The oak door at the end of the hall wasn't a promise. It was just a door. Heavy. Shut.
Ranveer moved toward it, but his feet felt like they belonged to someone else. The hallway stank of cordite and wet plaster—the smell of a building that had been hurt. His left arm swung uselessly at his hip, a wet pendulum. He didn't look at it. If he looked at the shredded meat and the white flash of bone, the screaming in his nervous system would take over. He shoved the pain down, deep into the boiler room of his gut where the hate lived.
His right hand was cramped around the knife handle. Slick. Blood, sweat, grease.
Movement in the periphery.
Shadows peeled off the walls. Three of them. No uniforms, just expensive gear and dead eyes. They didn't talk. Why would they?
Muzzle flash.
Crack.
Concrete dust peppered Ranveer's face. He didn't blink. He'd left his flinch reflex back in the burning fields, along with his soul.
He ran. It wasn't graceful. It was a lurching, broken sprint, an engine redlining with a cracked block.
The first man adjusted his aim. Ranveer didn't dodge; he just fed his dead arm to the gun. The bullets hit the ruined limb with wet thuds, spinning him around. It hurt—god, it hurt—but it was a distant, white-hot star. He used the spin.
Right hand. Up.
Thunk.
The knife slid under the chin, burying itself in the soft palate. The man went rigid. Ranveer didn't pull the blade out. He grabbed the dying man's collar, hauling the weight around just as the second guard fired.
Phut-phut.
Bullets slapped into the meat shield. The body jerked in Ranveer's grip.
He shoved the corpse forward, a battering ram of dead weight, crashing into the shooter. They went down in a tangle of limbs. The mercenary smelled like stale tobacco and panic. He clawed for a pistol trapped between their chests. Ranveer didn't hunt for a weapon. He just lowered his head.
Opened his mouth. Bit down.
Teeth met the cartilage of the man's ear. He jerked back.
It tore with the sound of snapping celery. The scream died in the guard's throat, turning into a wet gurgle. Ranveer spat the piece of flesh onto the floor and slammed his forehead into the bridge of the man's nose.
Something crunched. The man went limp.
Ranveer pushed himself up. His ribs ground together, like stones in a sack. He wiped a smear of gore from his mouth.
One left.
The last guard was ten feet away, holding a serrated trench knife. His knuckles were white. He looked at the mess on the floor, then at Ranveer. He wasn't looking at a soldier. He was looking at a carcass that refused to lie down.
"Come on," Ranveer wheezed. It sounded like gravel in a blender.
The guard lunged.
Ranveer tried to move, but the blood loss had stolen his legs. The floor tilted. He slipped.
Shhhk.
Cold steel slipped between his ribs. Right side.
The air hissed out of him. The guard twisted the blade, eyes wide with a terrified sort of triumph. He waited for Ranveer to drop.
Ranveer stepped in.
He impaled himself further, sliding up the steel until the guard's fist hit his chest. Trapped him. Ranveer grabbed the wrist, locking them together. His free hand found the throat.
Squeeze.
The windpipe collapsed under the pressure. The guard's eyes bulged, capillaries bursting red. His boots drummed a frantic rythm on the concrete, a desperate dance. Ranveer watched the light fade from the man's eyes. He didn't blink. He just waited until the drumming stopped.
He let go. The body folded.
Ranveer stood there, the trench knife still bobbing in his side with every shallow, ragged breath. The hallway was getting dark. Black rust crept in from the corners of his vision.
Bang.
The shot came from the oak door.
His left leg evaporated. Ranveer hit the floor hard, the air driven from his lungs. The ceiling lights smeared into yellow streaks. The gravity in the room tripled, pinning him to the stone.
Zoya… …
Her face flickered in the static. Jasmine. Smoke. Then nothing. Just the cold floor and the wet heat pooling under his thigh.
Up on the catwalk, the Masked Man went still.
Rifle on the rail. He wasn't doing math. You don't need math at this range; you just need patience. He was waiting for the kill shot.
But through the scope, the corpse in the hallway moved.
He lowered the muzzle a fraction.
The man on the floor wasn't twitching. The muscles in his back were bunching up, tight knots of tension coiling under the skin.
Under the black faceplate, the Masked Man smirked. A tiny shift.
He'd seen men die a thousand ways. He knew the slack look of the end. This wasn't that. The thermal showed the heat spiking. The man wasn't bleeding out; he was burning up. Biology said stop. The chemicals flooding his brain said move.
He wasn't finished.
The Masked Man lifted his finger off the trigger. He sat back. Let's see.
Ranveer got up.
It was ugly. The knife in his ribs scraped against bone. The shattered arm dangled by a thread of skin. The shot leg dragged behind him, dead weight. He looked like something dredged up from the bottom of a lake, held together by hate.
The pain was gone. It had peaked and broken, leaving behind a terrible, crystal clarity. No hallway. No wounds. Just the door.
The oak groaned open.
Zulfiqar stepped out.
He was huge, wrapped in cashmere that cost more than Ranveer's life, holding a gold-plated Desert Eagle. He looked at the bodies. Sneered. Raised the gun at the swaying, broken thing in front of him.
"Stay dead, dog," Zulfiqar spat.
Ranveer didn't speak. He launched.
He covered the gap in a blur, a movement that defied the physics of his injuries.
Zulfiqar fired. BOOM.
The round tore a chunk out of Ranveer's shoulder.
Ranveer didn't even slow down. He slammed into the warlord, driving him back into the room. The gold pistol clattered away. They hit a mahogany desk, wood splintering, expensive trinkets flying.
Zulfiqar roared, driving a knee into Ranveer's ruined gut. Ranveer took it. Ate it.
His hand scrambled at his belt. Found the Karambit.
Zulfiqar scrambled back, eyes wide. The arrogance was gone. Now he was just a rich man locked in a room with a wild animal.
"Wait—" Zulfiqar gasped, hands up. "I can pay—"
Ranveer lunged.
He didn't stab. He hooked the curved blade under the chin, sinking the tip deep into the soft meat of the throat, pulling up.
Zulfiqar shrieked—a high, wet sound.
Ranveer dropped the knife. He was done with steel.
He straddled Zulfiqar's chest, knees pinning the arms. He looked down into the weeping, terrified eyes. There were no words for this. No justice. Just the end.
Ranveer jammed his left hand into the open wound under the chin, hooking his fingers around the jawbone. He jammed his right hand into Zulfiqar's mouth, gripping the upper teeth.
Zulfiqar thrashed. Bucked wild. But Ranveer was heavy with the weight of the grave.
Ranveer pulled.
Shoulders engaged. Back muscles tearing. Every last drop of energy burning off.
CRACK.
It sounded like a tree branch snapping in a winter storm. Skin stretched tight, translucent, then split like wet silk.
Ranveer roared.
It wasn't a scream. It was the sound of something breaking inside him.
With a final, sickening tear, the jaw gave way.
Ranveer stood up. He held the grisly piece of bone in one hand, chest heaving. He grabbed Zulfiqar's ruined body by the lapels, hauling the corpse up, shaking it.
"ZOYA!"
He screamed it at the ceiling. At the empty air.
Then, the strings were cut.
The adrenaline crashed out of him. The clarity shattered. The pain returned, a tidal wave sweeping him out to sea.
Ranveer collapsed. He hit the floor on top of his enemy. The silence rushed back into the room, heavy and thick.
The only sound was the drip, drip, drip of blood hitting the polished wood.
From the shadows, the Masked Man walked in.
Silent. Liquid. He stepped over the mutilated guards without looking down. He stopped two feet from the pile of raw flesh and cashmere.
Ranveer's eyes were half-open, glazed over, staring at a horizon that wasn't there. His breath was a shallow rattle.
The Masked Man didn't kneel. He just tilted his head.
In the quiet, he heard it. A faint flutter, like a moth trapped in a glass jar. The heart, fighting a war it had already lost.
It wouldn't be long. Minutes. Maybe seconds. …