A/N: This is a long book, so have patience and enjoy. Also, as I mentioned, it's going to be darker and filled with traumas, so be prepared. You'll see Viraaj and Savi's growing relationship here because Savi's past plays a part in the plot of this story. Along with that, you'll also see Aksh's past, his bond with Arthur, and Kartik too.

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I slow down the vehicle as the decaying concrete building finally comes into view, its grim silhouette swallowed by the heavy shadows.

My heart thuds hard against my ribs, a familiar, intoxicating dish pulsing through my veins. Danger has always excited me more than anything else. It's a dark thrill that sharpens my senses, turning the cold air electric.

" Seven men inside, " Darsh's voice crackles, steady but laced with that gentle, anxious. " Four patrolling the front perimeter, and there guarding the back exit. "

I ease the car into the deep shadows of a broken wall listening to the one man who keeps our team tethered to reality. Darsh is brilliant. There's rarely a target whose life he hasn't completely mapped out.

I still remember the day he joined us, he was just this earnest, incredibly smart kid who happened to hold the blueprints to the underworld's secret.

In a team full of devils, he is the only one who still has a conscience, keeping meticulous files on everyone not out of malice, but because he genuinely cares about the details.

" How many kids are there,?" I ask softly, my fingers brushing the cold, reassuring hilts of the knives strapped to my vest.

" Twenty-three total, " he replies, a slight catch in his breath. " But that's not the exact number on the ledger. Two are missing from the holding room cameras. What if...what if they did something to them?"

Two missing ?

I shake my head in the dim cabin of the car, my jaw tightening as cold, practical detachment settles over me. I'm no hero, and I don't pretend to be. I don't do this out of the goodness of my heart...I do it because I despise lesser predators trying to act superior.

" No, they won't hurt them, " I say, my voice dropping to a flat, quiet certainty to soothe his panic. " All the kids are up for sale. They have high-end buyers lined up, Darsh. No one is going to ruin their own merchandise and lose out on that kind of money. The missing two are probably just being moved for a private viewing. "

I kill the ignition, letting the silence of the night swallow the low hum of the engine. I reach down, pulling my tactical gloves tighter over my knuckles, my mind already running through the breaching sequence. I have a job to do, and I'm going to do it flawlessly.

" Thirty minutes. That's all you have, " Kartik Bhai's voice rings through the car's console speaker, cutting through the silence.

" I want the kids out safe and make sure not a single drop of blood touched them. " The lines goes dead before I can even breathe an acknowledgement.

On paper, this isn't our job. We are a mafia empire. We live in the dark.. smuggling gold, running weapons across global borders, and taking what we want. To the rest of the world, we are just criminals. And we don't try to hide it..we are. Personally, I don't lose my sleep over the blood on my hands.

I'm a sinner, a predator who moves in the shadows, and my empathy ran dry a long time ago. But there is a line we don't cross. We are the monsters who hunt the filths.

We have never touched an innocent person and that is entirely because of Kartik Bhai. He built this empire from nothing and while it was designed to destroy, he kept a piece of his humanity intact.

No matter how much this brutal life pushed him, he never abandoned those little morals Isha Maa raised him with. It was his absolute decree, women and children are untouchable and when they are in danger, we step in.

We have pulled dozens of girls and kids out of human and sex trafficking rings over the years. We aren't saints, and I certainly don't pretend to be one. But we do the dirty work that the corrupt government won't ever touch.

❣ ❣ ❣ ❣

" I thought the boss had gone completely soft, " Viraaj says from the back seat, " But he's still the same when it comes to the job. "

Viraaj is our sharpshooter. He used to be like the sun in our dark world always smiling, the happiest guy in the room. But he changed after that one incident with Bhabhi.

Who is his friend important enough to put his own life at risk for her. He used to take everything lightly, even in the worst situations, but now there is a serious edge to how he works.

It wasn't his fault, and he knows it. But some scars leave a mark on your soul that forces you to change who you are. It left the deepest wound on him. Honestly, it changed all of us. That was the first time our unit has ever truly failed....we failed to protect the one person who had become irreplaceable to us. And that failure had changed and shaped everyone.

" He hasn't changed a bit, Viraaj sir, " Savi says quietly from beside him. She adjusts her glasses, " He just becomes a little more human when he's around ma'am. And you'd better make sure he doesn't hear you, or he'll have you testing my new paralyzing nerve agent for your next training session. "

Savi is our chemist, but her work has nothing to do with saving lives. She genuinely enjoyed brewing lethal poisons and building compact explosives.

" Tumse ek pal ke liye bhi meri khusi bardaasht nhi hoti hai na?" Viraaj asked.

" Main bus aapki galatfemi dur kar rahi hu" Savi replied.

" We're on a timer, you both save this for later. " I say, my voice is flat and cold. I don't have time for nostalgia or jokes.

As expected, the four men are standing right outside the front entrance, exactly where Darsh said they would be. In my line of work, a target standing in the open is just a math problem waiting to be solved.

As a strategist, I don't believe in loud, messy shootouts when a quiet approach can clear the board.

As the unit's sniper, I'm used to calculating windage and distance from a mile away, but up close, my blades do the job just as silently. Within seconds, the four guards are down, their bodies slipping to the gravel before they can even register my shadows.

While I clear the entrance, Viraaj and Savi move around to lock down the back exit. Behind us, Darsh remains in the car. He isn't a hacker, but as our analysts, he operates like a highly efficient human encyclopedia.

Right now, he is studying the original paper blueprints of the building and checking the old escape routes to track the internal guard's movements based on timing patterns.

" The building layout branches into three corridors, Captain " Darsh's quiet voice whispers over my earpiece.

" The kids are being held in the old cold-storage room at the back. Be careful, the timing suggests two of the internal guards are currently patrolling that hallway. "

" Good. Keep me updated on their movements. " I murmur, stepping over the quiet forms on the ground without a second glance.

I pull the heavy steel doors open and slip into the building. My eyes adjust instantly. Using the mental map Darsh laid out for me. I unclip my suppressed rifle, moving with fluid, soundless steps.

I don't feel a shred of pity for the men I'm about to put down, they deserve it.

" I'm heading inside to secure the kids. Savi, Viraaj...bring the transport vehicles around to the back exit. We move them in five. "

" Captain.." Savi's voice comes through the earpiece low and steady with that quiet excitement she only gets when she's about to test a new formula. " The two guards at the back exit are already down. But the third one is still breathing. Permission to try the new liquid -paralysis drop? I only need a minute to see if it freezes his muscles before it hits his heart. It's a clean way to test it. "

Before I can even answer, Viraaj cuts in over the static, his voice a mix of sigh and a laugh.

" Savi, please, can we just have a normal mission for once without this experiment? " He groans, " if you freeze his muscles, he's going to be stiff as a board, and I'm the only one who has to carry him. Do you know how hard it is to fold a frozen body into a trunk? Just let me shoot him. "

A small, dark smirk touches my lips as I keep moving silently toward the hallway. They are a chaotic duo, but they're my team, and keeping them on track is exactly my job.

" No experiments tonight, Savi, " I whisper into the comms, my voice firm but calm. " We're running out of time, and I don't want any weird chemical traces left behind for the cops to find. But I promise you, when we catch the man running this entire ring, he is all yours. You can test whatever you want

on him in our cells. For now, let Vir put a clean end to it and get the vans to the exit. "