Nick Verma slumped in the corner of his cell, the dim, flickering light throwing jagged shadows across his face. The smell of damp stone and disinfectant mixed with the metallic tang of old blood lingering in the corridors—a scent that made his stomach churn. The prison was alive with its own brutal rhythm: doors slammed with harsh finality, inmates yelled and laughed, chains clanked, and distant footsteps echoed like ominous drums. Yet to Nick, it was nothing more than a muted backdrop to the storm raging in his mind.
Sid was dead. And with him, a piece of Nick had been ripped away.
> "Chains are for the weak," he muttered, brushing his fingers against the cold metal bars. They felt rigid, unyielding—but weaker than his resolve.
Memories of the night replayed over and over in his mind, each one sharper than the last: Sid lying on the floor, eyes wide and unseeing; the phone call that never came; the fragments of surveillance footage he had envisioned, moving like a ghost reel through his thoughts. It was no accident—every death, every betrayal had been calculated to cut deep.
Nick's chest tightened as a memory surfaced: Sid laughing quietly in the library, sliding a book across to him with a conspiratorial grin. Sid had always been the lighter part of him, the brother who could make even the darkest moments feel bearable. And now, that light was gone.
Raghav, his hulking cellmate, stirred, sensing the intensity in the air. "You're not just angry… you're obsessed," he said cautiously.
Nick turned, his gaze cold and burning. "Obsessed? No. Focused," he corrected. "You don't understand what it's like to lose someone who was the center of your world because of a careless girl and her mistakes. You don't understand the blood debt she's created… or the chaos she's unleashed."
He rose, pacing slowly but with purpose. Every step on the stone floor echoed in the emptiness of the cell, as if marking out a battlefield only he could see. He began drawing imaginary lines, measuring distances, calculating angles—mentally memorizing everything: guards' routines, their blind spots, the way shadows fell across the corridors. Every detail mattered, and every detail was another key to freedom and revenge.
> "When I walk out of here," he whispered, voice low and lethal, "the world will pay. The school… the agency… every person who touched Sid's life. No one walks away unscathed."
He paused at the small barred window. Beyond it, the city of Jaipur lay under the rain-soaked night, its palaces gleaming wetly, streets empty and glistening. To anyone else, it might have seemed peaceful. But to Nick, it was a chessboard, every building, every alley a piece he could manipulate, every shadow a potential ally—or enemy.
Returning to his cot, he unfolded a tiny, crumpled sheet of paper he had hidden beneath the mattress. Scribbled notes, contacts, calculations, and cryptic symbols covered the page. Each one was a step toward vengeance, a thread leading to the people who had been part of Sid's death. He traced the words with his finger:
> "Chains of blood… Every life, every secret, every lie… it ends with her."
His mind drifted briefly to the moment Sid had whispered a secret to him—something so trivial, yet full of trust. That memory was a blade, cutting sharper than any knife. Rage coiled in his stomach, a living thing, feeding on grief, twisting and sharpening his thoughts.
The storm outside deepened, and thunder rolled across the city like the drumbeat of war. Nick leaned back against the wall, eyes closing for just a second. In that instant, he imagined the chaos he would orchestrate—the control he would seize, the terror he would instill, the confrontation he had waited years to experience. A cruel smile formed on his lips, cold and precise.
The chains around his wrists were heavy, binding his flesh—but the chains of vengeance inside him were heavier, unbreakable, forged in pain and sharpened by loss.
> "I will be free soon," he whispered into the shadows, "and then… she will see what blood truly means."
The cell was silent, but Nick felt the pulse of the storm—inside him and outside. Every night, every thought, every breath fed the fire that would soon engulf the world he had once known. Sid had been the spark. Nick would be the fire.
And the world would burn.
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