The heavy steel door didn't slide open with its usual hydraulic hiss. It was thrown open, the metal banging hard against the stopper, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the confined space.
Pranav flinched, his stomach tightening into a hard, cold knot. He stepped back from the center of the room, instinctively putting the table between himself and the door. He expected Vikram's silent bulk. He expected Asrit's cold suit. He expected the bill for Arpika's war.
Kevin Corvini walked in.
He wasn't wearing his lab coat. He was in a shimmering, silver-grey suit that caught the harsh overhead light, the fabric too loud for a basement, too festive for a prison. His hair was messy, spiked up with sweat or gel, and his eyes were wide, darting around the room with a frantic, electric energy.
He didn't look angry. He looked intoxicated.
Gautham, who had been curled in the corner, let out a high, whimpering sound. He scrambled backward, pressing his spine against the concrete. "I didn't steal it!" he blurted out, his voice cracking. "I didn't take the compounds! It was her! I checked the inventory, I swear, I was going to log it—"
Kevin ignored him. He didn't even look at the terrified chemist. He strode into the center of the room, his expensive shoes clicking sharply on the floor. He spun around, taking in the scene. Sanvi with her cards, Sathwik by the water cooler, Pranav behind the table.
"Where is she?" Kevin asked. His voice wasn't the high-pitched shriek of the lab tyrant. It was breathless, eager.
Pranav straightened up, trying to salvage the situation. He had to be the voice of reason. He had to distance the group from the rogue element before Kevin decided to purge the whole unit.
"Mr. Corvini," Pranav said, keeping his hands visible, palms open. "We are aware of the situation. The unauthorized action taken by Arpika was not sanctioned by the group. We understand the risk to the family's assets. We are prepared to accept the penalties for her—"
"Shut up," Kevin said. He waved a hand dismissively, like he was swatting a fly.
He walked up to the table, leaning over it, invading Pranav's space. He smelled of ozone and expensive vodka.
"Penalties?" Kevin laughed. It was a jagged, brittle sound. "You think I'm here to talk about penalties? You think I care about Asuma's precious spreadsheet?"
Pranav blinked, confused. "She... she stole from your lab. She exposed the family to a police investigation. The debt—"
"The debt is paper!" Kevin slammed his hand onto the table. "Paper for accountants! Paper for people who sit in offices and wait for the world to happen to them!"
He pushed off the table and began to pace, his movements jerky and animated. He was vibrating with a strange, vicarious adrenaline.
"I heard the report," Kevin said, gesturing wildly. "Five men. Mancini's top earners. Men who have been laughing at my family, at me, for years. They walk into a room, thinking they own the sky, and they don't walk out. Not a shot fired until the end. Clean. Chemical. Absolute."
He stopped pacing and looked at Sanvi.
"You said she had teeth," Kevin said, pointing a finger at her. "You were right."
Sanvi lowered her cards, her eyebrows raised in genuine surprise. She had expected a fight; she hadn't expected a fan.
Pranav felt the ground shifting under his feet. This made no sense. Kevin was the one who screamed about broken beakers. Kevin was the one who beat Gautham for a failed equation. Why was he celebrating a massive operational breach?
"But... the risk," Pranav stammered, clinging to his logic. "The exposure. Asuma said we are red ink. This makes us—"
Kevin spun on him, his face twisting into a sneer. The camaraderie vanished, replaced by a vicious, targeted contempt.
"You talk too much about risk for a man who failed a simple pickup," Kevin spat.
He walked back to Pranav, stopping inches from his face. Pranav could see the dilated pupils, the sheer, desperate hunger in Kevin's eyes.
"You think you're smart, Pranav. You think you're the leader because you can make a plan and read a map. But you're just a bureaucrat in training."
Kevin gestured to the empty space where Arpika wasn't.
"You sit and wait for John to give you a purpose," Kevin hissed, the words spraying slightly. "You wait for permission. You wait for the right time. You wait to be told you're good enough."
He leaned in closer.
"She went out and carved one from flesh. Don't you dare mistake that for a mistake. That was an announcement."
Pranav recoiled as if he'd been slapped. The words cut deep because they bypassed his logic and hit the raw nerve of his insecurity. Bureaucrat. Waiter. Coward.
The steel door hissed open again.
The room went silent.
Arpika walked in.
She looked exactly as she had when she left the penthouse, though she had discarded the clutch. Her silk dress was smooth, her hair perfectly in place. She walked with a slow, deliberate cadence, her heels making a soft clack-clack-clack on the concrete.
She didn't look at Pranav. She didn't look at the team. She stopped in the center of the room, seeing Kevin standing there.
Her expression didn't change. It was a mask of porcelain and ice.
Kevin's demeanor shifted instantly. The sneer fell away, replaced by a look of grotesque admiration. He looked like a boy who had just found a dangerous new toy that he desperately wanted to claim as his own.
"Princess," Kevin said, breathing the word like a compliment.
He stepped around the table, approaching her. He moved with a familiarity he hadn't earned, circling her slowly, inspecting her like a piece of art he was considering buying.
"I saw the preliminary toxicology report from the police scanner," Kevin said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Modified neuro-paralytic. High solubility. Fast uptake. You used the base from the Batch 7 failure, didn't you? The one Gautham couldn't stabilize?"
Arpika stood still, her eyes tracking him, cold and unblinking.
"It required... adjustment," she said softly. Her voice was hoarse.
"Adjustment," Kevin chuckled, delighted. "Yes. Alchemy. You took my failure and turned it into a weapon. That is... that is poetry."
He stopped in front of her. He reached out, his hand hovering near her shoulder, wanting to touch the silk, wanting to touch the violence she represented. He saw himself in her action, or at least, the version of himself he wanted to be. The Kevin who didn't just mix drugs, but who ended enemies. The Kevin who wasn't the disappointment of the family, but the terror of it.
"My father sees numbers," Kevin said, his eyes locking onto hers, searching for a connection. "Sam sees deals. Asrit sees laws. They don't see us."
He gestured between himself and Arpika, trying to draw a circle around them, trying to create an alliance of the overlooked.
"They think we're just the help," Kevin whispered urgently. "But you showed them. You showed them that the lab, that we, hold the keys to the kingdom. We don't need their permission to take out the trash."
He smiled, a wide, desperate expression that begged for validation. He wanted her to nod. He wanted her to say, Yes, Kevin, we are the same. We are the dangerous ones.
"We could do great things," Kevin said. "I have compounds... theoreticals... things Asuma won't let me synthesize because of cost. But with your delivery systems? With your... initiative?"
The offer hung in the air. It was a lifeline. Kevin Corvini, a blood member of the Seven, was offering her protection, resources, and a partnership. It was exactly the kind of leverage Pranav had spent weeks trying to build.
Arpika looked at him.
She saw the sweat on his brow. She saw the twitch in his hand. She saw the insecurity radiating off him like heat from a pavement. He wasn't a king offering a crown; he was a lonely, frightened child looking for a friend to help him burn ants with a magnifying glass.
She had just killed five men because they viewed her as a thing to be used. She wasn't about to become a prop for Kevin's ego.
Arpika took a single step back. It was a small movement, but it created a chasm between them.
"The compound worked, Kevin," she said. Her tone was polite, distant, and utterly hollow. "Thank you for the supply."
She didn't smile. She didn't acknowledge the we. She didn't step into the circle he was trying to draw.
"But I didn't do it to make an announcement," she continued, her eyes sliding past him to fix on the blank gray wall. "And I didn't do it for you."
Kevin's smile faltered. His hand dropped to his side. The rejection was subtle, but it was absolute. She wasn't playing his game. She wasn't validating his insecurity.
"I did it," Arpika said, "because I was tired of the noise."
She walked past him. She moved to the far bench, sitting down with a slow, stiff grace, effectively ending the conversation.
Kevin stood there, frozen. The rejection stung, but the fascination didn't fade. If anything, her coldness only confirmed what he had said to Pranav. She wasn't waiting for permission. Not even his.
He turned back to Pranav, his face hardening again, reclaiming the only power he had left, bullying the weak.
"Take notes, Pranav," Kevin sneered, adjusting his silver suit jacket. "That is what a killer looks like. Try to become one before I decide you're just a waste of good oxygen."
He spun on his heel and marched out of the room, the door slamming shut behind him, leaving a silence that was somehow louder than the shouting had been.
Pranav stood alone by the table, the echo of Kevin's words, You sit and wait, ringing in his ears. He looked at Arpika, sitting stone-still on the bench, and realized with a jolt of terrifying clarity that Kevin was right.
He was the only one in the room still waiting for rules that didn't exist.