The relief was a shallow, fleeting thing. It lasted only as long as it took for the white Ambassador to disappear around the corner. Then, the reality of what he had just done crashed down on Harsh. He had lit a fuse on a powder keg named Kersi, and he had no idea how big the explosion would be.
He had to move fast. The lie had to be made real.
"Rao," Harsh said, his voice low and urgent, all traces of the previous panic gone. "Find out where Kersi is hiding. A cousin's house, a village outside the city, I don't care. And I need to know everything Sawant does. Every move. You have contacts. Use them. Whatever it costs."
Rao, still shaken, nodded mutely and scurried away, melting into the mid-morning crowds. He was a man who knew how to find things out. It was why he had survived so long.
Harsh then turned to his own fortress: the alcove. He spent the next hour with Deepak and Sanjay, not on repairs, but on accountancy. They meticulously organized every invoice, every sales receipt, every ledger entry for the past three months. The numbers told a clean, simple story: a successful electronics repair and small-scale wholesale business. There was not a single mention of diesel, kerosene, or oil. The money from Venkat Swami's shipments was carefully laundered through fake purchases of "expensive components"; the money from his own stolen operation was buried deep and did not touch these books.
It was his shield. His alibi.
The next twenty-four hours were a masterclass in psychological warfare. Harsh made himself conspicuously busy at the alcove, the model of a legitimate entrepreneur. But his ears were straining for every sound, his eyes tracking every stranger.
Prakash Rao was his eyes and ears. The reports came in fragments, delivered by urchins or whispered during quick meetings in tea shops.
Sawant's team pulled Kersi's financial records from the bank. They interviewed his former employees, asking about his "new ventures." They found a small, locked warehouse in Kurla that Kersi had rented under his brother-in-law's name.
Each report was a small victory. Sawant had taken the bait. He was chasing the ghost Harsh had created.
But then, on the second day, Rao brought a different kind of news. His face was grim.
"The ghost was here," he whispered, finding Harsh in the back of the alcove. "He did not come to you. He came to me. At the scrapyard."
A cold knot tightened in Harsh's stomach. "What did he want?"
"He asked about the police. He asked if Sawant had been to see me. He asked if I knew anything about... diesel." Rao's eyes were wide with fear. "He knows, Harsh Bhai. Not everything. But he knows something is wrong."
Venkat Swami's intelligence network was better than the police's. Of course it was. Sawant's investigation was causing ripples, and those ripples had reached the leviathan in the deep.
"What did you tell him?" Harsh asked, his voice tight.
"I told him what you told the Inspector. That I had heard rumors about Ghorpade and Kersi. That it was bad for business. I played stupid." Rao swallowed hard. "He listened. He said nothing. Then he left. But his eyes... he did not believe me."
The cage was closing in from both sides. The law on one side, the underworld on the other. He was trapped in the middle.
That evening, as Harsh was closing the steel shutters of the alcove, a newspaper boy thrust the evening edition into his hands. The headline was about the escalating tensions in the Gulf. But his eyes were drawn to a smaller, single-column story at the bottom of the front page.
"Former Electronics Merchant Questioned in Fuel Theft Racket."
The article was brief, light on details, but it named Kersi. It mentioned the "ongoing investigation" and the "sophisticated operation." It was a leak. Sawant was turning up the heat, using the media to pressure his suspect.
Harsh allowed himself a moment of grim satisfaction. The plan was working.
But as he folded the paper, a movement across the street caught his eye. A man was standing in the shadow of a doorway. He wasn't looking at Harsh. He was reading the same newspaper.
It was the ghost.
He slowly lowered the paper, his flat, dead eyes meeting Harsh's across the busy street. There was no nod. No recognition. Just a long, chilling stare that seemed to last an eternity.
Then, he did something he had never done before. He raised his hand and made a small, deliberate gesture. He pointed two fingers at his own eyes, then slowly, pointed those same two fingers directly at Harsh.
The message was as clear as it was terrifying.
I am watching you.
Then he turned and disappeared into the dusk.
Harsh stood frozen, the newspaper crumpling in his fist. Sawant was chasing Kersi. But Venkat Swami was no longer looking at Kersi.
He was looking only at Harsh.
He had survived the police. But he had drawn the full, attention of the true power in the city. The unseen hand that controlled everything was now closed into a fist, and it was pointing directly at him.
The blame game was over. The real game had just begun.
(Chapter End)