The ghost of Arun Patel was now a phantom of the financial markets, a name whispered in brokerages with a mix of awe and fear. The account, bloated with profits from the oil trade, was a weapon of immense power. But a ghost could not wield it. A ghost could not walk into a bank, could not hire men, could not look another man in the eye and claim what was his.
Harsh Patel had to return from the dead.
He started not with a declaration, but with a whisper. A rumor.
He went to the one place where information was currency and loyalty was a flexible concept: the street. He found Ganesh, the once-proud goon, now looking diminished and anxious. The economic pinch had hit the foot soldiers hardest; their hafta collections were down, their importance fading.
"Ganesh," Harsh said, stepping out of the shadows of a spice-laden alley.
Ganesh jumped, his hand twitching toward the knife in his waistband. Then he recognized Harsh. His eyes widened, not with fear, but with a kind of superstitious dread. The man was supposed to be broken, gone. Yet here he stood, not as a ragged victim, but with a quiet, unnerving stillness.
"Patel? They said you were—"
"They were wrong," Harsh interrupted. His voice was calm, devoid of the desperation Ganesh was used to hearing. "The money is drying up, isn't it? Swami's money. The flow has slowed to a trickle."
Ganesh's shoulders slumped, confirming everything. "It is a bad time. For everyone."
"It doesn't have to be," Harsh said. He didn't offer a bribe. He offered a narrative. "The man who built this," he gestured around them, at the market, "is bleeding. His ships are idle. His warehouses are empty. He is weak. And when a king is weak, his courtiers start to look for a new king."
He let the words hang in the air. He was not asking for loyalty. He was stating a fact of the jungle.
"I have no money to give you today, Ganesh. But I have a message. Spread it. Tell them Harsh Patel is back. Tell them the man who broke Swami's shipyard is the same man who broke the oil market. Tell them there is a new current in the ocean. And it is flowing my way."
It was a breathtakingly audacious claim. But the beauty of it was its impossibility to verify. The shipyard scandal and the oil crash were two seismic events. Linking them to one man was insane. And yet, in the vacuum of Swami's weakness, the insane became plausible. It became a legend.
Ganesh, a simple man of brute force, looked confused, then intrigued. He was being offered not money, but purpose. A side to choose in the coming shift.
"The ghost... Swami's man... he will hear this," Ganesh warned.
"Let him," Harsh said. "Let him tell his master. The message is for him, too."
He turned and walked away, leaving Ganesh to become his first, imperfect herald.
The next stop was more dangerous. He went to see Prakash Rao, the scrap dealer. The man who had been his first supplier, his first connection, and the first to be squeezed by Swami's power.
Rao's yard was quieter than usual. He looked older, worn down by fear and a struggling business.
"Harsh Bhai?" he whispered, as if saying the name too loud would summon demons. "You should not be here. They are looking for you. The ghost came again yesterday. He was... angry. The questions were sharper."
"I know," Harsh said. "He is afraid."
"Afraid?" Rao laughed, a nervous, brittle sound. "He is the one who makes others afraid!"
"Not anymore," Harsh said. He reached into his pocket. He didn't have much, but he had withdrawn a small amount of cash from a different bank, a tiny fraction of Arun Patel's wealth. He handed Rao a stack of rupees. "For the scrap you lost. For the business he cost you."
Rao stared at the money as if it were a venomous snake. "I cannot take this! He will know!"
"He will know that loyalty to me is rewarded," Harsh corrected, his voice firm. "He can only punish. I can provide. Tell me, Prakash, which is stronger? Fear of pain, or hope for gain?"
He left the money on a stack of rusted radiators. "The railway auctions will be open to you again soon. And when they are, I will need your help. Not for scraps. For something bigger."
He didn't wait for an answer. He was rebuilding his network, not by demanding, but by investing. He was planting seeds of hope in the barren soil of fear.
His final visit of the day was the riskiest. He didn't seek out the ghost. He knew the ghost would find him.
He waited in the open, near the entrance to the docks, a place that had once been his prison. He didn't have to wait long.
The man in the white kurta appeared, as if materializing from the heat haze rising from the tarmac. But the calm, implacable aura was gone. His movements were tighter, his eyes sharp with a new, frustrated anger. The empire was fraying, and it was his job to hold it together.
"You are making a mistake," the ghost rasped, dispensing with any preamble. "A fatal one."
"I am correcting a previous one," Harsh replied. "I allowed you to define the battlefield. I fought on your terms. I won't make that error again."
"The oil?" the ghost asked, the question sharp, probing. He had heard the rumors. He was trying to connect the dots.
Harsh just smiled, a cold, thin expression. "The ocean has many currents. Some are deeper than others."
The ghost took a step closer, his voice dropping to a menacing whisper. "He will not be bled dry by market tricks. He will come for you. Personally. There will be no more games. No more warnings."
"I am counting on it," Harsh said, his own voice equally quiet. "Tell him I am tired of dealing with messengers. The next time he wants a conversation, he can come himself."
The audacity of the statement left the ghost momentarily speechless. No one demanded an audience with Venkat Swami.
Harsh turned his back on him, a deliberate, calculated insult. He walked away, not quickly, but with a slow, deliberate pace that showed he was not afraid.
He felt the ghost's eyes on his back, a palpable pressure. The message had been delivered. The challenge had been issued.
Harsh Patel was no longer hiding. He was drawing a line in the sand of the Mumbai docks.
He had returned. And he was inviting the emperor to come and try to kill him himself.
The debt collector was open for business.
(Chapter End)