CHAPTER 10: "DEEPER INTO DARKNESS"

  One week later, Vikram Sharma was a ghost in his own life.

  He went to work, he came home, he called Priya every night and lied that everything was fine.

  But his real life began when the sun went down.

  He had become obsessed.

  His dining table was covered in maps of South Delhi, printouts of grainy photos, and timelines.

  He was applying the same analytical rigour to the gang that he applied to complex software architectures.

  He knew where they ate.

  He knew where they drank. He knew their shifts.

  The Dhaba in Nehru Place was their staging ground.

  Between 8 PM and 10 PM, the mid-level enforcers gathered there to count the day's collections.

  The gambling den was in a basement in Garhi, near East of Kailash.

  That was where the money went.

  But knowledge wasn't enough.

  He needed power.

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  On a Wednesday evening, he drove to Seelampur.

  It was a part of Delhi most people pretended didn't exist—a maze of e-waste recycling shops, open drains, and desperate poverty.

  Through a contact he had found on a dark web forum—a risky, terrifying gamble—he met a man named Rafiq behind a scrap metal yard.

  Rafiq was missing two fingers and smelled of kerosene.

  He looked at Vikram—the polo shirt, the nervous sweat, the soft hands—and laughed.

  "You lost, sahib? The call center is in Gurgaon."

  "I'm here for the item," Vikram said, his voice steady despite his racing heart.

  He held up an envelope.

  "Cash. Twenty thousand."

  Rafiq stopped laughing.

  He snatched the envelope, counted the notes with practiced speed, and nodded.

  He reached into a pile of rusted car parts and pulled out a cloth-wrapped bundle.

  It was a country-made pistol.

  A 'khatta'.

  Crude, heavy, ugly.

  The metal was rough, the handle wrapped in black electrical tape.

  "One shot," Rafiq said.

  "Maybe two if you are lucky. Don't rely on it for a war. It jams."

  "I only need it for... protection."

  "Sure, sahib. Protection."

  Rafiq handed him a small box of 8mm cartridges.

  "Don't shoot your own foot off."

  Vikram drove home with the gun under his seat.

  It felt like it was radioactive.

  That night, he sat in his living room, holding the heavy, cold weapon.

  He practiced lifting it.

  Aiming it.

  His hand trembled less than it had at the riverbank.

  He looked at his wall of research.

  He had identified a target.

  Salim. A mid-level enforcer who reported to Karan Malhotra.

  Salim was the one who collected from the brothels on GB Road.

  He was vicious, known for beating women who held back earnings.

  Vikram stared at the photo of Salim—a blurry shot taken from a distance outside a tea stall.

  Salim was laughing, his mouth open, gold chain glinting.

  Fear was receding.

  In its place, a cold, hard calculation was crystallizing.

  It was like the cooling of lava into rock.

  IfI kill him, I hurt their revenue.

  I send a message.

  I disrupt the system.

  It wasn't self-defense anymore.

  It was preemptive strike.

  It was war.

  Vikram realized with a jolt that he wasn't horrified by the thought of killing again.

  He was strategizing it.

  The software engineer was optimizing the process of murder.

  He loaded the gun.

  The metallic click was loud in the silent house.

  "I'm coming for you," he whispered to the photo on the wall.