Swindon, England – Safe House | 6:32 AM
The air was thick with the smell of stale blood and disinfectant. Silence loomed heavy like fog clinging to skin. The sun had just begun to rise, casting pale amber streaks through the half-drawn blinds of the safe house they had gathered in after the hospital.
Kiaan sat on the edge of the couch, still in the same torn clothes, his shirt crusted with dried blood—most of it not his. A fresh bandage was taped to the back of his head where he had been injected, but there was something else in his expression today. Not just exhaustion or satisfaction.
Relief. And something deeper.
A quiet kind of pride.
He raised his eyes slowly to the group—Rehaan leaning against the wall with crossed arms, Dev gulping down black coffee, Tara typing furiously on her laptop, and Zid standing near the window, staring out with unreadable eyes.
"You know," Kiaan began, breaking the silence, "there's one thing no one asked after the chaos settled."They all looked at him.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, voice calm but deliberate. "Who shot Dr. Darian Voigt?"A beat of silence passed. Confused looks flicked between the agents. Dev frowned. Tara blinked, her hands hovering over the keyboard."No one thought about it…" Kiaan continued, his tone growing sharper now. "We were all chasing the van. Trying to trace signals. Running protocols. But when that bullet hit him—clean, precise, no second shot—it stopped him from touching me. Exactly before he tried to touch me again."Rehaan's brow furrowed. "We assumed one of our units got a shot from a rooftop. But no one claimed it.""Exactly," Kiaan snapped his fingers. "No one."
He stood up slowly, walking toward the window where Zid remained unusually quiet. "You were close, Zid. Weren't you?"
Zid didn't move. He just kept staring outside.
Kiaan tilted his head, studying him. "But I'm guessing you weren't the one holding the rifle."Still no reply.Tara looked up, her voice barely above a whisper. "Are you saying someone outside the operation pulled that shot?"Kiaan nodded, lips curving into a knowing smile. "Someone not in this room."
Dev stepped forward. "Wait, are you saying—?"Kiaan interrupted with a slow exhale. "I didn't get another mark that night. I didn't become a trophy for a sick bastard. And you know why? Because someone took a decision—unofficially, unsanctioned—to protect me."He turned to Zid now. "And you know who it was. Don't you?"
Zid remained frozen for a second before offering the faintest twitch of a smirk. But he said nothing.Rehaan narrowed his eyes. "If there's a sniper we didn't authorize, that's a breach of—""No," Kiaan cut in, voice dropping low. "It's not a breach. It's personal."Everyone went silent.
In his heart, Kiaan knew. Rex.
Rex Malhotra had eyes on him all along.
And he wasn't going to let anyone—not even a psychopath—dare mark what he had already claimed.Kiaan slowly walked back to the couch, sinking into it with a quiet breath of gratitude.
"You all think we closed a case," he murmured. "But someone out there wasn't just chasing justice. They were watching me. And they didn't hesitate."Tara looked around at the team. "Then why wouldn't Zid just tell us?"Zid finally turned from the window, his voice low. "Because some things... aren't meant to be written in reports."
And just like that, the room fell into an even heavier silence. Not of doubt, but realization.
The killer hadn't failed.He'd been warned off.
And Kiaan? He might've closed one chapter—but he was still owned by a shadow darker than the one they'd caught.