I served for ten years.
Ten fucking years.
Saw things no man should see.
Did things no man should do.
Lost friends.
Lost pieces of myself.
Kept moving.
Kept fighting.
Kept believing that one day—
I'd go home.
---
2026. AGE 27. I CAME HOME.
Not because I wanted to.
Because my mother was sick.
Cancer.
The doctor said it with such casual cruelty.
Like he was telling me the weather.
"Stage three. We'll do what we can."
---
I left the army that day.
Didn't think twice.
Didn't hesitate.
All those years of service, all those medals, all that blood—
I traded it all for a chance to hold my mother's hand one more time.
Worth it.
Every fucking second.
Worth it.
---
I started a small business.
Nothing big.
Buying goods from villages, selling them in the city.
Small profit.
But it was mine.
Honest work.
The kind my mother taught me to respect.
---
2027. AGE 29.
My mother, weak but still fighting, looked at me one day.
"Get married, beta."
"Maa, now is not the time—"
"Now is exactly the time." She squeezed my hand. "I want to see you happy before I go."
I couldn't argue.
I never could argue with her.
---
That's when I met Gita.
Her family arranged the meeting.
Middle class.
Simple people.
Good people.
---
She walked in and—
Her eyes…
I don't know how to explain it.
Some people have nice eyes.
Some people have beautiful eyes.
Gita had home in her eyes.
Like I'd known her my whole life.
Like she'd been waiting for me.
Like all those years of blood and death and loneliness—
they were just the road that led to her.
---
We talked.
We understood each other.
Her problems.
My problems.
We didn't hide.
We didn't pretend.
We just... fit.
---
2028. MARCH 7. WE GOT MARRIED.
Small ceremony.
Simple clothes.
Real smiles.
My mother sat in the front row, weak but glowing.
She got what she wanted.
She saw her son happy.
---
Twenty-three days later—
She was gone.
---
Cancer took her.
But I think...
I think she was waiting.
I think she held on just long enough to see me married.
Just long enough to know I wasn't alone.
Just long enough.
---
I cried for days.
Weeks.
Lost count.
Gita held me.
Didn't say much.
Just held me.
Let me break.
Let me fall apart.
And when I had nothing left—
she helped me stand again.
---
My mother's last words?
"Never lie, beta. Never cheat. Pay what you owe. God is watching. Everything will be good."
I held her hand until it went cold.
I believed her.
I fucking believed her.
---
2029. JANUARY 12.
Gita was pregnant.
---
I don't know how to describe that moment.
After years of death and loss and emptiness—
a new life.
A piece of me.
A piece of her.
A piece of my mother, maybe, living on in some new form.
---
We sat on our tiny balcony that night.
Just the two of us.
The city noise below.
Stars above.
Her hand on her belly.
My hand on hers.
---
"If it's a boy..." she whispered.
"Veer," I said. "Brave. Like my mother."
"And if it's a girl..."
"Shakti." I smiled. "Strength. Like her mother."
---
We had plans.
Real plans.
A house with two rooms.
A garden.
A future.
---
2029. MAY 1.
That's when Rajeev showed up.
---
Old college friend.
Haven't seen him in years.
He walked into my shop with that smile.
That warm, trustworthy, fake as fuck smile.
"Veda bhai! Long time!"
I should have known.
I should have fucking known.
---
He talked about opportunities.
Big deals.
Connections in Mumbai.
Volume pricing.
Guaranteed returns.
"Trust me, bhai. I got you."
---
I didn't trust him.
Not really.
But...
Gita was pregnant.
The business was small.
The future was expensive.
And somewhere in my stupid, hopeful heart—
I wanted more.
For her.
For the baby.
For the family I was building.
---
I invested everything.
Savings: gone.
Bank loan: taken.
Private loan from a man named Suleiman: signed in blood I couldn't see.
Twenty-three lakh rupees.
All in.
All on red.
---
2029. JUNE.
Rajeev disappeared.
Number dead.
Flat empty.
No forwarding address.
Nothing.
Just empty air where my future used to be.
---
I didn't tell Gita at first.
I tried to fix it myself.
Tried to find him.
Tried to find the money.
Tried to find a way out.
---
There was no way out.
---
The bank came first.
Letters.
Calls.
Lawyers.
Then recovery agents standing outside my shop, staring at customers until they left.
Business died.
Obviously.
Who buys from a man with wolves at his door?
---
Then Suleiman's men came.
Small men.
Hard eyes.
Flat voices.
"Pay on time. Or we collect in other ways."
They showed me what "other ways" meant.
Pictures.
Pictures of people who couldn't pay.
People with missing hands.
Missing faces.
Missing everything.
---
2029. AUGUST 15. THE NIGHT EVERYTHING CHANGED.
---
They came at night.
Four of them.
Suleiman's best boys.
The ones who did the "collection" when words stopped working.
---
I was at the shop late.
Trying to figure out how to make money from nothing.
Trying to find a way out.
Trying to breathe.
---
Gita was home alone.
Seven months pregnant.
Sleeping.
Waiting for me.
---
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I picked up.
---
"Veda bhai."
A voice I didn't recognize.
Flat.
Bored.
Like he was ordering tea.
"We're at your house. Your wife is here. Come home. Let's talk."
---
The line went dead.
---
I don't remember running.
I don't remember the streets.
I don't remember anything except—
the door.
Our door.
Broken open.
---
Inside—
Gita on the floor.
Holding her belly.
Crying.
Four men standing over her.
Smiling.
---
The first one—
young.
Twenty-five maybe.
Gold chain.
Empty eyes.
He looked at me and laughed.
"Ah, the husband arrives. Good. Now we can—"
---
Gita screamed.
"Veda, they kicked me—they kicked my stomach—the baby—"
---
Something in me...
snapped.
Not cracked.
Snapped.
---
Ten years in the army.
Ten years of learning how to kill.
Ten years of keeping that animal locked in a cage.
---
The cage broke.
---
The first one didn't see me move.
I was in the kitchen before he could blink.
The knife was in my hand before he could breathe.
A kitchen knife.
Simple.
Sharp.
Enough.
---
I drove it into his throat.
Felt the blade slide through skin and muscle.
Felt the hot spray of blood on my face.
He made a sound—
gurgling.
Wet.
Then he fell.
---
The second one came at me.
Fast.
But I was faster.
Ten years of combat training.
Ten years of knowing exactly where to cut.
---
I took his head.
One shot.
Clean.
His neck opened like a mouth screaming red.
He dropped.
---
The third and fourth—
I don't remember.
I really don't.
I know I killed them.
I know I didn't stop until they stopped moving.
I know when it was over, I was standing in a room full of dead men, covered in their blood, breathing hard, and Gita was looking at me like I was a stranger.
---
Maybe I was.
Maybe that night, Veda Raj Kumar died.
And something else was born.
---
"Gita..."
I dropped the knife.
Reached for her.
She flinched.
"Don't."
Her voice was small.
Broken.
"Don't touch me."
---
"We need to go to the hospital. The baby—"
Her eyes went wide.
She looked down at her stomach.
At the blood that wasn't mine.
At the pain she'd been holding in.