Amit spent the next two weeks in a chilling routine. He attended the office, filed documents, and paid his EMI, using his bureaucratic cover to access local records. He studied the four names like an engineer studying a failed machine.
He located their homes, their workplaces, their routines, and, most critically, their weaknesses. He realized his revenge had to be a system of precise, controlled torment, not a messy, quick act of rage.
His tools were acquired with careful, separate purchases: a coil of high-tensile steel wire (for restraint), two pairs of heavy-duty surgical-grade shears (for dissection, not cutting), an industrial-grade mini-blowtorch (for controlled heat application), and a flask of specialized, slow-acting corrosive solvent used for concrete etching. He also purchased a large, robust, sound-dampening blanket—his final, essential piece of equipment.
His target was Ranjit, the weakest link, the man known to drink alone near the abandoned sugar mill on the town's periphery before walking home through a narrow, unlit alley.
On a moonless Thursday, Amit waited in the alley. Ranjit stumbled into the trap, drunk and oblivious. The high-tensile steel wire was quick and silent, securing Ranjit's limbs tightly. Ranjit woke up hours later, tied securely to a rusted steel column inside the deserted sugar mill, a single bare bulb casting long, unstable shadows.
Amit stood before him. He was wearing clean gloves, a surgical mask, and his spectacles were perfectly straight. He looked less like an executioner and more like a very serious surgeon preparing for an intricate, unauthorized procedure.
"Ranjit," Amit said, his voice flat, devoid of human warmth. "The police need proof of the seventy-two hours. I need the truth."
Ranjit scoffed and denied everything. Amit smiled faintly, a terrifying, professional gesture. "The denial is noted. Now, the correction begins."