Chapter 24: The Long Way Up
Kabir woke up late.
Not the gentle kind of late where the world waits for you, but the brutal kind where the sun has already climbed too high and pours in like an accusation. Light sliced through the curtains in thin, merciless blades, stabbing straight into his skull.
His head throbbed. A slow, punishing ache, familiar after nights he pretended didn’t mean anything. But beneath the alcohol, beneath the dryness in his mouth and the heaviness in his limbs, there was something else.
Fear.
It bloomed suddenly, violently, the moment his hand reached out to the other side of the bed.
Empty.
The sheets were cold.
Kabir sat up so fast the room tilted.
For one suspended heartbeat, everything went silent. No traffic. No birds. No city. Just a single thought crashing through his mind with terrifying clarity.
She left.
You pushed her too far.
His breath fractured as his palms dragged down his face. His chest felt hollow, as if something essential had been ripped out while he slept.
“What did you do…” he whispered to the empty room, his voice hoarse, almost afraid to exist too loudly.
His memory was a broken film reel. Whiskey burning down his throat. Laughter that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Arjun’s voice somewhere in the bar, sharp and unreadable. A tension he couldn’t name but felt in his bones.
And then… nothing clear.
Just fragments.
Riya’s hair against his cheek. The warmth of her presence anchoring him when the world spun too fast.
His gaze fell to the bedside table.
A coffee maker sat there, unplugged but purposeful. Beside it, an empty mug. And a small yellow sticky note, its edges curling upward, as if shy about being read.
Her handwriting hit him harder than the hangover ever could.
Messy. Slanted. Familiar.
“Some people have to work on Fridays, unlike others who drink themselves into stupidity and sleep half the day.
Try not to burn the hotel down.
I have my final evaluation today.
- Ri.”
Kabir’s shoulders sagged as relief and guilt collided inside him.
She hadn’t left.
She had gone forward.
And he had almost made her carry him instead of the other way around.
She had one of the most important days of her life ahead of her. A day she had worked years for. And last night, instead of being her strength, he had been another weight she quietly absorbed.
His hands shook as he poured coffee into the mug. The warmth seeped into his palms, and the familiarity of it hurt. Riya was always warm with him. Even when she was angry. Even when she was unsure. Even when she didn’t say what she was feeling out loud.
“Riya…” His voice cracked, the name catching painfully in his throat.
“You love in ways I don’t even deserve.”
He pressed the note to his chest, as if it could steady the storm tightening around his ribs.
And then, uninvited, the memories crept back in sharper edges.
Not the bar.
Not the drinking.
But his own actions.
Unfiltered.
Unprotected.
Kabir froze.
His breath stalled halfway in.
He walked back drunk, something she disliked.
Had he let any words slip out, heavy and raw, without his permission?
And worse.
Had she heard him?
If she had, then she knew. She knew the truth he never allowed himself to acknowledge in daylight. The fear he buried under jokes and courage and reckless bravery.
The fear that one day, she would outgrow him.
That her world would expand, and his place in it would shrink until there was no space left at all.
That she would choose a life where he didn’t belong, and walk away the way people always had before he learned how to stop hoping.
Shame wrapped around his chest, tight and unyielding.
Miles away, Riya sat in the backseat of a cab, Mumbai streaking past in restless blurs of colour and sound. Horns blared. People rushed. Life moved forward, indifferent to the quiet storm unravelling inside her.
Her notebook lay untouched in her bag.
Her notes unread.
Her hands twisted together in her lap, fingers worrying at each other as if trying to hold something in place.
All she could hear was his voice from the night before.
Not loud.
Not confident.
Barely there.
“Riya… don’t leave me…Please!”
The memory lodged itself in her chest and refused to move.
Kabir.
The man who had stepped into gunfire without blinking.
Who laughed at danger as if it were a bad joke.
Who treated fear like a language he never needed to learn.
Last night, that man had unravelled.
Not because of bullets.
Not because of death.
But because of her.
He hadn’t been fearless.
He hadn’t been untouchable.
He had been afraid.
Afraid of losing her.
And the truth struck her with a quiet, merciless clarity.
She had always believed his love was immovable.
A constant.
Bright, consuming, unquestioning.
No matter how ugly things got, no matter how tangled their lives became, she had never doubted that he couldn’t imagine a world where she didn’t exist.
But last night showed her something else.
He didn’t believe the same about her.
Somewhere along the way, he had begun to believe that she could leave.
That realization hurt more than she had prepared for.
Because the reason was painfully simple.
It was her.
Not because she didn’t love him.
But because of how she loved.
The risks she took without warning him.
The choices she made in the name of ambition, believing she could carry the consequences alone.
The secrets she kept because she thought protecting him meant shielding him from her decisions.
The cases, she walked into headfirst.
The lines she crossed, convinced that the end justified the damage in between.
She had told herself it was strength.
That independence meant not leaning too hard on anyone.
That love should never slow you down.
But somewhere in that pursuit, she had stopped letting him in.
Her silences had grown longer.
Her explanations shorter.
Her heart guarded behind competence and control.
And Kabir, who loved loudly, fiercely, without restraint, had begun to feel like he was standing outside her life, knocking softly on a door that didn’t always open.
She had never meant to make him feel uncertain.
Never meant to make him feel replaceable.
Never meant to make him feel unsafe in her love.
But intent didn’t undo impact.
Her breath shook as the cab slowed at a red light.
His love was fire.
It announced itself.
Claimed space.
Burned away doubt simply by existing.
Hers was quieter. A careful presence. One that arrived gently, hoping devotion could be understood without being spoken too loudly.
She had always thought that kind of love was beautiful.
Now it terrified her.
Because quiet could look like distance.
And distance could look like preparation to leave.
For the first time since they had chosen each other, she wondered if they were standing at the edge of something neither of them knew how to navigate.
This wasn’t an external enemy.
This wasn’t a mission or a threat or a problem to solve.
This was them.
Her ambitions.
Her choices.
Her belief that she could outrun consequences without it costing the man who loved her most.
Her eyes burned as she stared at her hands, suddenly unsure of the life they were building.
Outside, the city rushed forward, indifferent and loud.
Inside, her heart faltered.
Was she loving him enough?
Or had she been loving him conveniently?
Would she ever learn how to love him in a way that felt safe to him?
Or would her dreams one day become the wound that finally convinced him she was already halfway gone?
She leaned her forehead against the cool glass, breath fogging the window.
“Kabir,” she whispered into the chaos of the city, her voice barely holding together.
“It’s you. It has always been you. It will always be you.”
But certainty, once cracked, didn’t heal easily.
And the doubt planted last night sat heavy in her chest.
Small.
Quiet.
Dangerous.
Kabir sat on their bed, guilt winding slowly around his spine, trying to remember what he had confessed and what he might have broken.
Riya stared out of the cab window, eyes damp, heart unsteady, wondering if loving softly, loving ambitiously, loving this way had been her greatest mistake.
Both moving towards the same day.
Neither knowing that today would test their love more brutally than any evaluation ever could.
--
Rathore sat behind his desk, blinds half-drawn, morning light slicing the room into narrow gold bands. The file in front of him lay open, pages neatly aligned, corners sharp.
Riya Mukherjee.
Theoretical Evaluation.
He read slowly, deliberately. Not as a commanding officer, but as a man who knew patterns. The question paper attached at the end made his jaw tighten.
Arjun Rawte’s handwriting.
Clean. Angular. Unforgiving.
The questions weren’t difficult. They were merciless. Psychological stress mapping. Rapid moral dilemmas. Tactical decisions layered with ethical traps. Not designed to assess skill. Designed to corner.
Rathore leaned back, exhaling through his nose. “This isn’t an evaluation,” he said calmly. “This is a filtration chamber. Execution on paper!”
Across from him, Arjun sat with one ankle resting on his knee, posture loose, eyes distant. He looked unbothered. Too unbothered.
“It’s comprehensive,” Arjun replied flatly.
Rathore tapped the file. “It’s predatory.”
A pause.
Then, deliberately casual, “You planning to test her competence…or break her spirit?”
Arjun’s jaw flexed once. Barely visible.
“She applied for ETF,” he said. “This is ETF.”
Rathore studied him for a long moment. Years of friendship sharpened his gaze. “Not the first time you made a final evaluation paper. You don’t write papers like this for recruits you’re indifferent to.”
Silence stretched.
Then Arjun spoke, almost absentmindedly, the words slipping out before he could stop them.
“She’s good.”
The room stilled.
Rathore’s brows lifted. Just a fraction. That single sentence carried weight Arjun didn’t seem to realize.
But Rathore caught him, Arjun caught it, too. Caught himself.
He moved instantly.
Leaning forward, he grabbed the file, flipped it shut, and shoved it back across the desk. His voice hardened, sharpened into something defensive.
“She’s good on paper,” he corrected sharply. “Fancy Foreign Degrees. Certifications. Fancy assessments and internships. All these guarantees intellect, sure. She belongs behind a desk, Rathore. Analysis. Consultation. That’s her ceiling.”
Rathore didn’t look away. “And the field?”
Arjun scoffed. “The field eats people like her alive.”
“That’s not what you said two seconds ago.”
Arjun’s eyes flashed. “Don’t twist my words.”
Rathore stood slowly, palms pressing against the desk. “I’m not twisting anything. I’m listening. And what I hear is inconsistency.”
Arjun rose too, shoulders stiffening. “What you hear is reality. She’s reckless. Overconfident. Emotionally driven. She walks into danger assuming the world will bend for her ideals.”
Rathore’s voice cooled. “You mean the way she handled Nikhil? And Lala? Not once but twice!”
The name landed heavy.
Arjun’s nostrils flared. “She made unilateral calls. Took risks without backup. Recorded evidence instead of prioritizing extraction.”
“And survived,” Rathore countered.
“By luck,” Arjun snapped. “By sheer, blind luck. Nikhil had his hands on her like she was disposable. And Pathan Lala” His voice dipped, darkened. “He didn’t see her. He saw merchandise.”
Rathore’s gaze sharpened. “And whose decision was it to send her undercover with minimal field exposure?”
Arjun’s jaw clenched.
“You did,” Rathore continued quietly. “You put her there. And now you’re punishing her for surviving it.”
“That’s not…”
“You wanted her to fail,” Rathore cut in, voice low but lethal. “Because failure would validate you.”
The accusation hung between them.
Arjun laughed. Short. Harsh. “And didn’t it? She walked outshaken. Injured. Exposed. Proving exactly what I said from day one.”
Rathore stepped closer. “She walked out alive. With intel. With composure. With restraint.”
“She walked out traumatized.”
“So did you, your first year,” Rathore said softly. “Difference is, no one tried to bury you for it.”
Something flickered in Arjun’s eyes. Gone just as quickly.
“She doesn’t belong out there,” Arjun said, colder now. Controlled. “And I’ll prove it. Give me her practical module.”
Rathore searched his face. Not the anger. Not the arrogance.
The fear underneath.
Fear masked as certainty.
“Absolutely Not! You’re not trying to test her,” Rathore said quietly. “You’re trying to convince yourself.”
Arjun stiffened.
“This isn’t about competence anymore,” Rathore continued. “This is personal.”
For a fraction of a second, Arjun faltered.
It was subtle. A tightening around the eyes. A breath held too long.
Enough.
His walls slammed back into place.
He straightened, expression turning sharp, familiar, impenetrable. “You’re reading too much into it.”
Rathore nodded slowly. “Of course, I am.”
Arjun turned for the door.
“One more thing,” Rathore said, not raising his voice. “The harder you push her, the clearer it becomes. You can hide behind anger all you want. But you’re not fooling me.”
Arjun’s hand paused on the handle.
Rathore added, quieter now, “And the more I ask, the less you’ll ever admit it. I know you too well for that.”
Arjun didn’t turn around.
“I’ll have her module, this way or that,” he said flatly. “I’ll prove it! I stand by my judgment.”
He walked out.
The door shut with finality.
Rathore remained still, chest rising slowly as the truth settled heavy in his gut.
Arjun Rawte wasn’t fighting Riya Mukherjee.
He was retreating from her.
And Rathore knew better than to chase a man who had chosen to cocoon himself in anger. Because Arjun would rather burn the world than admit what had begun to matter to him.
Too much.
Too soon.
Too dangerously.
--
Riya arrived at the office ten minutes early.
The building felt different today. Not hostile. Not welcoming. Just… watchful. As if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Rathore was already waiting.
“Alright, Riya. Listen carefully,” he said, voice clipped, professional to the point of austerity. Too precise. Too controlled.
She straightened instinctively.
“This is your final theoretical evaluation. Three hours. No devices. No breaks.” He slid the sealed question paper across the desk without ceremony. “Each question is scenario-based. Tactical precision. Psychological depth. Operational ethics.”
She nodded. Calm. Or something close enough to pass.
“You will leave the answer sheet here, sealed. Your responses will be assessed individually.”
A pause.
Rathore held her gaze for half a second longer than necessary. There was something unsettled beneath his authority today, something carefully locked away. She didn’t know what it was, only that it made her spine tighten.
“Good,” he said finally.
He moved towards the window and pulled the curtains shut, sealing the room in a cocoon of muted light.
“So you’re not distracted,” he added, without elaboration.
The door closed behind him with a soft, decisive click.
Silence settled.
Not the peaceful kind. The kind that presses against your ears.
Riya closed her eyes and Kabir’s smile flashed in front of her.
She let her lips move too. No matter what, he was always her strength.
Riya exhaled slowly and opened her eyes and the paper.
Her heart skipped.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
Arjun Rawte.
Clean. Angular. Every letter carved with intention. No wasted strokes. No mercy.
This wasn’t an evaluation.
This was a battlefield laid out in ink.
--
Q1.At 02:15 hrs, you receive information about a bomb threat at a crowded venue. No details, no credibility, no second call. You are the junior-most officer at the scene.
How do you gain control without authority? Justify every step.
Riya’s lips curved, not in amusement, but recognition.
Powerless? Let’s see what you do now.
She rolled her shoulders once, steadied her breath, and began to write.
Authority is not rank. It is clarity.
As her pen moved, her pulse slowed. The room faded. This was familiar territory. Pressure. Expectation. Fire.
Arjun always pushed her towards it.
Not to burn her.
To see if she would run.
She didn’t.
--
Next door, Rathore didn’t return to his desk.
He walked past it.
Straight down the corridor.
The meeting room door was already closed.
Inside, the Commissioner of Police sat at the head of the table, expression unreadable. Arjun leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, face carved into stone. Shree sat rigid, jaw tight. Chotu fidgeted, hands clasped together too tightly.
Rathore entered without announcement.
The door shut.
No voices carried out.
--
Back in the quiet room, Riya turned the page.
Q5. Your cover is blown during an infiltration. The suspect demeans you publicly to assert dominance. Backup is five minutes away.
List three strategies you would NOT choose, and explain why.
Her pen hovered.
Juhu.
Nikhil’s fingers digging into her waist. The music pounding. The laughter. Her own shame when she thought they had abandoned her.
Her throat tightened.
This wasn’t just a question.
This was him asking: did the fall teach you anything?
She wrote anyway.
Humiliation is a weapon. Survival is strategy.
Her hand stopped trembling halfway through the answer.
--
Somewhere else in the city, Kabir sat alone.
The day stretched endlessly in front of him. No calls. No messages. No missions.
He replayed fragments of the previous night like a wound he refused to examine too closely. Her voice. Her silence this morning. The note she had left.
He wanted to call her.
He didn’t.
He didn’t trust himself not to say the wrong thing again.
So, he waited.
--
Q9. You are assigned to a senior officer who distrusts you due toyour background.
A high-stakes operation requires you to rely solely on his commands.
How do you ensure personal emotion does not compromise mission efficiency?
Riya’s breath slowed.
This wasn’t subtle.
She pressed the pen harder than necessary.
Emotion must be acknowledged, not denied.
Her chest ached.
Sometimes the only way to earn trust is to keep showing up even when someone keeps pushing you away.
--
In the meeting room, the Commissioner leaned back in his chair.
A file lay open on the table.
Riya Mukherjee.
Complaint.
No raised voices. No drama.
Just decisions being weighed. Careers being balanced. Consequences sitting quietly in the air.
--
Q13. You have intel that a civilian walked into a high-risk zone during an operation out of their own emotional impulse.
Do you prioritize rescuing them or securing the original target? Explain the ethical hierarchy.
Her breath snagged.
This was no longer theoretical.
This was him asking: do you understand what you did?
She wrote carefully.
A team does not leave.
Her handwriting was steadier now than it had been all morning.
--
Time moved strangely.
The clock ticked too loudly.
Then, not at all.
--
Q20. An internal breach is discovered. Evidence suggests someone who once protected you may be involved.
Outline how you balance gratitude with justice.
Shambhu.
Trust misused. Protection turned poison.
She didn’t hesitate.
Gratitude belongs to the past. Responsibility belongs to the present.
--
At the end, one final line waited for her.
BONUS – One sentence only:
Define strength.
Riya paused.
Just for a moment.
Then she smiled faintly.
She wrote:
Strength is choosing to stand again, even when the world saw you fall.
She placed the pen down gently.
Outside that closed room, lives were being decided. Lines were being redrawn. Futures quietly tilted on their axis, as the Commissioner of Mumbai police was interrogating the men of ETF one by one.
Inside, she sat alone with her answers, unaware of the storm gathering just beyond the curtains.
Kabir waited somewhere in the city.
Arjun stood somewhere behind his walls.
And none of them knew yet how this day would change everything.
--
Riya capped her pen slowly.
For a second, she just sat there, staring at the last line she had written, as if the ink might still rearrange itself into something else. Something safer. Something less… exposed.
Then she gathered the papers neatly, aligned the edges the way Rathore liked, and placed them exactly where he had instructed.
Done.
There was no relief.
No rush of triumph or dread.
Only a strange, hollow quiet.
She stepped out of the room and gently pulled the door shut behind her.
The corridor stretched ahead, fluorescent lights humming softly. She should have been replaying answers in her head. Second-guessing logic. Wondering if she’d read too much into the questions or not enough.
Instead, her thoughts had already slipped elsewhere.
Kabir.
His voice from last night.
The weight of his fear.
The way it had settled into her chest and refused to leave.
What happens now? she wondered.
After today. When she walks back in their room. When they finally face each other. After everything we’re both pretending isn’t breaking.
Her feet carried her forward on autopilot, turning instinctively towards Rathore’s cabin. Muscle memory. Finish test. Report completion.
She barely noticed herself slowing outside the door.
“Riya.”
The voice came from behind her.
She turned, startled.
Shree stood a few feet away, expression unreadable, professionalism worn a little too carefully today.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Come with me,” he said. Not unkindly. Not gently either. “Sir’s waiting downstairs.”
Downstairs?
Her brows knit. “I was just going to tell Rathore sir I’m done.”
Shree hesitated, just long enough for her to notice. “He knows.”
Something tightened in her stomach.
“Is… something wrong?” she asked quietly.
“No,” Shree replied too quickly. Then corrected himself. “Just come.”
Curiosity edged into unease as she followed him towards the stairs. Each step down felt heavier than the last, the air changing subtly, thickening with something she couldn’t name.
They reached the corridor outside the meeting room.
Rathore sat on one of the benches, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped together. His face was stern, drawn inward, eyes fixed on a point on the floor.
Beside him, Chotu sat stiffly, unusually silent, his leg bouncing despite himself.
Riya slowed.
“Sir?” she began.
Rathore looked up then, eyes sharp, searching her face as if seeing her properly for the first time that day.
Before he could respond, the meeting room door opened.
Arjun Rawte stepped out.
He was wearing confidence like armour.
Relaxed shoulders. Easy stride. That familiar half-smirk playing on his lips, sharp and knowing, as if the world had just confirmed something he already believed.
Victory.
Riya’s gaze lifted to him without permission.
For a split second, something flickered across Arjun’s face.
The smirk faltered.
She looked exhausted.
Dark circles smudged beneath her eyes. Her hair pulled back a little too tightly, as if sleep had been an afterthought. There was a quiet sadness about her that hadn’t been there before. A heaviness she wasn’t trying very hard to hide.
Something in Arjun’s chest lurched.
Then the walls slammed back up.
His expression hardened, indifference sliding neatly into place as if it had never cracked at all. He looked away first, jaw tightening, smirk returning sharper than before.
An unfamiliar voice drifted out from inside the room.
“Riya Mukherjee.”
Her name sounded different in that voice. Formal. Weighty.
Riya’s pulse quickened.
Rathore stood and gestured towards the door. “Go.”
She searched his face, confusion blooming. “Sir, what…”
“Go,” he repeated, softer now, but firm.
She nodded, swallowing, and stepped forward.
As she passed Arjun, she felt his presence like heat against her skin. He didn’t look at her again, but his posture had shifted. Straighter. Alert. Like a man bracing for impact, he refused to acknowledge.
Rathore watched him closely.
Too closely.
There was something off.
Arjun’s confidence was excessive. Almost performative. Like a man who knew the outcome and was daring the world to challenge it.
And that unsettled Rathore far more than anger ever had.
Riya reached the door.
Just before she went in, she glanced back once more.
Rathore’s eyes met hers. Something unspoken passed between them. Warning. Reassurance. Regret.
The door closed behind her.
Outside, the corridor fell into tense silence.
Arjun exhaled slowly, jaw clenched, victory still etched into his stance.
Rathore sat back down heavily, a sinking feeling settling into his gut.
Whatever had just been decided in that room was no longer theory.
It was consequence.
And none of them were ready for what would come next.
--
Riya walked out of the Commissioner’s cabin on unsteady legs.
The door shut behind her with a soft finality that felt far too loud in her chest. The corridor outside was quieter now, emptied of movement, stripped down to echoes and waiting.
“Rathore.”
The Commissioner’s voice carried through the door, measured, unmistakable.
Rathore rose from the bench immediately. As he passed Riya, his hand hovered for a second, as if he wanted to say something, anything. Instead, he only gave her a look. Firm. Reassuring. Apologetic in ways words could never manage.
Then he went in.
The door closed again.
Riya exhaled, slow and shaky, and lowered herself onto the bench where Rathore sat.
Only then did she realize who was sitting beside her.
Arjun Rawte.
Close enough that she could feel the heat of him. Close enough that the silence between them felt intentional, carved, deliberate.
Neither spoke.
The corridor seemed to shrink around them, walls pressing inward, the air thick with things unsaid.
Riya folded her hands in her lap. Her fingers trembled despite her effort to still them. The questions. The answers. The Commissioner’s unreadable face. Everything blurred together, but one thought stayed sharp, relentless.
Kabir.
What would she tell him when she saw him next?
What would she tell herself if this went wrong?
Beside her, Arjun sat rigid, elbows resting on his thighs, fingers interlaced so tightly his knuckles had gone pale. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, jaw clenched, the familiar mask of indifference pulled on with practiced ease.
But inside, something was cracking.
He could sense her.
Not just her presence. Her exhaustion. The quiet sadness clinging to her like a second skin. The way she sat so still, as if afraid that any movement might unravel her.
And it did something to him.
Something deeply unwelcome.
He wanted to turn.
Wanted to look at her properly.
Wanted to ask if she had slept at all. If she was holding up. If anyone was holding her together right now.
He didn’t.
He never would.
Because wanting was dangerous.
And yet, sitting this close to her, feeling the weight of the moment, he felt it anyway. A pull. A craving for something he refused to name. Not attraction. Not concern. Something deeper. Quieter. Something that feltlike responsibility twisted into need.
Riya shifted slightly, crossing her ankles. The small movement brushed her arm against his.
Just barely.
The contact was accidental.
The effect was not.
Arjun’s breath hitched before he could stop it. He adjusted instantly, leaning back, widening the space between them by a fraction. His expression didn’t change, but his pulse did.
Riya noticed.
She didn’t look at him. But she felt it. The tension. The way the air seemed charged, alive with restraint.
She wondered, distantly, if he always carried this much anger inside him. Or if today was different.
Because today, she felt fragile.
And somehow, that made his silence heavier.
Minutes passed.
The clock on the wall ticked too loudly.
Every sound from inside the cabin felt amplified. A muffled voice. A chair scraping. Paper being moved.
Their futures were being decided a few feet away.
Riya stared at the floor, grounding herself. Whatever happens, she told herself, I stood my ground. I didn’t run.
Arjun stared at the opposite wall, jaw locked.
Whatever happens, he thought, it ends here.
But the lie tasted bitter.
He felt her too sharply to believe it.
She was not crying.
Not breaking.
Just… quietly enduring.
And something about that undid him more than tears ever could.
For a fleeting, dangerous second, he imagined what it would be like to lean over and say her name. Not sharply. Not dismissively.
Just once.
The thought terrified him.
So, he buried it the only way he knew how.
Deeper.
The door inside remained closed.
Rathore was still in there.
And outside, two people sat side by side in absolute silence, bound together by a moment neither of them had asked for, both pretending that the stillness meant nothing at all.
It meant everything.
And neither of them was ready to face what would happen when that door finally opened.
--
By afternoon, Kabir had reorganized the room twice.
Shoes aligned.
Books stacked.
Laundry folded and unfolded for no reason at all.
He tried reading. Couldn’t get past the same paragraph.
Tried watching the news. Turned it off when the anchor’s voice started sounding like static.
So, he sat on the floor, back against the couch, phone lying screen-up beside him like a promise that hadn’t been kept yet.
He didn’t text her.
He refused to.
Because she deserved space. Because today mattered. Because loving her meant not intruding when she was trying to stand on her own.
But God, it was hard.
He rolled the pendant between his fingers unconsciously, the tiny RK catching light every time he moved.
“Stupid exam,” he murmured. “As if you need someone else to tell you how good you are.”
His phone buzzed once.
Spam.
He laughed under his breath, sharp and humourless.
“Idiots.”
Kabir lay back, staring at the ceiling, arms folded behind his head. He thought of her walking into ETF that morning, shoulders squared, chin lifted, bravery stitched into every step.
And then, unbidden, the memory of his own drunken-stunt last night crept back.
He closed his eyes tightly.
“I’m an IDIOT!”
That wasn’t weakness, he told himself.
That was honesty.
And honesty was terrifying.
--
The door finally opened.
The sound cut through the corridor like a blade.
Riya looked up instinctively, her spine straightening, breath catching mid-inhale.
Rathore stepped out.
His face was carefully neutral, but his eyes were not. They were dark. Stormed over. Carrying the weight of decisions that could not be undone once spoken aloud.
“Riya,” he said, voice controlled, clipped. “Call Shree and Chotu. I want everyone here.”
Her heart thudded.
“Yes, sir,” she replied immediately, pushing herself up from the bench.
As she turned, something sharp happened behind her.
A sudden movement. A scrape of shoes against the floor.
Before she could fully process it, Rathore had closed the distance between himself and Arjun.
His hand shot out, gripping Arjun by the shoulders, fingers digging in hard enough to wrinkle fabric and bone alike.
Riya froze mid-step.
Rathore leaned in, his voice low, vibrating with restrained fury and something far more dangerous beneath it.
“Very well played, Raute.”
The words were not loud.
They didn’t need to be.
They landed like a verdict.
Arjun didn’t flinch.
Didn’t pull away.
Slowly, deliberately, a smirk curved his lips. Not wide. Not arrogant.
Certain.
The kind of expression worn by a man who knew the board had tilted exactly the way he intended.
Riya’s breath slipped out of her lungs.
Won?
The word rang painfully in her head.
Won what?
Her fingers curled into fists at her sides. Questions surged, sharp and panicked. Had she failed? Had something in her answers crossed a line? Had this been decided long before she ever picked up the pen? Had the Commissioner decided against her?
She wanted to turn back.
Wanted to ask Rathore what had happened inside.
Wanted to demand what Arjun had done.
But she didn’t.
Because this was not her authority.
Because whatever game had been played, it had been played above her rank, beyond her reach.
And because the look in Rathore’s eyes told her that the truth would hurt.
So, she did the only thing she was trained to do.
She obeyed.
Riya turned away, her steps steady despite the turmoil ripping through her chest. She walked down the corridor, every footstep echoing too loudly, her mind racing ahead of her body.
Behind her, Rathore released Arjun roughly.
“This isn’t over,” Rathore said under his breath.
Arjun straightened his jacket, unfazed, the smirk never quite leaving his face.
“Nothing ever is,” he replied calmly.
Riya didn’t hear that.
She didn’t see the tension vibrating between the two men, the way Rathore’s disappointment cut deeper than anger ever could.
All she felt was the tightening knot in her stomach as she reached for her phone.
Something irreversible had shifted.
And whatever had been decided inside that room had just tightened its grip on all of them.
The corridor remained heavy with silence.
Waiting.
Like the calm before a reckoning no one was ready for.
--
The Commissioner did not raise his voice.
He didn’t need to.
The meeting room was silent in the way only disciplined men understand silence. Chairs aligned. Files closed. Every officer present sat straight, shoulders squared, eyes forward. No one shifted. No one breathed too loudly.
Disappointment, when delivered quietly, carried more weight than rage ever could.
The Commissioner stood at the head of the table, hands resting flat on the polished surface. He did not look at his notes. He did not need them.
He looked at them one by one.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
“I have read the complaint and the report!” he said at last. His voice was calm, precise. Almost gentle. “Twice.”
He paused, fingers resting lightly on the file.
“And I am disappointed.”
That single word landed heavier than any shout could have.
“I am disappointed,” he said again, calmly. “Not as a bureaucrat. Not as an officer bound by protocol.” His gaze lifted, slow and deliberate, sweeping across the room. “But as someone who has stood between this unit and the system more times than I can count. As someone, who has defended this team in rooms you weren’t invited to.”
No one spoke.
“I have treated ETF as my responsibility,” he continued. “I have defended its autonomy. I have absorbed criticism meant for you. I have trusted you to operate where others cannot.”
“And you have repaid that trust with arrogance, negligence, and a complete failure of leadership.”
His eyes moved first to Shree.
“Shreekant Sen.”
Shree stood up and stiffened.
“You used a bugged data-sorting script to deliberately overwhelm and disorient a junior officer under the guise of ‘helping' ,” the Commissioner said coolly. “That is not helping. That is bullying”
Shree swallowed, head down.
“You then participated in sending the same officer into an undercover operation at Juhu,” the Commissioner continued, unmoved, “knowing fully well she lacked adequate field conditioning. You monitored the situation, even gave her quick training for things that generally require months. You saw it happen. And you chose to be a part of it.”
“For this, you will face a three-month salary deduction, removal from operational scripting duties, and mandatory ethics retraining.”
Shree nodded once, jaw tight. “Yes, sir.”
He turned next.
“Chandrakant Patil.”
Chotu’s shoulders were tensed when he stood up.
“You mirrored the same behaviour,” the Commissioner said. “Mockery disguised as camaraderie. Silence disguised as obedience. In Juhu, you followed protocol mechanically without questioning whether the protocol itself had failed the officer it was meant to protect.”
His voice sharpened.
“Rules are not a shield against responsibility.”
Chotu’s eyes dropped.
“Three-month salary deduction. Temporary reassignment to desk duty. And you will assist in preparing revised onboarding procedures for new recruits,” the Commissioner said. “You will learn what inclusion actually looks like.”
The words landed with clinical precision.
Then the Commissioner looked at Arjun.
The air shifted.
“ACP Arjun Suryakant Raute.”
Arjun met his gaze without flinching.
Arjun did not move.
“You repeatedly insulted a subordinate’s competence, background, and presence within this unit. Her right to be here. You undermined her authority in front of peers. You weaponized sarcasm. You mistook intimidation for leadership.” The Commissioner’s gaze was unflinching. “Not once. Not impulsively. Systematically.”
Arjun’s jaw tightened.
“You questioned her merit in public spaces. You undermined herauthority before criminals and colleagues alike. You framed hostility as‘hardening’ and cruelty as ‘standards.’” A beat. “That is not discipline. Thatis abuse of command.”
The room felt smaller.
“And then,” the Commissioner continued, “you led a mission where anew recruit was placed in a high-risk undercover situation without adequate preparation, support, or extraction clarity.”
Arjun’s eyes darkened, but he remained silent.
“Whatever the operational outcome,” the Commissioner said coldly, “the ethical failure remains yours.”
He turned sharply.
“Collectively.”
The word cut through the room.
“You abandoned her.”
No names now. No ranks.
“You isolated her. You allowed her to believe she was incompetent, expendable, and alone.” His voice lowered, dangerous now. “You were not a unit. You were spectators.”
He let that sink in.
“ETF prides itself on loyalty. What you displayed was convenience.”
Arjun’s jaw flexed.
Silence pressed in hard.
“For this,” the Commissioner said, “you will face a six-month salary deduction, suspension from independent operational command, and your decisions will be subject to direct oversight. Also, you lose three merit points, which would reflect in your APAR, and will affect your promotions!”
Then his gaze moved to Rathore.
“ACP Sameer Rathore, the Chief.”
Rathore stood instinctively, then stopped when the Commissioner lifted a hand.
“You failed as a leader,” the Commissioner said bluntly.
The words were heavy, but not unkind.
“You saw fractures forming. You saw resentment, unresolved trauma, unhealthy projection.” His voice sharpened. “And instead of addressing it head-on, you attempted to contextualize it.”
“‘Haunting past,’” the Commissioner repeated quietly. “As you mentioned in your report, ‘the baggage of the past’, is not an excuse for present misconduct.”
Rathore’s expression tightened.
“You tried to contain the situation instead of correcting it. You protected your men instead of correcting their behaviour.” His gaze hardened. “Leadership is not shielding your team from consequence. It is preparing them to survive it.”
Rathore nodded once, accepting the blow.
“You will submit a formal explanation to me, without the use of words like ‘past trauma’ in it. Your command privileges remain intact, but any further lapse will not be met with leniency.”
Then the Commissioner turned to Riya.
The shift was palpable.
“Riya Mukherjee.”
She straightened immediately.
“You are not being punished for what was done to you,” he began, voice calm, measured. “You are being held accountable for what you chose not to do.”
She swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“You were subjected to a hostile work environment,” he continued. “You were undermined, isolated, and placed at operational risk. That is not in question. What is in question is your response.”
He leaned forward slightly, hands folded.
“You did not escalate. You did not report. You did not seek institutional intervention when protocol required it.”
Riya nodded once. Slowly.
“That,” the Commissioner interrupted, not unkindly but firmly, “is not strength.”
The word landed cleanly.
“In uniformed service,” he went on, “endurance without communication is not courage. It is a liability. To yourself. And to the unit responsible for bringing you home alive.”
He picked up a pen, made a brief notation.
“You will receive a formal written warning for procedural non-reporting,” he said. “It will be placed on record. Not as a mark of failure, but as a corrective measure.”
Riya’s fingers curled together in her lap.
“For the next assessment cycle,” the Commissioner continued, “you will be restricted from solo field and undercover operations. You may participate only under direct supervision.”
“Understood?”
“This is not a demotion,” he clarified. “It is a safety directive. You demonstrated competence. You also demonstrated a tendency to absorb risk silently. That will not continue.”
He paused, studying her face.
Riya’s breath tightened.
“Yes, sir.”
The Commissioner’s tone softened then. Just a fraction.
“You are intelligent. Capable. And resilient,” he said. “But resilience is not martyrdom, Mukherjee. This organization does not reward suffering in silence.”
She nodded, eyes steady.
“If this happens again,” he added, voice firm once more, “and you choose not to speak up, I will treat it as misconduct.”
“Not because you deserve blame,” he finished. “But because no officer gets to decide alone how much risk is acceptable for their life.”
Riya held his gaze.
He inclined his head once, as she nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Learn this now. It will save you years later.”
The room fell quiet.
The punishment had been delivered.
And somehow, without raising his voice, the Commissioner had made one thing painfully clear.
Silence was no longer an option.
Then his tone sharpened once more, reclaiming command.
“And now,” he said, stepping back from the table, “we come to the part you have all been avoiding.”
Silence thickened.
“This unit does not have a competence problem,” the Commissioner said.
No one moved.
“It has a psychological one.”
The words settled heavily, precise and unyielding.
“Unprocessed trauma. Unchecked ego. Projection disguised as toughness.” His gaze swept across them, one face at a time. “These are not quirks. These are liabilities.”
He paused, letting the silence do its work.
“And I am not the only one making this observation,” he added coolly. “Your Chief, too, has.”
A file was lifted from the table, its weight symbolic more than physical.
“Effective immediately,” he said, “I will be implementing a corrective measure for this unit.”
No details.
No explanation.
Just that.
A ripple of unease moved through the room.
“This is not optional. And it will not be comfortable.” His voice sharpened, steel wrapped in control. “But it will be decisive.”
He closed the file.
“You will not weaponize your trauma. You will not excuse misconduct with your past. And you will not break those placed under your command and call it training.”
His eyes found each of them again, deliberate, piercing.
“You are elite officers,” he said quietly. “Start behaving like it.”
Silence followed.
Heavy. Expectant. Unsettled.
The verdict was complete.
And every person in that room understood one thing with chilling clarity:
Whatever was coming next was not punishment.
It was reckoning.
And this was only the beginning.
--
Kabir checked the clock again.
17:42.
He frowned, thumb hovering over the screen as if staring harder might change the numbers.
Three hours.
That’s what she had said. Three hours for the evaluation. Maybe four if there was a briefing, some paperwork, the usual ETF delays. He had told himself that much, repeated it like a mantra all afternoon.
But this was different.
This was late.
He leaned back on the couch, then immediately leaned forward again, unable to settle. The apartment felt too quiet, as if it were holding its breath with him. Even the fan hummed too loudly, the sound scraping against his nerves.
She should have been back by now.
Or at least called.
He checked his phone. No missed calls. No messages. The last text still sat there, unchanged, heavy with unsaid things.
I’ll call after the exam.
His jaw tightened.
He tried to reason with himself. ETF was not a college campus. Things ran late. Decisions took time. People in power loved to make others wait.
But his chest didn’t listen to logic.
His mind betrayed him instead, slipping into darker corridors.
What if something went wrong?
What if the complaint backfired?
What if they punished her instead of listening?
He stood up abruptly and walked to the window, peering down at the street as if she might appear out of thin air. Traffic crawled below, horns blaring, life moving on with cruel normalcy.
He raked a hand through his hair.
Calm down.
He’d told himself the same thing during missions, during nights when bullets flew and silence stretched too long over the radio. This was nothing like that, he insisted.
And yet.
There was a different kind of fear clawing at him now. One he couldn’t shoot his way out of. One that whispered instead of screamed.
What if she’s angry?
The thought lodged itself deep.
What if last night mattered more than he realized?
Fragments of it replayed, uninvited. Her eyes in the dim light. The way she had held him.
His chest tightened.
What if she had decided she couldn’t carry that kind of responsibility?
What if she chose herself over him, and didn’t come back?
He picked up his phone again, thumb hovering over her name.
No.
He didn’t want to sound desperate. Didn’t want to interrupt something important. Didn’t want to be another weight on her already heavy day.
He set the phone down, only to pick it up again seconds later.
This time, he unlocked it.
Still nothing.
The room seemed to shrink, walls inching closer with every passing minute. He sat back down, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together so tightly his fingers hurt.
He tried to imagine her writing the exam. Focused. Determined. That familiar crease between her brows when she concentrated. The image steadied him for half a second.
Then doubt slipped back in.
What if she’s already decided?
What if she walked out of ETF and didn’t know how to tell him?
What if she walked out of him?
The fear wasn’t loud. It was worse than that.
It was quiet. Persistent. Convincing.
--
The ETF office had emptied out slowly, reluctantly, as if the walls themselves were unwilling to let the day end.
By the time Rathore and Arjun returned to Rathore’s cabin, the sun had slipped low, staining the glass partitions in tired shades of amber and rust. Desk lamps glowed faintly in pockets, but most lights were off. Files lay undisturbed. Chairs stood pushed in.
The building felt hollowed out.
On the conference table between them lay a single envelope.
Riya Mukherjee - Final Evaluation.
Paper. Ink. Staples.
And yet both men knew better.
What sat there was not an exam.
It was confession.
Endurance.
A quiet, dangerous honesty neither of them had been prepared for.
Rathore took his seat at the head of the table, rolling up his sleeves with deliberate calm. He adjusted his spectacles, once, before reaching for the envelope. His fingers slid beneath the seal and tore it open with the same precision he brought to every decision he did not want emotion to touch.
Arjun dropped into the chair opposite him like a man pretending ease.
One leg stretched out. Arms folded. The posture of indifference perfected over years.
Only his hands betrayed him.
Fingers tapping the armrest.
Jaw locked too tight.
Breath measured too carefully.
“Arjun,” Rathore said quietly, not looking up. “Tumne paper set kiya tha. Do you want to evaluate her answer sheet yourself?”
A simple question.
A loaded one.
Arjun stilled.
For a second, it looked like he might reach for the file. As if some instinct deep in him wanted to keep it close, keep it unseen, keep it unjudged.
Then his hand twitched back.
“No,” he said.
Flat. Immediate. Too quick.
Rathore glanced up then, searching his face. He didn’t comment. Didn’t push. He simply nodded once and uncapped his pen.
“Fine,” he said evenly. “I’ll do it.”
He opened the first page.
Arjun didn’t mean to look.
Didn’t mean to lean forward.
Didn’t mean for his breath to change at the sight of her handwriting.
But it did.
Rathore read silently at first, eyes moving steadily across the page. His brows lifted almost imperceptibly. The structure. The clarity. The way she layered logic with empathy, caution with decisiveness.
This wasn’t survival writing.
This was command thinking.
Arjun felt it like a slow unravelling.
This wasn’t ink.
This was Riya.
Her fear threaded between sentences.
Her stubborn will screaming from the margins.
Her refusal to crumble quietly embedded in every justification.
He had written the questions to corner her. To expose cracks. To convince himself she didn’t belong.
Instead, she had answered him.
Honestly.
Bravely.
Without flinching.
Rathore paused briefly at one response, circling a line.
His mouth tightened.
He glanced sideways.
Arjun was no longer lounging. He was leaning forward now, elbows resting on his knees, eyes fixed on the page Rathore held. Unblinking. Stripped bare of the cold distance he wore so carefully outside.
Rathore continued.
When he reached the answer about public humiliation during infiltration, the room seemed to still.
Arjun inhaled sharply.
Rathore heard it.
He did not comment.
He turned the page.
The answer about betrayal and gratitude stopped his pen entirely.
Arjun’s jaw flexed hard enough to ache.
And then the final page.
One sentence.
Strength is choosing to stand again, even when the world saw you fall.
Rathore closed the file slowly.
The silence that followed was not peaceful. It was oppressive. Dense with things neither of them wanted to name.
“As per protocol,” Rathore said at last, voice controlled, “every high-stakes evaluation requires a second reviewer. Tumhe marks verify karne honge.”
He slid the file across the table.
The movement felt deliberate. Surgical.
Arjun’s head snapped up.
“Rules are rules,” Rathore spoke up even before Arjun could, calm but unyielding.
Arjun stared at the file like it was a live wire.
After a long, suffocating pause, he reached for the pen.
His fingers trembled.
Barely.
But Rathore saw it.
Arjun read properly now. Not skimming. Not searching for flaws.
Reading.
Every line cut into him differently. Her fear of abandonment. Her refusal to quit. Her insistence on showing up even when the ground kept giving way beneath her feet.
When he reached the question about Juhu, his hand stopped mid-mark.
Survival is strategy.
He pressed the pen down too hard, the ink biting through paper. Not correction. Distraction.
By the time he reached the final line, something dangerously close to grief flickered in his eyes.
He shut the file abruptly and shoved it back.
“Marks are accurate,” he said, voice hoarse.
Rathore met his gaze.
And for the first time in years, Arjun couldn’t hold eye contact.
Because Rathore had seen it.
Not in her answers.
In him.
The guilt.
The pull.
The thing he had tried to bury under venom and denial.
Rathore folded the file shut slowly.
“You were right! She is really good! Strong answers!” he murmured.
Arjun said nothing.
The truth lay between them, undeniable.
This wasn’t about an evaluation.
It was about a man watching the one person he’d tested the hardest, rise anyway.
And something in Rathore snapped. Something that he had tried to keep in check all day.
“Enough Raute! Enough!”
Arjun looked up. Not startled.
Alert.
As if he had been waiting for this moment and dreading it all the same.
“You think I don’t see it?” Rathore demanded, anger finally breaking through his restraint. “You think I don’t understand what game you’re playing?”
Arjun’s lips curved. That familiar, infuriating smile.
“You’ve got her practical module,” Rathore said, voice rising. “You convinced the Commissioner. You went out of your way. You fought for it. You got the mentorship.”
The smile deepened.
“So?” Arjun asked lightly. “That’s called leadership.”
Rathore surged to his feet. “Leadership doesn’t usually require this much effort to prove indifference. This was never about training!”
Arjun stood too, unhurried. “I’m giving her exactly what she asked for. Field exposure. Discipline. Reality. If she survives it, she belongs. If she doesn’t…”
“You’ll have your answer,” Rathore finished calmly.
Arjun’s eyes snapped up. “Careful.”
“I am,” Rathore said. “That’s the problem. You aren’t.”
Arjun stood abruptly, chair scraping the floor. “You don’t get to psychoanalyze me.”
“I’m not,” Rathore replied. “I’m observing patterns.”
Arjun laughed. Jagged. Defensive. “Of course you are. You always were good at finding meaning where none exists.”
Rathore didn’t rise to it. He leaned back slightly instead, folding his arms.
“You push her harder than necessary,” he said. “You frame it as discipline, but the intensity isn’t proportional. It’s personal.”
Arjun’s jaw clenched. “She’s reckless.”
“So are you!” Rathore countered quietly.
That landed.
Not loudly.
But deep.
Arjun’s voice sharpened. “She walked into danger because she misread silence. That’s not my fault.”
“No,” Rathore agreed. “But the way you respond to it is… telling.”
“Telling of what?” Arjun snapped. “That I refuse to coddle incompetence?”
“That you react,” Rathore said simply. “For the first time, not strategically. Emotionally.”
The word was a match.
Arjun surged forward a step, eyes blazing. “Don’t.”
“There it is,” Rathore said softly.
Arjun froze.
“What?” he demanded.
“That,” Rathore repeated. “That response. That instinct to shut this down before it even takes shape.”
Arjun shook his head sharply, as if physically rejecting the conversation. “Stop imagining things!”
“Am I?” Rathore asked. “Then why does her name keep surfacing in places it doesn’t belong?”
“It doesn’t,” Arjun snapped. “You’re forcing it there.”
“I haven’t said her name once,” Rathore replied evenly.
Silence.
Thick.
Charged.
Arjun’s breath hitched almost imperceptibly.
That was the moment Rathore understood.
Not because Arjun admitted anything.
Because he was fighting something that hadn’t been accused.
Rathore didn’t push further.
He didn’t name it.
He didn’t corner it.
Because he knew now.
Arjun Raute was not afraid of failing her.
He was afraid of not failing her.
Afraid of what her survival would mean.
“You’re angry,” Rathore said, softer now. “And you’re using that anger like armour. Because if you stop being angry, something else might surface.”
Arjun’s hands curled into fists. “Anger is honest.”
“No,” Rathore said quietly. “Anger is safe.”
The words settled between them.
For one unguarded heartbeat, Arjun looked like a man standing on the edge of a memory he refused to enter. His breath came uneven. His eyes darkened, glassy with something he would never name.
Then the walls slammed back into place.
Hard.
His expression turned cold. Controlled. Familiar.
“Stop trying to fix me, you are not my therapist!” he said. “You don’t get to decide what this is.”
Rathore studied him for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
A conscious choice.
A retreat.
“Fine,” he said. “I won’t.”
Arjun hesitated, thrown off by the lack of resistance.
Rathore stood then, slow and deliberate. “But understand this, Raute!”
Arjun looked back.
“If you have to work this hard to prove something doesn’t exist,” Rathore said evenly, “then it already does.”
Arjun’s face hardened.
“I won’t say it again,” Rathore replied.
That was all.
Arjun stared at him for a second longer, fury and denial colliding behind his eyes.
Then he turned and walked out, the door slamming shut behind him.
Rathore remained where he was, the echo lingering in the room.
He looked down at the file on the desk.
Riya Mukherjee.
A name that had slipped quietly into the fault lines of a man who swore nothing could ever live there again.
Rathore exhaled slowly.
This wasn’t about confronting him.
It was about letting him reach the edge himself.
And praying he didn’t take her down with him.
--
Kabir checked the clock again.
18:11.
A laugh escaped him, brittle and humourless.
“You’re overthinking,” he muttered to the empty room. “You always do.”
But the words rang hollow.
He stood and paced, then stopped abruptly, pressing his palms against the wall as if grounding himself physically might anchor his spiralling thoughts.
She wouldn’t leave.
Would she?
The question frightened him more than he wanted to admit, because he realized how little he could do if she chose to.
He loved her fiercely. He would fight the world for her. But love, he knew, wasn’t a cage. And if she decided to walk away, he would have to let her.
The realization hollowed him out.
He slid down onto the edge of the bed, head dropping into his hands.
Please come back, he thought, the plea unspoken but raw.
Not just to the apartment.
To me.
To us.
The clock ticked on, indifferent.
And Kabir sat alone with the kind of fear no battlefield had ever taught him to face.
--
The terrace door slammed shut behind Arjun, the sound swallowed almost instantly by the open night.
Cold wind rushed in, sharp and biting, slicing through the quietlike it had teeth. The city below glittered in fractured lights, indifferent, alive. Up here, everything felt stripped bare.
Arjun walked to the parapet, stopped, then pulled out a cigarette with hands that were steadier than he felt. He lit it slowly.
The flame flared.
The tip glowed.
Smoke curled upward.
He inhaled deeply, deliberately.
Fire in his lungs.
Burning where it hurt.
A punishment he chose.
Fitting.
He leaned his elbows on the low wall, head bowed, shoulders tense. From a distance, he might still have looked like ACP Arjun Raute. Composed. Untouchable.
Up close, he was just a man standing at the edge of himself.
A man slipping.
A man who had run out of places to bury his ghosts.
Rathore’s voice echoed in his head, relentless.
She doesn’t run from her fear. You do.
Arjun shut his eyes hard, jaw clenching until pain shot up his temple. He dragged another breath of smoke in, harsher this time, as if he could choke the words out of his system.
He had spent years perfecting control. Years turning discipline into armour. Years convincing himself that Roshni’s death had ended every part of him capable of wanting, needing, hoping.
And today:
Riya’s handwriting.
Her answers.
That quiet strength.
The way she had walked past him without lifting her eyes.
Something had cracked.
And Rathore had seen it.
That was the real threat.
“Damn you, Sameer,” he muttered under his breath, smoke spilling from his lips. “Damn you for seeing it.”
Because being seen meant, he was failing at hiding it.
Not as an officer.
As a man who had sworn never to feel again.
He leaned back against the parapet, staring up at the sky. Black. Clouded. Restless.
Just like him.
The memory came uninvited, sharp as glass.
Roshni’s pooja.
The priest’s calm voice.
The scent of incense thick in the air.
The diya trembling in his hands as he lit it for her.
And that sentence.
The one he had hated.
“Jis rishte ko khuda ne poora nahi hone diya, beta…
uski sajaa tum zinda reh kar mat bhugto.
Roshni chahti tum aage badho.”
(Don’t punish yourself for a fate God wrote differently.
Roshni would want you to move on.)
He had felt rage then. Pure, violent rage.
Move on felt like betrayal.
Breathing felt like theft.
Living felt like disloyalty.
He had promised her, standing beside her pyre, that he would never let anyone else take her place. That whatever part of him had loved would be buried with her.
And now:
Now guilt wrapped around his ribs like wire.
Guilt for noticing Riya.
For listening to her.
For wanting to shield her from the very fire he had pushed her into.
Guilt for the way she stirred something alive inside him that death had not managed to kill.
He exhaled shakily, smoke dissolving into the wind.
“Roshni…” he whispered, voice cracking despite himself.
“Main… sahi kar raha hoon naa?”
The night gave him no answers.
Only the weight of her absence.
Only the terrifying truth that feeling again didn’t mean replacing her.
It meant surviving her.
And he wasn’t ready for that.
He crushed the cigarette out against the wall, the ember dying with a faint hiss. A small, savage satisfaction flickered in him at the sting.
Pain was honest.
Pain was controllable.
He needed control.
Not over Riya.
Over himself.
A plan formed slowly, cold and precise, the way dangerous ideas always did. Not born of cruelty, but of desperation dressed up as logic.
Mentorship.
If she was under him, everything would be professional. Structured. Brutal in its discipline.
He could push her.
Test her.
Strip away whatever illusion he was reacting to.
If she broke, it would prove she didn’t belong anywhere near the space Roshni occupied in his mind.
If she survived…
No.
He didn’t follow that thought through.
He had gone to the Commissioner earlier with calm certainty, every word weighed.
He had framed it as accountability.
As redemption.
As responsibility.
“Sir, give her to me,” he had said evenly. “If she fails, the fault will be mine. If she survives, she earns her place properly. Either way, the unit learns.”
He had spoken of discipline.
Of controlled exposure.
Of correcting mistakes through structure.
He had spoken of guilt too. Carefully. Strategically.
“I failed as a leader once,” he had said, eyes steady. “I won’t repeat that. I need a chance to correct my mistakes or I’ll drown, in my sins, my own mistakes, and nobody would be able to save me.”
It wasn’t a lie.
Just not the whole truth.
“Rathore is out most of the times for official tours, and I am not that bad a choice, am I?”
Because beneath every logical argument was one raw, desperate need.
To prove to himself that whatever stirred inside him was nothing.
To chase her away from the place she was beginning to occupy.
To break the lie before it became real.
He had promised outcomes he didn’t fully believe in.
Wrapped punishment in the language of mentorship.
Used his own guilt as currency.
And the Commissioner had agreed.
Now, standing on the terrace, the city spread beneath him, Arjun felt a grim satisfaction settle into his bones.
He had control.
Riya Mukherjee was officially his trainee.
Her practical module was his.
Her future, for now, sat squarely in his hands.
Good.
He straightened, shoulders squaring, the familiar armour locking back into place.
“This ends here,” he told the night quietly. “Main khud ko sahi saabit kar dunga.”
He turned away from the parapet, convinced, resolute.
Certain that he was the one holding the reins.
You all know better.
Because men who burn themselves for control rarely realize when the fire starts choosing its own direction.
And Arjun Raute, standing alone under a restless sky, had already lost more control than he could ever admit.
--
Kabir’s phone buzzed.
The sound sliced through the room like a jolt of electricity.
He was on his feet before he realized it, chair scraping harshly against the floor as he turned toward the charging point near the wall. His heart slammed against his ribs, hope flaring bright and immediate.
Riya.
It had to be.
It had been too long. Too quiet. Too unbearable.
He yanked the phone off the charger, fingers clumsy, breath caught halfway between relief and dread.
And then he saw the screen.
Not her name.
A location pin.
Coordinates.
Below it, a single line.
Tomorrow. 1100 hours.
No greeting.
No explanation.
No warmth.
Just duty.
The light in his chest dimmed slowly, painfully.
He swallowed, staring at the screen as if it might change if he waited long enough. It didn’t.
Of course.
Of course it wasn’t her.
He let out a shaky breath and leaned back against the wall, eyes closing for a second. The irony of it hit him hard. The one message he’d been waiting for all day never came. But the one thing that always found him, without fail, was the job.
He recognized the pin instantly. Remote. Strategic. Quiet.
Tomorrow’s mission.
His thumb hovered over the screen. Habit took over. Muscle memory born of years of working in shadows.
He forwarded the message to Arjun.
Just like that.
No words.
Two men, moving towards the same coordinates.
Both lost in different ways.
Kabir stared at the sent confirmation, something hollow settling into his chest. Somewhere out there, Arjun Raute was probably receiving the same message with the same detached precision. Duty would make sense to him. It always did.
Kabir felt the opposite.
Duty felt like a distraction tonight. Like a cruel joke.
He looked around the apartment again. Her scarf still lay on the chair. Her mug, untouched, sat near the sink. The faint trace of her perfume lingered in the air, refusing to let him forget.
“She should be here,” he whispered to no one.
His phone remained stubbornly silent.
No call.
No text.
No reassurance.
The fear he had been holding back finally broke through his carefully maintained calm.
What if something happened at ETF?
What if the exam didn't go the way she hoped?
What if she was sitting somewhere alone, thinking she had to face this by herself?
He pushed himself off the wall abruptly.
Enough.
Waiting was killing him.
He grabbed his jacket, keys clattering as his hands shook just enough to give him away. He hesitated only once, glancing back at the phone on the table.
Still nothing.
“Alright,” he muttered, resolve hardening. “I’m coming.”
He stepped out into the night, locking the door behind him, the city swallowing him whole as he headed toward ETF.
Towards answers.
Towards her.
Because patience, like faith, only lasted so long.
And Kabir was done pretending he could survive without knowing if she was okay.
--
Rathore reached the terrace ten minutes later.
He had come looking for air. For space. For a moment where the weight of the day might loosen its grip.
Instead, he stopped.
Arjun stood at the far end of the terrace, his back to him, a cigarette burning between his fingers. The ember flared with every drag, violent and insistent against the dark. Smoke curled around him, clung to him, as if he were inviting it to stay.
Burning himself.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Rathore didn’t move closer.
He stayed where he was, half-swallowed by shadow, watching a man he had known for over a decade punish himself in the only way he ever allowed.
Arjun exhaled and smiled faintly.
A smirk.
Not triumph.
Not relief.
Control.
And that smirk dragged Rathore back in time.
-
The Meeting room. Earlier that day.
The blinds were open then, sunlight spilling in with deceptive calm. From that height, the city looked orderly. Manageable. As if chaos were a distant concept.
The Commissioner stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back.
“Raute asked for her,” he said evenly.
Rathore turned so sharply, his chair scraped the floor.
“No. Tell me you said No.”
Not sir.
Not carefully.
Just no.
“This is not mentorship,” Rathore said, anger rising fast and unfiltered. “This is punishment dressed up as training. He’s using her as a test case.”
The Commissioner turned slowly, studying him.
“Testing what?”
“That he feels nothing,” Rathore snapped. “That he can push her into fire and not flinch. That she doesn’t matter.”
He stepped forward, hands clenched.
“This is not about making her better. This is about him trying to erase something inside himself. And she will pay the price.”
The Commissioner nodded once.
“I know.”
The words hit harder than denial ever could.
Rathore froze.
“You… know?”
“I saw it the moment he walked in,” the Commissioner said calmly. “The logic was flawless. The language professional. And the intent completely dishonest.”
Rathore’s jaw tightened.
“Then why are we even discussing this?”
Because Riya doesn’t deserve to be collateral in Arjun Raute’s private war, his mind screamed. Because Arjun Raute is turning into a danger zone.
“You think Raute is fooling us,” the Commissioner said quietly.
“I think he’s already lying to himself.”
Rathore ran a hand through his hair.
“He believes this mentorship will prove something,” the Commissioner continued. “That if he stays harsh enough, distant enough, angry enough… whatever he’s feeling will disappear.”
“And it won’t,” Rathore said flatly.
“No,” the Commissioner agreed. “It won’t.”
Silence stretched, heavy and intimate with consequence and history.
“Then why let him have her?” Rathore demanded. “Why sanction something you know is wrong?”
The Commissioner moved back to his chair and sat down slowly, as if bracing himself.
“Because this phase cannot be avoided nor postponed.,” he said. “It can only be faced.”
Rathore’s voice dropped.
“At her cost?”
“At our responsibility,” the Commissioner corrected gently. “Yours and mine.”
“That’s not fair to her,” Rathore said, pain creeping in now.
“Nothing about this situation is fair,” the Commissioner replied. “But Raute is standing at a point he has avoided for years. Either he breaks now… or he turns into something far worse later.”
Rathore’s voice hardened. “You’re afraid he’ll become uncontrollable.”
“Yes,” the Commissioner said plainly. “An officer who cannot acknowledge his emotions eventually stops obeying reason. And Arjun Raute with unchecked denial is far more dangerous than Arjun Raute forced to face himself.”
“And Riya?” Rathore pressed. “She’s already been exposed. Pathan Lala. The gang. Her name is out there more times than it should be. Her future is already fragile.”
“And that,” the Commissioner said, “is precisely why this cannot be left to chance.”
Rathore looked up sharply.
“She has been in their line of sight too often,” the Commissioner continued. “Unstructured exposure will get her killed. Or compromised, like the earlier three. If she is to survive this system, she needs the most unforgiving, detail-obsessed, paranoia-driven training possible. Leaving her unstructured, unshielded, and floating between supervisors is far riskier than placing her under one set of eyes.”
“His eyes?” Rathore asked bitterly.
“His discipline,” the Commissioner corrected. “His methods. His obsession with control.”
Rathore hesitated.
“And you and I both know,” the Commissioner went on, quieter now, “that no one trains harder than Arjun Raute. No one prepares officers better for survival.”
Rathore’s chest tightened. He hated that it was true.
Rathore exhaled sharply.
“You want it to be him?”
“Yes,” the Commissioner said. “For all his flaws, Raute does not miss threats. And he does not lose his people lightly.”
“Except emotionally,” Rathore muttered.
The Commissioner met his gaze.
“And that is exactly why this is dangerous.”
“And necessary.”
“She will become formidable under him,” the Commissioner said. “Not because he wants to protect her. But because he doesn’t know how to go easy. He won’t go easy, at least on her.”
Rathore shook his head slowly.
“You’re gambling with her life to save him.”
“Yes, but not blindly! I am choosing the lesser risk,” the Commissioner replied. “If Raute is denied this, he will spiral. He will break rules. He will turn into an outlaw within the system. And when he falls, he will take this unit down with him.”
Rathore’s chest tightened. He knew that was true.
“You and I have known Arjun Rawte too long, too well,” the Commissioner said quietly. “We know what he becomes when he feels caged.”
Rathore looked away.
“And Riya?” he asked. “What if he…?”
“He won’t, he can't” the Commissioner said with quiet certainty. “Because whatever else he is doing… he is not cruel.”
Rathore frowned.
“He’s being cruel right now.”
“He’s being afraid,” the Commissioner corrected. “And afraid men are predictable. Cruel men are not.”
Rathore’s hands curled into fists.
“This still feels wrong.”
“It is wrong,” the Commissioner said honestly. “But stagnation will destroy him faster than confrontation. Either he comes out of this changed… or he destroys himself trying.”
“And if this goes on too long?” Rathore asked.
The Commissioner’s voice lowered.
“Then this team breaks. Which is why we will not let it go unchecked.”
Rathore looked up.
“How?”
“This mentorship is not unconditional,” the Commissioner said. “It will be watched. Measured. Interrupted if necessary.”
“For Arjun?” Rathore asked.
“For everyone,” the Commissioner replied.
He leaned back. “Raute believes mentorship gives him control. It doesn’t. It gives him exposure.”
“Exposure to what?” Rathore asked.
“To her resilience,” the Commissioner said. “To a kind of strength that does not look like rage. To someone who stands up without burning the world down.”
Rathore’s mind raced. “And if he breaks her?”
“He won’t,” the Commissioner said quietly. “Because he can’t afford to.”
“And if he breaks himself?”
The Commissioner’s voice softened. “Then maybe he finally stops running.”
Rathore exhaled slowly. “You’re asking me to trust that this ends well.”
“I’m asking you to stay close,” the Commissioner replied. “And to intervene when necessary.”
Rathore looked away. “This still feels wrong.”
“It is dangerous,” the Commissioner agreed. “But stagnation is deadlier.”
He paused, then added, almost thoughtfully, “And Riya will not remain unarmed in this.”
Rathore’s head snapped back. “What does that mean?”
The Commissioner smiled.
Not unkindly.
Not revealing.
“It means,” he said, “that Riya is not the only one being tested, that Riya Mukherjee will not remain powerless in this equation.”
-
The present rushed back in.
On the terrace, Arjun crushed his cigarette against the parapet, the ember dying with a faint hiss. He straightened, rolled his shoulders, the smirk still in place.
Rathore watched from the shadows, dread settling deep in his gut.
The Commissioner was right.
Arjun Raute was already lying to himself.
He understood now.
Arjun Raute had been given exactly what he needed and exactly what might break him.
And Riya Mukherjee had been placed in the most dangerous position of all.
Not because no one cared.
But because everyone did.
And letting him have Riya’s mentorship was not approval.
It was containment.
Something dangerous had been sanctioned knowingly.
Not out of cruelty.
Not out of negligence.
But because sometimes the only way to save a man from becoming an outlaw…
was to force him to face the very thing he was trying to destroy.
Rathore stayed where he was, silent, braced.
Because from this moment on, every step Arjun took with Riya would matter.
And someone would have to catch them both if they fell.
--
Kabir slipped into his jacket in one sharp motion, movements driven more by instinct than thought.
He paused.
Turned back.
On the chair by the door lay Riya’s jacket, rather his jacket, which he didn't even remember when it became hers. The one she loved the most but always forgot. The one she claimed she didn’t need while going out, but was wrapped around her every time the night air cut colder than expected.
He picked it up.
Folded it over his arm carefully, absurdly gentle, as if she were already there and fragile in his hands.
“She’ll feel cold,” he murmured to the empty room.
The thought landed softly. Domestic. Familiar.
And then, his phone buzzed.
The sound was small.
It felt catastrophic.
Kabir froze.
For one suspended second, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t bring himself to look down, as if not seeing the screen might delay whatever waited there.
Then the screen lit up.
Her name.
Riya.
His heart lurched violently, hope and fear colliding so hard it hurt. His fingers trembled as he unlocked the phone.
One line.
Come to the terrace.
That was it.
No emoji.
No explanation.
No softness.
Just four words.
His heart didn’t lift.
It fell.
Straight through him.
“Oh God…” he whispered, the word breaking in his throat.
That line didn’t sound like comfort.
It sounded like finality.
The kind that arrives quietly and leaves nothing standing.
“No… no…” he breathed, panic flooding his veins. “Please… not like this.”
His fingers closed around the phone, knuckles whitening, as if gripping it tighter might keep the moment from slipping away.
His gaze dropped to the small velvet box on the table.
The pendant.
He picked it up slowly, opening it with hands that no longer obeyed him.
The silver caught the light. Simple. Unassuming.
R K.
Their initials.
Their beginning.
His throat constricted painfully.
He had imagined a hundred ways of giving it to her. Laughing aboutit. Teasing her. Slipping it around her neck when she wasn’t looking.
Not this.
Never this.
“What if this is the last thing I ever give you?” he whispered, voice barely there.
His vision blurred. A tear slipped free, then another, tracing hot, helpless lines down his cheeks.
He shut the box, fingers curling around it like a lifeline.
Then he moved.
Not to the lift.
Never the lift.
He went for the stairs.
One step at a time.
As if slowing it down might postpone the inevitable.
Each step echoed loudly in the stairwell, the sound magnified in the hollow space. His breath came uneven, hitching painfully in his chest. He gripped the railing, knuckles slick, heart hammering too fast, too loud.
What if she’s done?
What if I pushed her too far?
What if this is where it ends?
His mind betrayed him with images he didn’t want. Her calm face. Her careful words. The way she would look at him gently while breaking his heart.
Another step.
Then another.
Tears blurred the concrete beneath his feet, turning the climb into a haze of grief and dread.
“Please,” he whispered into the silence. “Please don’t end us.”
The pendant pressed cold and real against his palm. The jacket wrapped around his neck.
He climbed slower now, as if reaching the terrace too quickly might shatter what little hope he had left. As if delay could soften the blow.
But the steps kept coming.
And so did the fear.
By the time he reached the final flight, his chest ached, lungs burning, eyes wet and unfocused. He wiped his face roughly with his sleeve, but the tears kept coming anyway.
Because somewhere above him, Riya was waiting.
And Kabir was walking towards what felt terrifyingly like goodbye.
The terrace door loomed ahead.
Closed.
Silent.
He reached for the handle.
-
And this chapter ends here:
With Kabir holding a goodbye he hasn’t been given,
Riya carrying a truth she hasn’t spoken,
And Arjun standing between control and collapse,
While love waits on the edge of something irreversible.
--
Note:
Hi lovely readers!
First things first, sorry for the slow updates. Life decided to throw a few side quests my way, and the chapters took a little longer to level up than planned. Thank you for sticking around and being patient with me.
If you’re enjoying the story, I’d be super grateful for a review! They truly mean a lot to me, think of them as tiny boosts of motivation that help my brain write faster and better. Even a short note or a few words of encouragement can work wonders and keep the creative gears spinning.
Thanks for reading, cheering, and being here. You’re awesome, and this story exists because of you.
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