The three hundred crore was a ghost. It existed as encrypted data in a Singaporean server, a number of staggering weight that somehow made Harsh feel weightless, untethered from the very world it was supposed to grant him dominion over. In the stark, silent luxury of his Malabar Hill apartment, the victory felt like a medical condition—a numbness that had spread from his extremities to his soul. The frantic calls from his office about the Income Tax raid, the final, shattered silence from Priya—they were distant alarms from a life that was crumbling while he stood, frozen, in a fortress of his own making.
For three days, he was a specter. He drank water, not tasting it. He stared at the sea, not seeing it. The phantom fortune was a crown of thorns, and every remembered digit of its sum felt like a spike driven deeper. He had won the ultimate gamble and had lost everything that gave the win meaning.
On the fourth morning, as a pale sun struggled through the monsoon haze, a sound pierced the sterile silence. Not the insistent ring of the telephone, but the harsh, electric buzz of the building's intercom. He almost didn't answer. But the voice that crackled through the speaker was an anchor thrown into his drifting void.
"Harsh Bhai. It's Deepak."
A jolt, like a defibrillator to his soul. He pressed the entry button without a word.
Deepak stood in the vast, minimalist living room, looking as out of place as a soldering iron on a marble altar. His clothes smelled faintly of machine oil and solder, a scent from a lifetime ago. He didn't glance at the panoramic sea view or the expensive art. His eyes, dark and unwavering, went straight to Harsh, taking in the hollowed cheeks, the shadowed eyes, the man crumbling inside the palace.
"They have taken the computers. The paperwork. They have sealed Rahim's office," Deepak reported, his voice a low, steady rumble, devoid of panic or accusation. It was the tone he used to diagnose a faulty circuit—factual, calm. "But they did not touch the workshop floor. They called the machines 'fixed assets.' They poked them with their pens and moved on." A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. "They do not understand that the asset is not the machine, but what it knows how to do."
Harsh said nothing. He just waited for the blow, the well-deserved recrimination for leading them all to this precipice.
"But that is not why I am here," Deepak continued, his gaze softening a fraction. "Alexei and Dmitri… they have finished the prototype. The new receiver board. It is done."
He reached into the worn leather satchel he always carried and held out a small, unassuming circuit board. It was a thing of beauty, clean and elegant, the green fiberglass etched with precise, coppery pathways, the solder joints gleaming like tiny, perfect pearls under the apartment's downlights. It was tangible. Honest.
"Sanjay took it to National Telecom yesterday," Deepak said, and now a flicker of defiant pride broke through his grim demeanor. "Without telling them who it was from. He presented it as a sample from a new startup, 'Nava Bharat Electronics.' Their chief engineer, a man who has seen everything, tested it. He called it… 'revolutionary for the price point.' They signed the letter of intent this morning. Five thousand units. A firm order."
The words hung in the air, a life raft of solid oak thrown into the stormy sea of his abstract ruin. Five thousand units. It was a pittance, a rounding error compared to the hundreds of crores he had gambled and won. And yet, the simple, concrete reality of it felt more substantial than any number on a screen. It was an order. A promise. A future.
"How?" Harsh finally croaked, his voice raw from disuse. "After everything… the scandal, the raids… why are you still there? Why are you still doing this?"
Deepak looked at him, his loyalty a stark, unchanging monument in the shifting sands of Harsh's life. "You built the alcove, Harsh Bhai. You gave a street boy a purpose, not just a paycheck. You gave us a family. Then you built the factory. You gave us a future. You got lost in the clouds for a while, building castles in the sky." He gestured vaguely at the opulent surroundings. "But the foundation you first built for us? That was made of stone. It is still there. We are still standing on it. And we are still building."
He stepped forward and placed the circuit board carefully on the glass coffee table. It was a silent challenge, a call to arms.
"The order is in the company's name. The company the taxmen have tied in knots. To fulfill it, we need raw materials. We need to pay the workers, Bhaiya. Our accounts are frozen." Deepak's gaze was unwavering, forcing Harsh to meet it. "The foundation is strong. But it needs cement. Only you can provide it now."
The meaning was clear. The ghost money in Singapore. The blood-money profit from the crash he had engineered. It was tainted, earned through a destruction that had ruined countless others and cost him the woman he loved. But it was also the only thing that could save the one good, pure thing he had created with his own hands—the company, the team, the tangible proof that he was more than a speculator.
It was the ultimate test of his soul. Would he use the fruits of his corruption to preserve his last shred of legitimacy?
Harsh looked from Deepak's steadfast face to the elegant circuit board, a masterpiece born of patience and skill. He saw his entire journey in that single moment—from the hundred-rupee note to the soldering iron, to the smuggled VCRs, to the dizzying, hollow victory in the stock market, to this devastating, clarifying valley. The boy who fixed radios was still in there, buried under the weight of phantom billions.
He turned without a word and walked to his desk. He opened a laptop that was unconnected to any of his Indian businesses or accounts, a machine that existed only to access the ghost. He initiated a complex series of encrypted commands, his fingers moving with a purpose they had lost days ago.
"Give me the bank details for this 'Nava Bharat Electronics'," Harsh said, his voice finding a new, quieter strength, stripped of arrogance and filled with resolve. "One we will set up today. Clean. Untouched by any of this. The first transfer will be ten crore. Use it. Buy the finest materials. Pay the workers a bonus for their faith. Secure the National Telecom order." He looked up at Deepak, a flicker of the old fire returning to his eyes. "And tell Alexei and Dmitri… the next bottle of vodka is the best money can buy. They have earned it."
A slow, deep smile spread across Deepak's face, the first real smile Harsh had seen in what felt like a lifetime. It was a smile of victory, not over the market or a rival, but over despair itself. "They will be happy. They said you had the eyes of a maker, not a money-changer. They will be glad to see you have come back to your tools."
After Deepak left, the apartment was silent again, but the silence was different. It was no longer empty; it was charged with potential. Harsh picked up the circuit board. He felt its satisfying weight, the cool, smooth texture of the fiberglass, the tiny, precise pathways of copper that carried the promise of music and connection. This was real. This was a thing that could be held, that could create, that could provide jobs and pride and a legacy that was not built on sand.
The three hundred crore would remain a ghost, a weapon in the shadows to be used sparingly, surgically, to protect this new, fragile beginning. The fight was not over. The taxmen would still come. The political allies were still gone. Priya was still a wound that felt fresh and mortal.
But he was no longer staring into the abyss. He was looking at a circuit board. He was listening to the echo of Deepak's loyalty. And for a man who had started his second life with a soldering iron in a grimy alley, that was enough. It was more than enough. It was everything he needed to begin again.
He had built an empire on sand and watched it wash away. Now, he would return to the foundation of stone. This time, he would not leave it.
(Chapter End)