The encounter with Priya left a strange, quiet hum in Harsh's mind, a melody beneath the usual cacophony of schemes and calculations. For two days, the memory of her smile, the directness of her gaze, would surface at odd moments, a splash of color in his monochrome world of profit and survival. He found himself glancing toward the university gates in the late afternoons, a habit he quickly chastised himself for. Sentiment was a luxury he couldn't afford. Not yet.
The business, however, was booming. The dual engines of his enterprise—the legitimate repair work and the lucrative, shadowy trade with Shetty—were running at a furious pace. The alcove was a hive of activity, the constant hiss of Deepak's soldering iron a testament to their output. Money was piling up, and with it, a dangerous visibility.
Ravi, the defeated rival, had vanished from the market after his public humiliation. But defeat for a man like that doesn't dissolve into acceptance; it curdles into resentment. Harsh had been watching for a direct counter-attack, a price war, more rumors. He'd prepared for those. He was not prepared for the sheer, brute-force nihilism of Ravi's true response.
It happened late on a Thursday, as the market was winding down. The foot traffic had thinned to a trickle, and the vendors were packing their wares. Harsh was counting the day's takings, a satisfyingly thick stack of notes. Deepak was cleaning his tools. Sanjay, Raju, and Vijay were sweeping up the day's debris of wire clippings and plastic shavings.
The first sign was the silence. The usual evening sounds of shutting-up shop—rolling shutters, friendly calls of "Kal milenge!"—suddenly stopped. The air grew still and heavy.
Harsh looked up, his instincts screaming.
They emerged from both ends of the narrow alley, blocking any escape. Four men. They weren't market goons like Ganesh's crew. These were bigger, rougher, their faces hard and impersonal. They carried iron rods and wooden staves. They moved with a chilling purpose, not to intimidate, but to destroy.
There was no demand for money. No threats. No words at all.
The first swing of an iron rod caught the edge of the wooden table Harsh used as a workbench. The crack of splintering wood was explosively loud. The second swing sent a crate of freshly repaired radios flying, their plastic casings shattering against the brick wall.
"Choron!" Sanjay screamed, grabbing a length of pipe, but Deepak held him back.
"No!" Deepak yelled, his voice a command. "They will kill you!"
It was over in less than a minute. A whirlwind of methodical violence. They didn't touch the boys. They focused solely on the operation. The soldering iron was smashed under a heavy boot. The carefully sorted bins of components were upended, thousands of tiny resistors and capacitors scattering across the wet ground like worthless gravel. The stock of finished devices—Walkmans, radios, the last few calculators from Shetty's crate—was systematically pulverized.
Harsh stood frozen, not in fear, but in a cold, towering rage. He watched his entire world, the empire he had built component by component, be reduced to junk. Every swing of a rod was a physical blow. He memorized their faces, the way they moved, the cold efficiency of their work.
One of them, the leader, finally looked at Harsh. His eyes were flat, dead. He pointed the iron rod at him.
"This is a message," the man said, his voice a low gravelly thing. "Stop. Or next time, it's not just your toys we break."
And as quickly as they came, they were gone, melting back into the twilight, leaving behind a scene of utter devastation.
The silence that followed was broken by Sanjay's ragged sobs of anger and frustration. Raju and Vijay were trembling, crouched against the wall. Deepak stood rigid, his fists clenched, a muscle twitching in his jaw as he surveyed the ruin.
Harsh didn't move. He looked at the wreckage. The splintered wood, the twisted metal, the glittering field of broken components. The thousand rupees he'd counted minutes ago felt like ash in his pocket. This was a loss far greater than money. This was an attack on his very capability.
He walked through the debris, his boots crunching on the remnants of his work. He bent down and picked up a single, pristine resistor that had somehow survived the carnage. He held it between his thumb and forefinger.
"Ravi," he said, the name dropping into the silence like a stone.
"How do you know?" Deepak asked, his voice thick.
"He didn't want money. He didn't want to scare us. He wanted to erase us," Harsh said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "This isn't Ganesh's style. This is the rage of a small man who has been humiliated. He paid for a lesson."
He looked at his team, their faces pale and scared in the fading light. He saw the doubt there. The question. Is this the end?
"Start cleaning up," Harsh said, his voice low but cutting through their shock. "Save anything that can be saved. Every wire. Every screw."
"What's the point?" Sanjay cried, kicking a broken piece of plastic. "It's all gone!"
Harsh turned to him, and the look in his eyes made Sanjay take a step back. It wasn't anger. It was something colder, more determined.
"The point," Harsh said, "is that they broke our things. They did not break us. They think this is a finish line. They are wrong." He looked around the destroyed alcove, his gaze sweeping over every broken piece. "This is just the starting line."
But as the boys began the grim task of sifting through the ruins, a different, more immediate reality set in. The sun had fully set. The alley was pitch black, the only light a faint yellow glow from a streetlamp at the far end. They were exposed. Vulnerable.
Harsh sent Raju and Vijay home, their small faces still etched with fear. He, Deepak, and Sanjay worked until they had salvaged two small boxes of usable parts. It was a pitiful fraction of what they'd had.
"Go home," Harsh told them finally. "Get some rest. Tomorrow, we start again."
Deepak nodded, a new respect and fear in his eyes for Harsh's icy composure. He and Sanjay left, their footsteps echoing away into the night.
Harsh was alone. He took one last look at the wreckage, his mind already calculating the cost of rebuilding, the need for a new, more secure location. He stepped out of the alcove and into the main lane, heading for home.
He'd only taken a few steps when he realized the lane was deserted. Too deserted. The usual night vendors were gone. A door slammed shut somewhere ahead.
Then, from the shadows of a closed fabric shop, three figures emerged. They were the same men from the earlier attack. They hadn't left. They'd been waiting.
The leader stepped forward, the iron rod still in his hand. A slow, cruel smile spread across his face.
"The boss said to make sure the message was received," he said, tapping the rod against his palm. "We thought we'd deliver it personally."
Harsh stopped, his back to the wall of the destroyed alcove. There was nowhere to run. The briefcase of money felt like a lead weight, a useless treasure. The night air, still smelling of ozone and broken dreams, grew cold.
He was cornered.