CBI HQ – Swindon, England
Top-Secret Briefing Room – 9:17 AM
The glass walls of the high-security meeting room were fogged for privacy, and a dense tension filled the air like static electricity. On the large screen were slides—victims' faces, missing dates, locations, and eerily similar patterns.Kiaan stood near the head of the table, laser pointer in hand, his sharp eyes darting across the reports that Dev, Tara, and Rehaan had compiled over the past 48 hours.The atmosphere was different. Tighter. More urgent. This wasn't a regular mission—this was personal for Kiaan now. A new hunt had begun.Tara sat with her arms crossed, squinting at the pixelated photo of a high-end hotel lobby. Rehaan was furiously typing on his tablet, trying to trace digital movement. Dev was flipping through a file of financial transactions—hotel bookings, club memberships, private jet logs.Kiaan finally broke the silence."These aren't just missing persons. This is organized."He clicked to the next slide, revealing a map with glowing red markers. "Twelve disappearances in the last three weeks. All females. Ages 19 to 26. Tourists, students, even local girls. All last seen at upscale clubs, 5-star hotels, or private invitation-only parties."He turned toward the others, voice calm—but the rage beneath it crackled."This isn't random. It's trafficking. And someone's selling them under our nose."Tara leaned forward. "You're thinking it's an international circuit?"Kiaan nodded once. "Maybe. Maybe something worse. But they're using England's elite culture as camouflage. Lavish venues. Private events. Somewhere in those shadows—they're being taken."Rehaan frowned. "But the CCTV footage we
managed to scrape is wiped clean in most places. It's like someone's already sterilizing the evidence."Kiaan turned to Tara.
"Then hack deeper. Every luxurious club in Swindon, Sunderland, London—start pulling the CCTV data from the source servers. Even if they've erased it from public reach, I want it back. Use the dark net if you have to. If we find just one frame of one girl being taken, we'll tear the entire ring down."Tara gave a slight smirk, flexing her knuckles. "Looks like I won't be sleeping tonight."
"Good," Kiaan replied. "Let your insomnia serve justice."He turned to Dev next."Dev—I want intel on underground transactions. Look for movement of untraceable currencies—bitcoins, crypto wallets, black card usage. Cross-reference them with nights the girls disappeared. Someone's paying to keep this ring hidden."Dev saluted. "On it. I'll run the numbers so hard, their ghosts will leave fingerprints."Kiaan looked at Rehaan. "You said most victims were last seen at 'private events.' Get me a list of invite-only clubs, member-based organizations, secret societies operating across these cities."Rehaan looked up. "That could include high-level businessmen, politicians… even foreign agents."Kiaan's gaze hardened. "Then let's shake their worlds."He turned back to the screen and clicked on the image of a girl—21, last seen smiling on the balcony of a velvet-lit lounge.
"Her name was Anika Sharma. She came here for college. Now she's vanished into thin air like she never existed. I want to find out where that thin air leads."Silence fell in the room for a moment as everyone stared at the missing girl's photo.Then Tara spoke, softly but with steel in her tone. "You think this is connected to… him?"Kiaan didn't answer right away.But something in his clenched jaw said yes. "Rex hides in elite circles. He moves through shadows wearing silk and smoke. If this ring leads to him—or if he's using it as a front—I want it burned to the ground."He tapped the map again. "We don't wait. We start tonight. Quietly. No one from outside our core circle gets looped in. Not Zid, not the other units. If word gets out, we lose our only chance to hunt this thing."
Tara nodded. Rehaan and Dev exchanged glances—they understood.This was off-book.Illegal, even.But righteous.And Kiaan—he wasn't chasing headlines.He was chasing ghosts…And maybe… chasing his own monster.As the screen flicked off and they all stood, readying to leave, Kiaan said one last thing:"This time… we hunt beneath the glamour. Beneath the gold.
Beneath the skin—we find the rot."