The hollow victory was a poison, but it was also a vaccine. It inoculated Harsh against any remaining illusions. The world wasn't a marketplace; it was a jungle, and he had been acting like a clever herbivore when he needed to start thinking like an apex predator.
His first instinct was to fight back. To find a way around Venkat Swami's stranglehold. The oil trade was the biggest game in the city now, and he was determined to claim a piece of it that was truly his.
He went back to Rane, the dockworker, his pockets nearly empty but his resolve steelier than ever. He found him during the night shift, the docks illuminated by harsh halogen lights that cast long, distorted shadows.
"Rane," Harsh said, dispensing with any greeting. "The main ports are a closed shop. I understand that. But there has to be another way. A smaller port. A private jetty. Something they don't fully control."
Rane stopped coiling a thick rope, his sharp eyes scanning Harsh's face. He saw the new hardness there, the desperation that had been refined into something colder.
"You are like a moth to a flame, Harsh Bhai," Rane said, shaking his head. But there was a hint of respect in his tone. The boy had spirit. "You think you are the first to have this idea? The first to see the rivers of money flowing and want to dip your cup?"
He gestured with his chin toward the immense, silent tankers looming in the harbor. "That is not a river. It is an ocean. And it has a single, very large, very angry shark. You think you can swim in his ocean without him noticing?"
"I'm not trying to steal his catch," Harsh insisted, the plan forming even as he spoke. "I'm looking for the scraps that fall from his table. A single barrel. Two. Not from a tanker. From a supply boat. From a barge that services the big ships. There must be leaks."
Rane laughed, a short, sharp, humorless sound. "Leaks? He owns the boats. He owns the barges. He owns the men who work on them. The crew of every vessel in this harbor, from the captain to the deckhand, is on his payroll. Or they are afraid of him. There are no leaks. The system is watertight."
He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Last month, a crane operator on Dock 12 thought he could skim a few liters from a hose during a transfer. He thought no one would notice. They found him the next morning. His hands were broken. Not smashed. Broken. Each finger. A precise job. He will never operate a crane again. He was lucky. They let him live as a lesson."
The story landed like a physical blow. This wasn't the soft power of economic strangulation. This was raw, brutal, bone-breaking enforcement.
"The monopoly is absolute," Rane repeated, his final words hanging in the salty air. "There is no 'other way'. There is only his way."
Harsh stood there, the fight draining out of him, replaced by a cold, crushing sense of futility. He had faced down corrupt police and rival thugs. He had negotiated with brokers and customs officers. But this was different. This was a wall. A smooth, impenetrable, unscalable wall.
Venkat Swami didn't just control the supply; he was the supply. He was the dock, the ship, the hose, and the man holding it. Trying to sneak a barrel of oil past him was like trying to steal a single grain of sand from a beach he owned.
He walked away from the docks, the feeling of powerlessness a bitter taste in his mouth. For the first time, his knowledge of the future felt useless. He could see the tidal wave of profit, but he was chained to the shore, forced to watch it roll in for someone else.
He found himself on the seawall at Marine Drive again, the same place he'd come after his lesson from Desai. The ocean was vast and indifferent, just like the economic forces he was trying to harness. And just like the ocean, it was controlled by the biggest creature in it.
He had tried to be a player. He was just a pawn.
The mafia's monopoly wasn't just a business advantage; it was a fact of nature in this city. You couldn't compete with it. You couldn't outsmart it. You could only serve it or be destroyed by it.
He had to face the mafia monopoly. Not with a fight, but with a surrender. A strategic, calculated surrender.
The thought was galling. It tasted like ash. But the image of the crane operator's broken hands was more potent than his pride.
He couldn't get the oil himself. His foray with Mr. Nair had been a fluke, a tiny crack that had almost gotten them crushed. To go any further was suicide.
If he wanted a piece of the oil trade, there was only one path left. The most dangerous path of all.
He had to go directly to the source. He had to ask Venkat Swami for permission.
He had to walk into the lion's den and propose a partnership where he was the mouse bringing the lion a crumb, in the hope that the lion might let him keep a few atoms of it.
It was the only move left on the board. The risk was unimaginable. The humiliation was absolute.
But it was that, or give up entirely.
He turned his back on the ocean and started the long walk home. The cliffhanger was no longer about external threats. It was about the most terrifying decision of his life: to willingly kneel before the man who owned him.
(Chapter End)