Crimson Fangs Temporary Hideout — 03:38 HRS
I stood alone in the garage.
Oil stains on the floor. Tools clattered in distant trays. The van we'd rebuilt sat there like a waiting beast—polished armor, reinforced shell, teeth hidden behind the steel.
Everything looked ready.
But inside me?
Everything was cracking.
Leadership wasn't a title. It was a weight. And every second I wore it, it dragged deeper into my spine.
The Serpents were quiet.
Too quiet.
And that meant they were thinking.
Plotting.
Worse—preparing.
Meena's screens had gone cold. Yash was tightening the perimeter. Vijay… was silent again.
We were all bracing for something we couldn't see.
And that was the scariest kind of war.
---
04:03 HRS
Yash sat near the doorway, going through a list of missing persons connected to the third affiliate. He didn't say a word when I walked in.
Just handed me the list.
I scanned it.
Then froze.
One name stood out—Inspector Dev Sharma.
Missing. Presumed dead. No media coverage.
But I'd met him once.
He was one of the last honest cops my father had trusted before he was murdered.
"Where did this come from?" I asked.
Yash finally spoke. "Danny decrypted an old comms line the Serpents abandoned. Sharma was tracking smuggling activity in Kurla before he disappeared."
"Before the third affiliate even rose," I whispered.
Which meant this wasn't sudden.
It was planned.
---
05:27 HRS
I walked to the rooftop again.
Needed air.
Or maybe just the illusion of it.
Vijay stood there, arms folded, watching the city as if daring it to hurt him again.
"Heard about Dev Sharma," he muttered.
I nodded.
"You think he's dead?"
"I think the Serpents don't leave loose ends."
Vijay said nothing.
But the rage in his silence said more than words ever could.
He turned to me.
"There's a pattern to them."
"What do you mean?"
"They don't just kill."
He looked at the skyline—grey, cracked, choking in smoke.
"They replace."
I frowned.
"First Diya. Then the runner. Now an inspector."
He stepped forward, voice tight.
"What if they're not eliminating threats… but reshaping the system?"
It hit me like a freight train.
Because if that was true—if they were building something beneath the destruction…
We weren't in a war.
We were in a takeover.
---
Later that morning — Intel Room
Meena pulled me aside.
"I backtraced the metadata from that encrypted message," she said, chewing on her gum like it was someone's neck.
"It didn't come from any Serpent device."
I blinked. "Then who—"
"It bounced off a proxy. Military-grade encryption. And guess where it originated?"
She turned the screen.
A facility.
Abandoned on paper.
Government-owned on record.
But it was circled in white paint in one of Raaka's warehouse maps.
"North Bandra," she whispered.
"A ghost zone."
And just like that, every piece twisted.
This wasn't turf anymore.
This wasn't crime.
It was something else.
---
Midday – Mechanics Bay
Danny adjusted the targeting alignment on the van's mounted drone. His hands moved with robotic precision, but his eyes… weren't focused.
"You alright?" I asked.
He didn't look up.
"Had a weird dream," he murmured.
"About?"
He paused. Then whispered:
"Diya was driving this van. Smiling. Wearing Vijay's jacket."
I didn't know what to say.
He handed me a wrench.
"She said something before I woke up."
"What?"
Danny finally looked up.
"She said, 'The city remembers. Even when people don't.'"
I froze.
Because that wasn't Danny's imagination.
That was a message.
---
17:46 HRS — CRIMSON FANGS ASSEMBLY ROOM
Yash and Meena had pieced together something big.
There were three known Serpent affiliates.
But there were four zones on Raaka's blueprint map.
One of them was unnamed.
No turf lines.
No personnel tags.
Just a white ring.
Inside the ring? A simple word, scribbled in tight, jagged handwriting.
"Agnidwar."
"Means 'Gate of Fire' in Sanskrit," Meena muttered.
"No known neighborhood goes by that name," Yash added.
I stared at the word.
Something about it chilled me more than Raaka's voice ever did.
Because this wasn't gang lingo.
This was… something older.
---
UNKNOWN LOCATION
Raaka walked through a steel corridor. Alone.
He carried the envelope the woman in the shawl gave him—sealed with a crimson serpent mark.
He reached a door guarded by two silent men in black masks.
He handed the envelope over.
They didn't ask questions.
Just opened the door.
Inside: red light. Rows of monitors. A chamber that looked like a tech lab fused with a ritual site.
In the center stood a child.
No older than twelve.
Barefoot. Pale. Staring at the wall.
"Is he ready?" Raaka asked.
One of the guards nodded.
Raaka smirked.
"Good. Let him see them suffer."
He turned and walked out, leaving the child staring at a wall of faces—TheCrimsonFangs—lit up in grayscale on the monitors.
The screen zoomed in on Vijay.
Then on Amit.
---
Back in the Hideout — 19:23 HRS
I sat down and finally said it aloud.
"We've been reacting for too long."
Everyone turned.
Meena. Danny. Yash. Even Vijay.
"No more chasing leads," I said. "No more waiting for attacks."
Vijay stood.
"You're saying we go after them?"
I nodded.
"But not loud. Not reckless. Surgical."
Danny cracked his knuckles.
"You got a target?"
I looked at the map. At the ring. At the word.
Agnidwar.
"Let's see what's behind the fire."
TO BE CONTINUED