Rule One: Never react. Respond.
Aarav didn't run companies. He ran outcomes. By 9:30 a.m. the next morning, he had the seating chart from the awards, the internal CCTV routes, the list of staff who had access to the mezzanine, and three names of freelance photographers who specialized in blackmail-grade candids.
By 9:45, he had their bank statements.
By 10:00, two of them were clean. One wasn't.
Raghav Bendre. Alias: RagBen. Specialty: trailing celebrity cars without being noticed. Last month's deposit: ₹3,50,000 from an unlisted agency shell. The memo line was a single emoji: 🔒.
Aarav closed the file and looked out across the glass of VR Tower, the city a living circuit board under monsoon light. His reflection in the window was precise: crisp white shirt, cufflinks like sharpened intentions, eyes that had forgotten how to be anything but controlled.
"Sir," said his assistant, Dev, placing coffee on the table. "Board at eleven. Media wants a quote about your attendance last night."
"I didn't attend," Aarav said.
Dev didn't blink. "Correct."
"And logistics?"
"Your driver reported a motorcycle tail two blocks from the hotel. Lost at the signal. No plates. Also… this arrived for you." Dev slid his phone across the table, screen facing up. An email from an untraceable address.
Subject: You don't own everything.
Body: But you could buy this.
Below, a link. Then a photo attachment, already cached. The same stairwell shot. Their secret turned into pixels.
For the first time that morning, the Frost King's jaw tightened.
"Do you want us to—"
"Find Raghav Bendre," Aarav said, the words soft as a closing door. "Bring him to Unit 7."
Dev hesitated. Unit 7 wasn't a boardroom. "Understood."
Alone again, Aarav opened a hidden app—Vanilla Notes disguised as a weather widget—and typed a message that would self-delete in sixty seconds.
A.V.R: You home?
The reply was instant.
Sara: Wrapped a morning interview. Home in 20. Smile count: 37.
A.V.R: New rule. No accepting files. AirDrop off. Bluetooth only with trusted devices.
Sara: Copy, Mr. Frost.
A.V.R: Are you okay?
A pause—five dots that contained a thousand unsaid things.
Sara: I'm with you. So yes.
Relief did an unprofessional thing to his lungs. "Okay" for him meant "not in immediate danger." "I'm with you" meant she still chose him. Both were currencies he didn't trade lightly.
His office door clicked open. Not Dev. Raghav's file had a footnote: preferred exit routes, weak shoulder after a childhood injury, and a sister in second-year college on scholarship. Aarav believed in knowing what people loved. It told him what they might sell—and what they wouldn't.
"Mr. Rathore?" Dev reappeared, voice tight. "There's something else. A blind item dropped at 9:00 a.m. 'A rising actress and a married businessman—'"
Aarav's eyes turned to ice. "I'm not married."
"They didn't name you."
"They don't need to." His voice dropped. "Kill it."
"How?"
"Buy the site. Or their server. Whichever bleeds less."
Dev nodded and retreated, already typing.
Across town, Sara watched rain bead against the SUV window as the city smeared by—vendors, billboards, a boy splashing a football through a puddle with fierce joy. The image soothed something small and bruised inside her. She adjusted her cap lower and switched off AirDrop, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi—anything that could leak without asking permission.
Her building's basement was quiet. Her driver—new, blank-faced, professional—escorted her through the service elevator to avoid the lobby lens. On the 23rd floor, she keyed into her apartment, the familiar citrus-clean scent greeting her like a loyal friend.
She toed off her heels, padded to the kitchen for water, and only then noticed it.
A white envelope slid under her door while she'd been in the kitchen.
No stamp. Her name hand-printed in black ink.
The air changed pressure. She picked it up, thumb poised to tear the edge—then stopped, remembering Aarav's voice: Respond. Don't react.
She took a photo of the envelope and sent it to their secure thread.
Sara: This was under my door.
A.V.R: Don't open. I'm sending someone.
Sara: If it's a script, I'm losing out on an Oscar.
A.V.R: I'll buy you a new Oscar.
She smiled despite the tightness in her chest.
Her phone buzzed again—Ritu calling. Sara let it ring once before answering on speaker.
"Babe," Ritu chirped, "you were flawless on camera. But we've got smoke. Some account is pushing a theory—your car leaving the awards used a corporate security tail. Guess whose."
Sara stared at the envelope. "We should schedule a decoy coffee with a male co-star," she said evenly, "and 'get caught' laughing about our 'friendship.' Seed three non-stories. Flood the timeline."
"On it," Ritu said. "Also, your door cam—did you disable it? I couldn't access last night's feed."
"I was at the awards," Sara said, too quickly. "Maybe the network— I'll check."
"Okay. Shower, nap, glow. We need you sunshine for the Noon Live in three hours."
They hung up. The apartment felt suddenly too still. Sara set the envelope on the dining table and walked to the hallway camera panel. Offline. She rebooted. No response. She checked her router. Stable.
The envelope waited.
Respond, she told herself. She took a pair of kitchen scissors, slid the blade under the glued edge, and lifted the flap open with surgical care.
One item slid out.
A key. Old-fashioned, brass, heavy.
And a note, block letters printed like cut edges.
"Tonight. 11:11 PM. If you want your life back."
"Come alone."
An address she didn't recognize.
The key pressed into her palm like a warning.
Her phone vibrated—Aarav again.
A.V.R: We have Bendre. He had access to the stairwell photo but he didn't send the message. He sold to a middleman. I'm tracking.
Sara: I got a key. And an address. 11:11 p.m. "If you want your life back."
The dots blinked, stopped, blinked again.
A.V.R: You're not going.
Sara looked at the key. At her reflection in the dark window. At the city that had made her and could unmake her with one rumor dressed as truth.
Sara: Then how do we end this?
Aarav's reply came like iron.
A.V.R: We don't negotiate with ghosts. We flush them.
Before she could respond, her phone lit with an unknown number. She almost declined—then remembered respond and answered, silent.
A male voice, distorted: "Miss Mehta, lovely home. Shame if people saw who visited you last night."
Sara's throat went cold. "Who is this?"
A soft chuckle. "Bring the key at 11:11. Or your secret becomes a religion on the internet."
The call ended.
She sent the audio to Aarav, fingers steady because she forced them to be.
Across the city, in Unit 7—a windowless room designed for uncomfortable conversations—Aarav set his phone down and looked at the man bound to the chair. Raghav was pale, eyes dilated with equal parts anger and fear. He kept insisting he hadn't sent the demands, that he only sold access like everyone else did in a city where nothing was truly private.
"Tell me about your buyer," Aarav said quietly.
"I—I never met him. A woman contacts me. Says she's from Kismet PR—"
"Kismet doesn't exist," Aarav said.
"—and then money appears. I deliver shots to a locker. That's it. Please, sir. I have a sister."
Aarav's phone pinged—Dev again.
Update: The blind item site sold at 10:22 a.m. New owner: VRT Holdings (Proxy). Item retracted.
Aarav barely glanced. His mind was already assembling a map: the dead camera, the live AirDrop, the key and its weight, the address chosen for its numerology theatrics. This was not paparazzi. This was choreography.
He typed to Sara:
A.V.R: Send me the address.
She did.
He stared at it for a long second—and then, for the first time this morning, smiled without warmth.
A.V.R: Good. They made a mistake.
Sara: Which is?
A.V.R: The building they chose? I own it.
Lightning cracked, close enough to rattle the glass.
—End of Chapter 1 (Hook: 11:11 rendezvous in a building owned by the Frost King).