The hallway outside the operations room buzzed faintly with footsteps and distant chatter, but amidst it all stood Kiaan—arms folded, jaw tight, his sharp eyes fixed on the ground as if lost in dangerous thought.
Rehaan spotted him first.
"Kiaan?" Rehaan's voice cut through the static. "What are you doing out here?"
Kiaan lifted his eyes slowly, his expression unreadable. He didn't answer immediately. His gaze flicked from Rehaan to Dev, then back to Rehaan—settling on him longer than necessary.
Dev joined them, raising an eyebrow. "Captain? You alright? You look like you've seen something."
Kiaan's voice was unusually flat. "I saw enough."
Rehaan frowned. "Enough of what?"
Kiaan took a step forward, eyes still locked onto Rehaan. "Tell me something, Agent Rehaan. Exactly how involved are you with Vihaan Roy?"
Rehaan's breath caught for a second. "What are you—?"
"I heard him," Kiaan cut him off, his tone razor-sharp. "I heard everything. Every single word in that hallway. That Vihaan Roy—who once refused to meet government heads without a signed NDA—is now skipping billion-dollar deals to… help you?"
Dev's smile faded. "Wait, what?"
Kiaan turned toward Dev briefly. "He told his assistant—word for word—that someone in this room is more important than a billion-dollar deal. And not just someone... you, Rehaan."
Rehaan's throat bobbed.
Dev's eyes widened. "He said that? Vihaan Roy?"
Kiaan stepped closer to Rehaan now, tension buzzing between them. "I need the truth. All of it. Are you compromised?"
Rehaan stared back, torn between the agent in him trained to never flinch—and the man inside him still trying to process Vihaan's growing grip over his thoughts.
"I'm not compromised," Rehaan replied firmly. "But I am confused."
Kiaan narrowed his eyes. "That's dangerous enough."
Rehaan let out a sharp breath, stepping aside toward the window, rubbing his temple. "He's not like what we thought, Kiaan. He gave us everything. The files, the data, the cooperation—he's the reason Royic Airlines is even helping us."
Kiaan's tone turned colder. "And you don't think that's suspicious?"
"Of course it is," Rehaan snapped back, spinning around. "Everything about him is suspicious. But what do you want me to say? That he didn't pull me out of that club when I was about to collapse? That he didn't carry me to bed and just—held me like I mattered?"
Silence crashed between the three.
Even Dev, the ever-easygoing one, had no jokes this time.
Kiaan's jaw tightened. "You're not wrong for feeling, Rehaan. You're human. But that man… is a goddamn shadow in a tailored suit. He didn't become Vihaan Roy by being soft."
Rehaan's voice was quieter now. "I don't think he's soft. I think he's dangerous. But also… I think he's real with me."
Dev exhaled slowly. "This is messed up."
Kiaan nodded, expression stormy. "And the deeper we fall into his world, the harder it'll be to crawl out."
Rehaan looked up at him with fire in his eyes. "Then let's not crawl out. Let's walk right in—with our eyes open."
Kiaan's stare lingered for a moment, before finally breaking. "Just don't forget who you are in the process."
Rehaan smirked faintly. "I won't. But I think we both know… I might be figuring that out because of him."
The hallway fell into a strange stillness as the three agents stood under the glow of tension, shifting loyalties, and something darker pulling them deeper into Vihaan Roy's orbit.The thick silence in the airport operations room was broken only by the rhythmic clatter of keyboard strokes and the occasional flipping of files. Kiaan, Rehaan, and Dev stood shoulder to shoulder, eyes locked onto the list sprawled across the table in front of them. The sea of names blurred together—until one name stood out like a drop of ink in water.
"There," Kiaan tapped the sheet, his voice tight with adrenaline. "This one—passenger 47C. Everything checks out… too perfectly. Passport number is legit, but it belongs to a man who died three years ago."
Rehaan leaned in, eyes narrowing. "A ghost with clean papers. That's our fake."
Dev tilted his head. "No wonder he slipped through. He used a dead man's identity and hacked into the flight database. Smart… but not flawless."
Before the tension could settle, the glass doors slid open and in walked Vihaan's assistant, clutching a hard drive in one hand and a file in the other.
"Mr. Roy asked me to deliver this directly to you," the assistant said, placing the items on the table. "It contains all CCTV footage from both boarding terminals and security gates during the flight in question."
Rehaan's eyes lit up with the rush of possibility. "This might finally give us a face."
The assistant nodded. "We've sorted the timestamps as per the boarding window. Should help you track the specific moment."
Kiaan raised a brow. "That's... unusually efficient."
The assistant offered a faint smile. "Mr. Roy doesn't like delays. And he doesn't like people hiding in his sky."
As he turned to leave, Rehaan called out, "Wait. You said his sky?"
The assistant gave him a knowing look. "There's nothing in the air above this country that he doesn't know about, Agent."
Rehaan swallowed hard, glancing at Dev and Kiaan, who both mirrored the same thought: Vihaan Roy wasn't just a businessman—he was the god of altitude, and someone had tried to sneak past him.
The three agents crowded around the laptop as the footage booted up. Seconds stretched into tense minutes as they fast-forwarded, eyes darting across frame after frame of boarding passengers.
Suddenly—Kiaan paused the video.
"There," he said quietly. "Rewind two seconds."
The screen froze on a tall man, wearing a hood and sunglasses. Smooth stride. Head low. No direct eye contact with any cameras.
Rehaan's eyes sharpened. "Zoom in on his left hand."
Dev leaned in. "What are we looking for?"
"A tattoo," Rehaan muttered, heart pounding. "He has a ring tattoo around his index finger. I saw it once before… in one of our older unsolved crime files."
Kiaan pulled out his phone and opened the archived database. He tapped rapidly—and after a few swipes, he turned the screen toward them.
There it was.
Same tattoo. Same build. Same gait.
"Name unknown," Kiaan read. "Goes by several aliases. We only know his code name: Raaz. He's been invisible for the last five years."
Dev whistled low. "And now he's not just visible. He's caught on tape."
Rehaan leaned back, a slow smile curving his lips. "And he walked right into Royic Airlines. Vihaan didn't just help us… he baited the ghost into the open."
Kiaan looked between the footage and the data, his tone hushed with something resembling awe. "What kind of man lays a trap in the clouds?"
Rehaan's voice was colder now. "One who plays on a god-level board."
He tapped the paused image of Raaz on the screen, face blurry but presence unmistakably threatening. "We've found the fake identity. Now let's burn the real one out of the shadows."The dimly lit private office on the top floor of Royic Corporation's towering building buzzed with cold efficiency. The walls were soundproof. No noise seeped in or out. Inside, Vihaan Roy stood with his back to the massive glass window, city lights flickering behind him like silent witnesses to his wrath.
A massive screen in front of him played the exact CCTV footage Rehaan and his team had just watched—except Vihaan had seen it hours ago. He had already paused it on that frame.
The man in the hood. The ink around his index finger. The nameless threat who tried to slip through his skies.
Vihaan's jaw tightened, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a crystal glass filled with aged whiskey. His stare was fixed, cold as ice, sharp as a blade.
He pressed a button on the desk. A voice answered immediately.
"Yes, sir?"
"Get my men on every port, private dock, alley, and underground circuit in England. No flyers, no exits, not even a sewer lid opens without us knowing. I want this man—every camera, every face recognition software, every rat on the street sniffing his trail."
"Yes, Mr. Roy."
Vihaan's voice dropped a pitch—calm but menacing. "You have until tomorrow. I want him on his knees, breathing, and begging… or I'll replace my entire command chain."
The call ended.
He turned, walking over to the marble desk, his assistant already there, nervously holding a file.
"The Interpol is yet to—"
"Interpol is slow," Vihaan cut him off. "I don't wait on people who play by rules."
The assistant hesitated. "What should I tell the international partners about your absence from the deal table today?"
Vihaan didn't even look up as he sipped the whiskey.
"Tell them I'm busy pulling a ghost out of a grave."
He leaned closer to the paused frame on the screen—Raaz. "He thought he was invisible… Until he flew into my sky."
A sharp buzz vibrated on his desk—another call. Vihaan ignored it.
"Let them all wait. Right now, there's only one priority," he murmured.
There was a knock on the door. A guard entered, silent and sharp.
Vihaan didn't turn around.
"Send a message to the underground networks. Royic will triple the bounty for Raaz. But only if he's alive."
The guard bowed and left wordlessly.
Vihaan finally sat down in his chair, spinning the screen to black.
"Let the agents play with files," he said to himself with a half-smirk, eyes glinting. "But I play with real men… and real monsters."
He looked out the window once more, then whispered under his breath, almost like a promise:
"Tomorrow… he dies standing or kneels crawling. But he will face me."The morning sun hadn't yet warmed the city, but inside Vihaan Roy's underground interrogation cell, the air was already blood-hot.
The man—the one who had slipped past every security check, the same ghost Rehaan's team had been chasing—was now barely recognizable. His jaw was swollen, lips cracked, eyes darting wildly like a caged animal.
Vihaan stood in front of him. Calm. Collected. Dangerous.
His gaze didn't flinch as the man whimpered.
"You dared to smuggle drugs," Vihaan said in a voice so low, it sliced like a scalpel, "on my aircraft… without my knowledge."
He didn't yell. Vihaan Roy never had to.
One of his men drove a fist into the smuggler's gut again, forcing a groan out of him.
Vihaan's eyes narrowed. "I built Royic to be the only airline clean above the table. I play dirty… but not where the world can see."
He walked closer, leaned in just enough to whisper into the man's ear, "You used a fake name. A fake ID. You thought the skies were yours to float through. But you forgot… I own the sky."
The man trembled.
Vihaan stood tall again and turned away, face expressionless. "Enough," he told his men. "We're done."
"Sir?" his assistant asked, confused. "He—he's still breathing."
Vihaan gave a dry smirk. "That's the point."
He took a slow sip from the tea on the table and then ordered, "Tie him up and drop him at the front steps of the CBI headquarters. Tell them Vihaan Roy sends gifts early."
His men obeyed instantly.
---
HQ – CBI Headquarters, Kolkata
9:15 AM
The mood inside the high-security briefing room was tense. Dev paced near the projector. Kiaan was scanning passenger data one last time, and Rehaan rubbed his temples, frustration leaking through.
"Nothing is matching the man's real identity," Rehaan muttered. "Even with Vihaan's files, it's like he was a ghost."
Dev turned to reply but stopped.
BANG!
The main doors flung open.
The entire team froze.
Two unknown men in black stepped in, dragging a half-conscious man whose shirt was soaked with blood, face bruised and cut—but undeniably him.
"Delivery," one of them said with a smirk. "Compliments of Mr. Roy."
They dropped the man on the floor like trash and walked out without another word.
Silence.
Kiaan's mouth fell open. Dev was speechless. Rehaan stepped forward and crouched near the man. He was real. Alive. The man they were chasing for weeks.
The ghost had been caught.
"Who… who brought him in?" Dev finally asked, half in awe.
Kiaan held up a small black envelope that had been tucked in the man's shirt. It simply read:
> "Next time, knock. – V.R."
Rehaan looked at it, stunned. "He got to him before we even reached the final layer..."
Kiaan spoke, voice dry. "Vihaan Roy doesn't chase. He hunts."Evening cloaked the city in a dim golden hue, but the inside of the CBI headquarters buzzed with silent tension. Everyone was still processing the chaos of the morning—the sudden delivery of the drug smuggler by Vihaan Roy himself.
But none of them expected him to return the same day.
The elevator dinged. Footsteps echoed. And there he was.
Vihaan Roy.
Cool as dusk breeze, dressed in a navy shirt with sleeves rolled just enough to tease the veins on his arms, watch glinting faintly, his expression unreadable.
He walked in like he owned the place. Not rushed. Not cautious. Just... himself.
Dev raised a brow. "Unexpected visit, Mr. Roy?"
Vihaan gave a half-smile. "Well, I figured since I gift-wrapped your ghost this morning, I deserved to see the faces of the men who've been running in circles behind him."
Rehaan's eyes were on him, but Vihaan didn't even glance back. His aura was calm—but Rehaan could feel it. The underlying tension.
Vihaan walked over to the files, ran his fingers through the papers, then picked up a pen as if he was bored.
"This man you caught," Kiaan said slowly, "how did you find him so quickly?"
Vihaan didn't answer immediately. Instead, he placed the pen down, turned, and finally locked eyes with Rehaan. A pause. Then—
"I don't let anyone walk through my skies," he said softly, "unless I know what they carry… even if they carry lies."
Before anyone could respond, Vihaan's assistant rushed in, phone in hand, clearly panicked.
"Sir—phone call. Urgent. I tried to delay it—"
"Not now," Vihaan snapped, eyes still on Rehaan.
"But sir… it's the boss."
Boss?
Everyone tensed slightly. Even Kiaan straightened.
Vihaan finally sighed, running a hand through his hair. He took the phone with a lazy gesture and walked away from them toward the glass corridor, voice distant… until they all heard it:
"Okay, Reyaan, I know."
Silence.
It was a name. A single name. But it shot like electricity across the room.
Rehaan blinked.
Dev looked at Kiaan, confused. "Did he just say… Reyaan?"
Kiaan's brows were already furrowed. Something in him stirred. He immediately turned and pulled his sleeve up, eyes darting to the tattoo on his inner wrist—the one most people assumed was a name Reyaan had inked out of grief, memory, or perhaps nothing important.
It read:
"Reyaan Malhotra"
Kiaan's face froze.
"No…" he muttered. "It can't be."
But the voice. The name. The tone Vihaan used—only someone close, someone intimate, would say it like that. Not a simple name" reyaan".
Reyaan Malhotra.
Kiaan looked up in disbelief as Vihaan walked back in, still on the phone, calm, collected.
But something had cracked.
The room wasn't the same anymore.
And Rehaan? He looked frozen too. Like something from his buried past had just been spoken out loud. The air between him and Vihaan grew heavier, hotter, electric with unspoken truths.
Vihaan gave a final chuckle on the phone and whispered, "See you soon," before hanging up and turning to face the agents.
"Anything else you need from me?" he asked casually.
But no one answered.
They were too stunned.
Too shaken by the name that slipped.
Too lost in the question echoing in their heads:
Who the hell is Reyaan Malhotra?
The sterile lights of the HQ flickered faintly as Kiaan paced back and forth, jaw clenched tight, eyes flickering with a mix of anger and something deeper — something painfully personal. The name Reyaan Malhotra haunted him like a ghost, a specter of past wounds and bruised pride.
He needed to see the man's face. The same man who had torn him apart—both physically and mentally—leaving the first mark on his wrist, branding him forever with that name. The man who had confronted him again in that VIP room at the club, merciless and calculating, mocking Kiaan's drunken state as he tore him apart for the second time.
"Reyaan Malhotra…" Kiaan whispered under his breath, his eyes burning with a need for answers.
Rehaan stood nearby, his gaze fixed on Vihan, the only man who seemed to hold the puzzle pieces of the dark game they were all trapped in.
"Who exactly is this Reyaan Malhotra?" Rehaan asked, voice steady but laced with curiosity.
Vihan's lips curled into a faint, knowing smile. "Reyaan? He's more than just a name. He's my best friend from childhood. My business partner. The ghost in the shadows who pulls strings you can't even see."
Rehaan absorbed the words silently.
Kiaan's fists clenched tighter when he heard Vihan's voice continue, "I know about the clashes between you two. The tension, the grudges, the fights behind closed doors. But let me be clear—I can't help you. Not with Reyaan. The man doesn't let anyone into his world. No face shown, no hand given unless he chooses it."
Rehaan's brows furrowed. "Why won't he let anyone in? What's the real story behind all this?"
Vihan's eyes narrowed slightly, a rare flicker of seriousness clouding his usual calm demeanor. "Because Reyaan is… obsessed. Obsessed with one thing, one person. And that's you, Kiaan."
Kiaan's breath hitched.
Vihan leaned closer, voice dropping to a low whisper, "Reyaan's never shown his soft side before, never let anyone get close enough to touch his soul. But you? You hit a nerve in him that no one else ever did. That's why he's watching you, like a hawk. Like a possessive shadow."
He paused, letting the weight of his words sink deep into the room.
"I've never seen Reyaan touch another boy before you. Not once. That obsession? It's dangerous. It's raw. It's like he's marked you, Kiaan — branded you as his own."
Rehaan's eyes locked onto Kiaan's. The unspoken tension between the two men was thick enough to cut through steel.
"And Zid?" Rehaan asked cautiously.
Vihan's smirk returned, but it was edged with steel. "Zid's part of this too. That stubborn streak in Reyaan—it's like Zid fuels it. Reyaan won't let anyone touch what's his. Kiaan carries his name on that wrist for a reason. And trust me, Reyaan won't allow a single soul to come near what he claims. Not now. Not ever."
The room grew heavy with unspoken threats and half-revealed truths. Kiaan swallowed hard, the fire in his eyes flickering with both fear and defiance.
Rehaan broke the silence, voice soft yet firm, "So this Reyaan… he's not just a rival. He's a force. A shadow that won't fade."
Vihan nodded, eyes piercing through the dim light, "Exactly. And that's why you have to be careful, Kiaan. Because obsession can protect — or destroy."
Kiaan's gaze hardened.
"Let him come," Kiaan said quietly, "Because I'm not backing down. Not from Reyaan. Not from anyone."
Vihan's smile was almost approving. "Good. Because this game is far from over."
The tension between past wounds and future battles crackled like static electricity, binding them all tighter in the dark web of secrets, obsession, and power.