The city was still asleep, but chaos had not.
Samruddhi clutched the steering wheel as Arpan sat next to her in silence, both speeding through Mumbai's dawn-lit roads like sinners of chance. The skyline was a blur, but their minds were as sharp as razors.
"Why did you not inform me that she was this close to Rina?" Samruddhi bit, her voice cracking.
Arpan's fingers tapped against his knee. "Because I didn't know until I saw that photo. Kavya always said she met my mother briefly. Never suggested she lived with her. Never spoke of. loyalty."
Samruddhi's lips grew thin. "She's been playing both of us."
"No," Arpan replied slowly. "She's been playing everyone."
They reached Kavya's Bandra apartment in fifteen minutes, breaking every traffic law on the way. The building stood regal and quiet, the kind of place where secrets wore perfume and sins drank champagne.
The door was ajar.
Arpan drew his gun. "Stay behind me."
"Don't be ridiculous," Samruddhi said, pushing past him. "I've seen more corpses than you've given orders."
They stepped inside. The apartment was abnormally quiet. A steaming coffee cup remained on the marble counter. Classical music played softly from a Bluetooth speaker.
Then Samruddhi noticed it.
A board.
On the wall.
With strings and pictures. A conspiracy chart. But not any conspiracy—their lives. Arpan, Samruddhi, Devraj, Jai, Rina. All the betrayals. All the links.
And in the middle?
A picture of Rina More. Smiling. With a post-it:
"My mother. My mistake."
Samruddhi's blood chilled. "She knew her real mother was Rina. She lied to you."
Arpan's face darkened. "Kavya. isn't even her real name."
A laptop sat open on the dining table. Arpan clicked the screen.
A video began to play.
Kavya, or whoever she really was, stared into the camera.
"If you're watching this, it means I've vanished—or chosen to. My name was never Kavya Deshmukh. It's Karishma Rina Jadhav. My mother was Rina More. And I've waited twenty years to finish what she started."
She inhaled sharply.
"The More dynasty was not constructed upon violence—upon betrayal. My mother attempted to reveal it. Devraj muted her. My father—your father, Arpan—blindly looked away. And Jai Jadhav. he opted for survival rather than love."
Samruddhi sat down, shocked.
Karishma went on. "You two were always the fuse and the flame. But you don't know the bomb. It's in the heart of the city. Disguised in a property Devraj has bought using a false name. I discovered it. And I'm going tonight."
She moved in closer.
"There's a book. A physical one. Names, dates, murders. The original underworld bible. If it comes out, the More name is over. And so is the farce Mumbai knows as law and order."
The video shut off.
Silence reasserted itself.
Arpan gazed at the empty screen. "She's targeting the source."
Samruddhi glanced up. "We need to locate her first."
Elsewhere, in a dark vault under an empty warehouse in Coloba, Karishma stood alone, flashlight in hand, dust kicking up with each step.
She arrived at a rusted locker—peeling paint, stubborn hinges.
Within, wrapped in oilcloth, was the ledger.
She opened it. Names. Blood money. Government officials. Journalists. Police.
Her fingers halted on one name:
Jai Jadhav.
Tears welled.
"You betrayed her too," she whispered. "All of you did."
Behind her, footsteps.
She turned, pistol raised.
A shadow moved.
Then a voice she knew: "You were never meant to find this."
She gasped. "Uncle. you?"
The shadow moved into the light.
ACP Raghav Rao.
Gun drawn.
Smile cold.
"Time to finish what she began," he said. And shot.
To be continued.