the familiar scent of jasmine oil and home-cooked food.
“I’m sorry, Ma,” she whispered. “It’s been a long day.”
Her mother pulled back, searching her face with anxious eyes.
“Come inside. Eat something.”
Vedika dropped her files onto the chipped dining table and collapsed into the nearest chair.
Kabir peeked out from his room, his schoolbooks in hand.
Seeing his sister, he grinned and rushed over.
“Di! You promised to help me with my history project!”
Vedika ruffled his hair. “I will, champ. Tomorrow, okay? Big day today.”
Kabir pouted but nodded, retreating back into his room.
Her mother placed a simple thali in front of her — chapatis, dal, and sabzi — but Vedika’s stomach twisted too much to eat.
She picked at the food, feeling her mother’s gaze heavy on her.
Finally, Shanta spoke.
“Vedika… please. Stop this case.”
Vedika stiffened, fork halfway to her mouth.
“Ma—”
“Listen to me,” her mother said, her voice trembling. “These people you’re fighting… they are dangerous. You saw what they did to your father.”
Silence crashed between them.
Vedika set her fork down carefully.
“I know what they did, Ma,” she said quietly. “That’s why I can’t stop.”
Tears welled up in Shanta’s eyes. “And if they do the same to you? If I lose you too?”
Vedika’s throat tightened.
She reached across the table and took her mother’s hand.
“I’m careful,” she said. “I have friends. I’m not alone.”
Shanta shook her head bitterly. “Your father was careful too. It didn’t save him.”
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
The rain beat harder against the windows, filling the silence.
Finally, Vedika squeezed her mother’s hand gently.
“I’m scared too, Ma,” she admitted. “But if we all give up… then they win. Then people like Abhimaan Rathore own everything — our homes, our lives, our future.”
Shanta wiped her tears with the edge of her pallu.
“You’re too much like him,” she whispered. “Too brave. Too stubborn.”
Vedika smiled faintly. “He would have been proud of you.”
A sad smile touched her mother’s lips.
“I am proud. But I am also afraid.”
Vedika stood, pressing a kiss to her mother’s forehead.
“I’ll be fine,” she promised. “I have to be.”
But even as she said the words, a cold knot twisted in her stomach.
She knew the war she had declared would not end without blood.
⸻
Across the city, in a sleek underground facility far from the prying eyes of police or press, another storm was unfolding.
The room smelled of leather, blood, and fear.
Abhimaan Rathore stood in the center, sleeves rolled up, a cigarette burning between two fingers.
In front of him knelt a man — young, disheveled, his shirt soaked with sweat and blood.
Rajesh.
One of his junior financial managers.
A traitor.
“You sold my internal bid numbers to Dheeran Construction,” Abhimaan said quietly, flicking ash onto the marble floor.
Rajesh whimpered. “Please, sir! It was a mistake — they offered me money — I was desperate—”
“A mistake,” Abhimaan repeated, almost thoughtfully.
He circled the kneeling man, movements predatory.
“I had spent two years preparing that bid. Two years greasing palms, silencing rivals, crushing obstacles. And because of your greed, I had to withdraw at the last minute.”
He stopped behind Rajesh, voice dropping to a lethal whisper.
“Do you know what that cost me?”
Rajesh sobbed. “I’ll do anything, sir! Please! Forgive me!”
Abhimaan exhaled a long plume of smoke.
“I believe you,” he said softly. “You will do anything.”
He nodded once.
Two of his enforcers stepped forward.
Rajesh screamed as they grabbed him, dragging him toward the waiting black van outside.
Abhimaan watched without emotion.
He didn’t need to see what would happen next.
He knew.
Rajesh would disappear tonight.
His body would never be found.
And the lesson would ripple through every man and woman who worked for him:
Betrayal was death.
⸻
Later, Abhimaan sat alone in his penthouse office, nursing a glass of scotch.
The city stretched out before him, glittering and rotten.
He should have been thinking about damage control, about his next move in the construction wars.
Instead, his mind kept drifting back to one face.
Vedika Sharma.
She had defied him.
Not with guns.
Not with money.
But with something far more dangerous — principle.
He had seen it in her eyes when Aadesh described their meeting — the absolute refusal to bow, to fear.
Most people he met were ruled by greed, lust, or terror.
Vedika was ruled by rage.
A righteous, furious fire.
And fire… fire fascinated him.
Abhimaan leaned back in his chair, tapping a finger against the glass.
He could crush her.
Easily.
But some part of him — dark, curious, hungry — didn’t want to.
He wanted to see how far she would push.
How much she would risk.
He wanted to test her.
And then, when she burned brightest — when her fire threatened to consume everything — he would decide whether to snuff it out…
Or claim it for himself.
A slow, predatory smile curved his lips.
The game had begun.
And Abhimaan Rathore never lost.