The money trail led to a nightclub.
Of course it did.
Bharat stared at the address Ayesha's codes had unlocked—financial records buried so deep it had taken him six hours and two sedative injections just to stay conscious long enough to find them. The temple's organ trafficking operation ran through shell companies, offshore accounts, encrypted transfers.
But it all funneled through one place.
The Gilded Cage.
Downtown Mumbai.
A club so exclusive you needed three referrals and a background check just to get on the waiting list.
The perfect front for moving illegal money.
The perfect trap.
Bharat printed the records. His hands were steadier now—the sedative doing its job, keeping the bells at a manageable roar instead of a skull-splitting scream. He had maybe three hours before it wore off.
Three hours to find someone who could crack the rest of the network.
Three hours before the pain came back.
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
"Mr. Singh."
Mr. Voss.
The lawyer who seemed to know everything and say nothing.
"I'm busy," Bharat said.
"I know. You're looking at financial records that could get you killed. Very busy."
Silence.
"How did you—"
"Because I'm good at my job. And because you're about to make a very stupid decision."
"Which is?"
"Trying to crack temple encryption by yourself. You're a civil servant, Mr. Singh. Not a hacker. You'll trigger their security protocols and be dead before sunrise."
"Then what do you suggest?"
"I suggest you meet someone."
"Who?"
"A professional. Someone with the skills you lack and the morals to match."
"You're being deliberately vague."
"I'm being appropriately cautious," Voss corrected. "Her name is Peacock. Real name unknown. Occupation: information broker. Specialty: making impossible things possible for the right price."
"What's her price?"
"That," Voss said, "is between you and her. I'm just making the introduction."
"Why?"
"Because Mira asked me to."
"Everyone keeps saying that."
"Because it's true. She's paying me a considerable amount to keep you alive, Mr. Singh. Try not to waste her money."
The line went dead.
Bharat's phone buzzed.
New message. Address. Time.
The Gilded Cage.
11 PM tonight.
Private room 7.
"Come alone. Come unarmed. Come desperate."
The Gilded Cage was velvet and vice.
Dark wood. Darker secrets.
The kind of place where money bought silence and silence bought survival.
Bharat showed his invitation—a digital code Voss had sent—to the bouncer. The man scanned it. Face expressionless. Like he'd seen a thousand people walk in and knew exactly how many would walk out.
"Seventh floor. Private lift. Don't wander."
"Wasn't planning to."
The elevator was gold-plated. Mirrors on every surface. Bharat watched his reflection multiply into infinity—pale, exhausted, eyes bloodshot from three days without real sleep.
He looked like a corpse.
Felt like one too.
The bells were getting louder.
Even with the sedative, even with the brief respite Ayesha's drugs had given him—the noise was always there. Background radiation. A frequency he couldn't escape.
GONG.
GONG.
GONG.
The elevator opened.
Seventh floor.
One hallway.
Seven doors.
All closed except one.
Room 7.
Light spilling out like an invitation.
Or a trap.
Bharat walked in.
The room was a study in controlled chaos.
Screens everywhere—walls covered in monitors showing data streams, surveillance feeds, encrypted communications. In the center: a circular desk, three keyboards, and a woman who looked like she'd been designed by someone who thought danger should be beautiful.
Peacock.
Mid-twenties.
Dark skin.
Gold jewelry that caught the light like warnings.
A smile that said she knew exactly how attractive she was and exactly how to weaponize it.
"Mr. Bharat Singh."
Her voice was smoke and honey. Accented—British boarding school underneath Mumbai streets.
"The civil servant who married into hell. How delightful."
She didn't stand.
Didn't offer her hand.
Just watched him with eyes that analyzed like a contract and dissected like a scalpel.
"You're Peacock."
"Obviously."
"Your real name?"
"Is none of your business. Sit."
She gestured to a chair across from her. Leather. Expensive. The kind that probably cost more than Bharat's monthly salary.
He sat.
"You need something cracked," Peacock said. "Temple financial network. Offshore accounts. Organ trafficking routes. The whole rotted infrastructure."
"How did you—"
"Because that's the only reason Voss sends people to me. And because I've been watching your digital footprint for the past week. You're good for an amateur. But amateurs get caught. And caught people get harvested."
She spun one of her keyboards around. Showed him a screen.
It displayed everything.
Every search he'd made.
Every file he'd accessed.
Every security protocol he'd almost triggered.
"You're three mistakes away from being dead," Peacock said cheerfully. "Lucky for you, I like a challenge."
"What's your price?"
"Straight to business. I appreciate that."
She leaned back. Crossed her legs. The movement was calculated—designed to draw the eye, to distract, to remind him she held every card.
"My price is simple," she said. "I want a contract."
"What kind?"
"The binding kind. The Guardian kind."
Silence.
Bharat's pulse kicked.
"You want me to bind you into a contract? Why?"
"Because binding contracts are the only thing in this world that can't be broken by money, power, or connections. They're absolute. And I need something absolute."
"For what?"
"Protection."
She said it like it was obvious.
"I've made enemies, Mr. Singh. Powerful ones. People who want me dead or worse. A standard NDA won't stop them. A legal agreement won't stop them. But a Guardian contract?"
Her smile widened.
"That's insurance."
"What kind of contract are you asking for?"
"A love contract."
Silence.
Absolute.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. I want a binding love contract. The kind that says if I die under suspicious circumstances, you're obligated to avenge me. Hunt down whoever killed me. Destroy them completely."
"That's insane."
"That's survival."
"I'm already married."
"I know. To Mira Kapur. Under a contract that's 90% business, 10% desperation. This would be different."
"How different?"
"Completely fake. Entirely pragmatic. No emotions. No expectations. Just a binding that keeps me alive and gives you the hacking expertise to take down the temple."
Bharat's head was spinning.
The bells were screaming.
GONG. GONG. GONG.
"Why would the Guardian Authority even accept a fake contract?"
"Because," Peacock said, "the Authority doesn't care about truth. It cares about form. Structure. Proper wording. You make the contract, speak the vows, seal it with intent—it binds. Whether the love is real or not."
"That's—"
"Brilliant?"
"Dangerous."
"Also brilliant."
She stood. Walked around the desk. Stopped close enough he could smell her perfume—something expensive and sharp, like crushed flowers and powdered glass.
"Here's the deal," she said. "You bind me into a love contract. Fake. Professional. Purely transactional. In exchange, I crack every encrypted file the temple has. I give you access to their entire operation. Names. Locations. Buyers. Everything you need to burn them to the ground."
"And if I say no?"
"Then you die. Slowly. Screaming. While the bells eat what's left of your sanity and the temple harvests everyone you love."
Silence.
Just rain against the windows.
And bells.
Always bells.
Bharat tried to think.
Tried to find the trap.
But his vision was fracturing—
The Contract Vision activating without permission—
Showing him layers:
Layer 1: Physical reality
Peacock standing there. Smiling. Dangerous.
Layer 2: Contract potential
Threads of binding energy already forming around her—waiting, ready, hungry for activation.
Layer 3: System analysis
╔═══════════════════════════════════╗
║ CONTRACT REQUEST DETECTED ║
║ TYPE: LOVE BOND (FABRICATED) ║
║ PETITIONER: PEACOCK (ALIAS) ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════╣
║ AUTHENTICITY: 0% ║
║ STRUCTURAL VALIDITY: 100% ║
║ BINDING POTENTIAL: HIGH ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════╣
║ WARNING: SYSTEM ACCEPTS FORM ║
║ OVER SUBSTANCE. CONTRACT WILL ║
║ ACTIVATE REGARDLESS OF INTENT. ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════╣
║ COST: 15 AUTHORITY ║
║ CURRENT AVAILABLE: 2/100 ║
║ STATUS: INSUFFICIENT RESOURCES ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════╝
"I don't have enough Authority to bind you," Bharat said.
"You will."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're going into the temple tomorrow. And when you do, you'll either gain Authority—"
"—or die."
"Exactly. So here's my offer: You survive. You gain Authority. You come back. And you bind me into the prettiest fake love contract the Guardian system has ever seen."
"And if I don't survive?"
"Then I find someone else. But I'd prefer you. You're desperate enough to be reliable and smart enough to be useful. That's a rare combination."
She extended her hand.
"Do we have a deal?"
Bharat looked at her hand.
At the gold rings on her fingers.
At the screens behind her showing the temple's network—vast, encrypted, impossible to crack without her.
At the future where he had to choose:
Die trying alone.
Or survive with a binding that might destroy him differently.
"I need to think about it."
"You have twelve hours. After that, the offer expires. And you're on your own."
"Why twelve hours?"
"Because that's when the sedative wears off and the bells start getting really interesting."
Her smile was sharp.
Knowing.
"Tick tock, Mr. Singh."
Bharat left the club at midnight.
Rain pouring.
City blurring into rivers of light and shadow.
His phone buzzed.
Message from Mira:
"Where are you?"
"Meeting someone."
"Who?"
"A hacker. Might be able to help."
"What's the price?"
Bharat stared at the screen.
At the question he couldn't answer.
Because the truth was insane.
And the lie would be worse.
"Complicated," he typed.
"How complicated?"
"The kind that might require another fake marriage."
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
"What?"
"Long story. I'll explain tomorrow."
"Bharat—"
"I have to go. The bells are getting loud."
"Take the sedative."
"Already did."
"Then come home."
Home.
She'd said home.
Not the apartment.
Not the safe house.
Home.
Like he belonged somewhere.
Like he wasn't just a contract with a countdown.
GONG.
GONG.
GONG.
The bells screamed.
And beneath them—
A new voice.
Not Arjun.
Peacock.
"Twelve hours, Mr. Singh. Choose wisely."
Bharat closed his eyes.
Felt the rain.
Felt the weight of every binding, every contract, every choice that led him here.
To a place where love was currency.
Where marriage was a weapon.
Where the only way to save someone—
Was to bind yourself to someone else.
"Two contracts," he whispered.
"Two wives."
"One real."
"One fake."
"Both traps."
The question wasn't whether he'd survive.
Was whether anything real would be left when he did.
His phone buzzed again.
System notification:
╔═══════════════════════════════════╗
║ CONTRACTUAL ANALYSIS UPDATED ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════╣
║ CURRENT BINDINGS: 1 (MIRA KAPUR) ║
║ PENDING BINDINGS: 1 (PEACOCK) ║
║ MAXIMUM CAPACITY: 3 ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════╣
║ WARNING: MULTIPLE LOVE CONTRACTS ║
║ CREATE BINDING INTERFERENCE. ║
║ FAILURE RATE INCREASES 35% PER ║
║ ADDITIONAL CONTRACT. ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════╣
║ RECOMMENDATION: TERMINATE ONE ║
║ BINDING BEFORE ADDING ANOTHER. ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════╝
Bharat stared at the screen.
At the math of his life reducing to percentages.
To failure rates.
To choices that weren't really choices at all.
"Twelve hours," he said to the rain.
The city didn't answer.
Just kept drowning.
Just kept spinning.
Just kept waiting to see which contract would break him first.