Slight mention of blood ‼️

Chapter 11 :

Kaaryaksh's POV

The Russian Roulette’s cylinder spun under my gaze. Each click echoed like a taunt, the single bullet rattling inside as though deciding for itself whether my victim today would crawl back to life—or be buried by nightfall.

My eyes drifted from the revolver to the man in front of me. He was tied down to a rusted metal chair, wrists chafed raw, ankles already swelling against the steel grip. His mouth was the only part of him left free, but even that trembled like it wanted to shut forever.

I tilted my head, studying him. Usually, I liked this part. The way fear stripped a man bare before me, the way power made their souls twitch. But today? Today I wasn’t in the mood to savor vulnerability. I was in the kind of mood where even the air irritated me—where I could kill without flinching, without waiting, without regret.

Unfortunately for him, he picked today to test me. Wrong day. Wrong move. Wrong man.

I let the silence stretch. Silence suffocates better than a rope.

“Why today?” I asked finally, voice low. “Why the fuck did you have to pick today, of all days?”

The question caught him off guard. His panic flickered into confusion, but the fear didn’t leave—it sat heavy in his eyes, dripping down his temples with his sweat.

I leaned forward, a faint chuckle curling in my chest. “So tell me—what were you thinking before you aimed at me?”

The audacity still amused me, even in my rage. Five years under my command, five years breathing because I allowed it, and he thought he could pull the trigger on me? Pathetic. Admirable, in a way, but mostly pathetic.

“S-Sir, I’m sorry, I won’t repeat this,” he stammered, voice shaking, tears spilling. The usual begging. The same script every rat recited when death finally showed them its face.

I tilted my head and mocked him, voice breaking like his. “S-Sir, I’m sorry, I won’t repeat this.” My lips curled into a cruel smile. “Don’t you all get tired of saying the same shit?”

His throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Tsk.” I clicked my tongue, my voice sharpening, clipped and edged with warning. “That wasn’t my question. I asked—what. Were. You. Thinking?”

My patience was already hanging by threads. My body was here, in this basement, but my mind—my mind was somewhere else entirely, dragging me down into a place much darker than him and his pitiful pleas.

“Fucking tell me!” I snapped, slamming the gun’s grip against the wound in his leg—the one I’d carved open earlier with my pocket knife.

His scream tore through the room, bouncing off the walls, followed by a wet splatter as fresh blood leaked down his shin. Normally, the sound calmed me. Today, it scraped my nerves raw. Something that used to give me peace was only feeding my fury.

My jaw tightened until my teeth ached. “I’m not wasting my time with trash like you,” I hissed. “Spit it out. Who ordered you?”

He dared to lift his eyes. “B-But you’ll kill me after that, sir.”

The defiance in his voice snapped something in me. I drew in a sharp breath through my nose, steady but poisonous. “Listen carefully. The chamber has one bullet. A special bullet. Coated in poison.” I leaned close enough for him to smell the truth of my words. “If you stay silent, and this goes off—you’ll die slower than you ever thought possible. You’ll beg me to finish you, but I’ll just watch. Your choice.”

He froze. His breath came ragged, like he was chewing glass. His forehead dripped blood from a cut. His leg throbbed open, raw and pulsing. His whole body trembled, beaten and broken. And still—still—he clung to the useless instinct to live.

I scoffed. Survival was ugly to watch.

“Time’s ticking,” I said flatly. I spun the chamber again, shoved it back in, and pressed the barrel against his forehead. Metal to skin. Life to death.

His body shook violently. His eyes went wide, wide enough I could almost see the moment he realized: there would be no escape today.

“Suraj Damodaran,” he croaked finally.

The corners of my mouth twitched into a ghostly smirk. Of course. A part of me already knew. But hearing it out loud still made me laugh inside.

“He really thinks with his dick,” I muttered, chuckling darkly and shaking my head. Fools like Suraj always did.

I bent forward, resting my elbows on my knees, head heavy with a frustration that refused to loosen. And there she was again—her image slamming into me, the same woman haunting every shadow of my mind.

I snapped upright, pulled the gun free, and shot him in the left arm.

His scream echoed through the basement, filling the cracks in the concrete walls. But I didn’t flinch. This place was already thick with screams, soaked in curses, layered with the sound of agony that never really left. The walls remembered. And so did I.

This was what I had built myself on—pain, ruin, the discipline of cruelty. I had broken myself down to nothing, only to forge something harder, sharper. Something merciless.

I stood, sliding the gun back into my belt. Peeling off my leather gloves, I tossed them to the guard by the door. My coat waited on the table; I slipped it on as though shrugging into armor.

“Is the CCTV still recording?” I asked Jake, who followed quietly behind.

“Yes, sir. They’re under observation. Want me to show you?”

I nodded once. “In my office.”

Minutes later, I sank into the swivel chair behind my desk, body heavy but veins thrumming. A paperweight rolled between my fingers, restless. My eyes burned holes into the tablet screen in front of me.

And there she was. Laughing. Free. Alive in ways I couldn’t give her yet. The sight tore at me. My veins ached, my muscles burned with the urge to smash the screen to dust. It was unbearable, seeing her happiness shaped by someone else’s hands.

My vision blurred, tinged red, twisting my sanity into something feral. She had infected me from the first glance—sunk into me like venom. No matter how I despised the weakness, I couldn’t shake her hold.

And since I wanted her, I’d take her. Nothing in this world could stop that.

I exhaled a ragged breath. “Get his details. And her file. One hour. Not a second late.”

“Yes, sir.” Jake bowed and left.

I stayed staring at her. At the man beside her. My teeth ground together. I could snap my fingers and have his body dumped in the river by midnight. But killing him too soon would push her away—and I wasn’t letting her slip from me.

She’d stepped into my life, and from this moment forward, I’d write the script. She was mine.

A dark smile tugged at my reflection in the tablet’s black screen. I pulled a cigarette from my case, black paper with a gold butt. Lit it. Dragged deep. White smoke curled from my lips, bitter and poisonous, filling my lungs like she already had.

Her presence ran through me like blood. Her fragrance in my breath, her face in every pulse. She was carved into me now—woven into the mess I had made. She could never get away.

The vibration of my phone cut through my haze. My eyes snapped open. I crushed the cigarette into the ashtray, reached for the device.

And when I saw the caller’s name—my whole mood soured, collapsing cold.

The fire she lit in me iced over in an instant.

I put the phone to my ear. “What?” My tone was dead, empty.

“Where are you?”

“Where the fuck do you think I am?”

“I’m coming to your office.”

“Why?” My frown deepened. My mood was already ashes—now this voice was willing to grind it further.

“Why? Can’t I come?”

“No.” My tone cut like a blade. “This is my office. I don’t drag personal life into it.”

“Whatever,” she snapped. “I’ll be there by five. There’s a party. You’re coming with me.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, exhaling through clenched teeth. “Do whatever the fuck you want. I’m not going anywhere.”

I hung up without waiting for her answer.

She had a way of ruining what was already ruined. If I could rewrite the world, I’d change everything. But reality didn’t bend—not yet.

I slammed the phone onto the desk, the sound sharp in the silence. Pushing back from the chair, I stood, ready for the meeting ahead.

Under my breath, a promise slipped out, low and venomous.

“I swear, doll… you’re driving me insane. But soon—you’ll be in my arms. Soon.”

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