"Veransh Mishra!" the speaker thundered, his voice echoing against the cold walls of the conference room. His fist came down hard on the polished table, making the water glasses rattle. "You'd better choose your words carefully! Matthias is with us!"
The room grew heavy with silence. A chill seemed to crawl up Veransh's spine, and for a fleeting second, he considered escaping. But his eyes hardened with determination.
"I may not hold the same power as you all," he said, his voice trembling at first but rising with conviction. "Yet I know what's right.. and whatever Adler is doing, it is wrong!"
A low, calm voice cut through the tension. "Enough." Matthias leaned back in his chair, his face unreadable, though his eyes gleamed with quiet authority. "What he's doing is not a big deal."
"Be mature-" Veransh shot back, surprising everyone in the room.
Matthias's jaw tightened, his teeth clenching so hard the muscles in his face twitched. No one had ever dared speak to him like that. He leaned forward slightly, his tone chillingly composed. "If you ever try to cut me down, I'll take that jaw of yours right off your face."
The speaker, flustered, quickly intervened. "Sir-! The meeting is over. Our next destination is India!" Without waiting for objections, he stormed out of the room, leaving the air thick with unspoken threats.
Adler Matthias- the name alone carried weight in Europe's underworld. Known as one of Germany's most feared mafia leaders, Adler had risen swiftly. At only twenty-four, he founded a group called Kai. Within a single year, his reputation spread like wildfire, and his enemies shuddered at the mention of his growing empire.
By twenty-six, Adler's obsessions had begun shaping his life. He fixated on a woman named Martha, not out of love, but an uncontrollable hunger for her beauty. Martha later bore him a son Matthias. But Adler's eyes soon wandered again, this time to a woman named Greta. When Matthias was three, Greta gave birth to Leonhard.
Years later, Martha fell gravely ill. Despite her suffering, Adler refused to step forward. His pride, cold and unyielding, mattered more than saving her. She died when Matthias was just eleven, leaving the boy with scars no one could see.
Perhaps fearing history would repeat itself with Greta, Matthias pressured Adler to marry her, binding her fate to the family. Adler, who desperately wanted Matthias to join Kai, complied without resistance. For Leonhard's sake, he married Greta, though loyalty had never been his true nature.