Mumbai doesn't sleep—but it burns. Not with the gentle warmth of dreams, but the chilly flames of secrets.
The city drew breath in smoke and neon, its pulse throbbing through the Byculla alleys, where rats moved faster than the police and justice sported brass knuckles. Under a swaying lamppost, a car was on fire—a black Scorpio, its engine still humming like a dying beast. It hadn't been an accident.
Neither was the body.
Samruddhi Jadhav stood a few feet away from the burnt metal, her nostrils burning with the smell of diesel, sweat, and burned flesh. The police already had taped off the area, but her press badge opened like a key to a locked door of bad luck. Her camera crew hung back, wondering if they were recording news or making it.
She didn't blink when the tarp was lifted.
The corpse's face had melted into something unrecognizable, but the ring on his finger hadn't. A gold lion's head. Exclusive. One of five ever made in Dubai. Arpan More's gang used them like medals of loyalty.
She inhaled slowly. One of the More lions is dead.
"We'll need a statement," ACP Raghav Rao said, stepping beside her. His voice was steel wrapped in silk.
She spun without emotion. "About what? That your crime branch's favorite beast just lost a soldier?"
He smiled tightly. "This is personal, isn't it?"
She didn't say anything, and that was answer enough.
Both of them knew that she had history with the Mores.
Arpan More sat in the darkest corner of an expensive bar in Worli—one of those velvet-trimmed, imported-whiskey places trying to pretend it wasn't a blood-money laundromat. His glass remained untouched. His coal-black, unreadable eyes were glued to the TV above.
Breaking news. Scorpio. Fire. Burnt man. Lion ring.
The channel had no name yet, no cause. But he didn't require names. He recognized his brother's stance—even in death.
"Rafiq," he said quietly. "Mute that."
The bartender nodded.
Arpan's fingers tapped once on the mahogany. His left ring finger bore no jewelry, but a pale circle of skin showed something used to live there.
Across from him, Kavya leaned forward. "This wasn't police work," she whispered. "You're thinking it too, aren't you?"
He nodded once. "Someone's sending a message. But not to me."
"To who, then?"
He finally looked at her. "To Samruddhi."
She froze.
Samruddhi's apartment in Shivaji Park was a time capsule of chaos. Books, half-used diaries, press IDs from six channels, old photos, broken mugs. She sat cross-legged on her floor, laptop open, playing the same clip over and over.
A frame-by-frame scan of the burning vehicle. Her crew had caught something no one else noticed—a sliver of graffiti on the wall behind the Scorpio. A name, scrawled in red paint:
"Shivraj was just the beginning."
Shivraj More.
Arpan's younger brother.
The ring, therefore, wasn't the giveaway. The graffiti was. And it was addressed to her.
She gasped for air. Why send it to me?
A memory slashed through her like glass—her father, years past, whispering something as he bled on their living room floor.
".Don't trust the Mores…"
He'd expired before completing the sentence. The murderer was never apprehended. Officially. But she had her suspects.
And they all traced back to Devraj More, the unspoken architect of a city's decay.
Devraj was sitting in his bungalow like a retired tiger—still, but the smell of blood on his coat. His eyes were shut, vinyl records playing classical music.
Arpan walked in without speaking first.
"Your brother is dead," Arpan said matter-of-factly.
Devraj's eyes opened but the expression on his face did not alter. "You sure?
Arpan put the phone in his hand. The shape of the ring. The name in the background.
Devraj read it slowly, then put the phone down. "It has begun, then."
"What's begun?"
"The reckoning."
Arpan glared. "You knew this was coming?"
His father didn't reply. Instead, he took a photo from the table—a young woman, maybe in her twenties, cradling a child.
"Your mother once said to me," Devraj told him, "that blood doesn't drown in time. It floats. No matter how deep you bury it."
Arpan's tone grew lower. "What aren't you telling me?"
Devraj's smile was humorless. "I buried a war, Arpan. But someone's digging it up."
The following morning, Samruddhi opened a package. No return address.
Inside: a photograph.
Black and white. Old. Faded.
Her father. Standing next to a woman she'd never seen before. Holding hands.
On the rear, one sentence:
"She was Arpan's mother."
Her world spun.
Her fingers shook.
She picked up her phone, dialed her editor. "I want the More archives. All of them. From 1980 till date. Classified or not."
"And if we get flagged?"
She didn't flinch. "Then we'll know we're close."
In a dockyard warehouse that night, Arpan stood over Rafiq's body—the bartender, now another victim. His mouth had been sewn shut with red thread. A symbol. A warning.
Samruddhi's name was carved into his chest.
He stared at it, eyes blank, but his heart thumped like a war drum.
He turned to Kavya. "Find out who knew Rafiq talked to me."
She hesitated. "Even our men?"
"Especially our men."
He gazed out towards the water, wind on his face.
"Someone wants Samruddhi and me to kill each other," he said.
Kavya's whisper. "Will you let them?"
He didn't reply.
But his hand reached for his coat.
Where the lion ring lay in wait.
That evening, Samruddhi sat in her parked car outside a church. She observed the stained-glass window shining, knowing the priest within was the same one who had baptized her.
She entered.
"Father D'Souza," she whispered.
He glanced up. Went white.
"Child… I thought you'd never return."
"I must know about my father. About a woman named Rina More."
He stepped back. "That name invokes curses."
"I bear questions," she answered. "And perhaps… justice."
He glanced at the crucifix. Then at her.
"Rina More was never supposed to love your father," he told her. "But love does not burn rules. And theirs incinerated a kingdom."
She felt the breath leave her body.
"Arpan More," she breathed. "Is he my.?"
The priest avoided her gaze.
But he didn't deny it.
Midnight.
Samruddhi emerged from the church, and the atmosphere shifted. Charged. Heavy.
She took a turn.
And paused.
Arpan stood there.
No guards. No gun. Just him, bathed in the glow of a streetlamp.
His voice was low. "You shouldn't be here."
Her throat tightened. "Neither should you."
"I came to see if you're alive."
She blinked. "Why?"
He stepped closer. "Because someone's playing a game. And we're both the pieces."
She met his gaze.
Cold fire. Old pain.
"Tell me the truth," she said. "About my father. About your mother. About us."
He reached into his pocket.
Pulled out the lion ring.
Held it between them.
"I'm not sure," he said, voice barely audible, "if we're enemies… or family."
Silence fell.
Then a shot rang out.
They both ducked.
A bullet shattered the glass of the streetlamp.
Darkness swallowed them.
To be continued.