#22 : ASHES OF THE HOUSE.

Crimson Fangs Temporary Hideout – 13:46 HRS

The silence that followed Kiyaan Malik's declaration wasn't peace.

It was the kind that weighed on your chest. Heavy. Suffocating.

A war cry spoken softly—but the echo rang louder than any explosion.

He had planted the knife in the map. Blood still stained his hands. The Crimson Fangs, once feared across Mumbai's underground, had been humiliated on their own soil. The Black Fang had returned—but even legends bled.

And we'd all seen it.

Kiyaan stepped back from the map and lit a cigarette with shaking fingers. It was the only time I had ever seen his hands tremble.

Not from fear.

From grief.

From fury.

From the burden of leadership in a war that had become personal.

No one dared speak.

Until Meena did.

"How many... did we lose?"

Kiyaan exhaled smoke, eyes dark.

"Thirty-six dead. Nineteen wounded. Three executives critical. Mourad..." He stopped himself. "…Gone."

A grim silence settled.

Yash leaned against the wall, his usual cold demeanor fractured. "They didn't just want to send a message."

"They wanted to erase us," Vijay finished.

He wasn't wrong.

They'd struck the heart of our organization. Not for territory. Not for supplies. But to cripple us. To challenge us.

To provoke us.

"And it worked."

Rudra's voice cut through the room like a blade. Calm. Measured. Deadly.

He walked to the map and traced the knife with a gloved hand. "They're not just baiting us. They're preparing for something. The First Affiliate wouldn't reveal themselves unless they were ready."

"They're not a footsoldier division," Meena added. "They're military. Every move they've made—timed. Precise. Even the uniforms were new."

"They're the main branch," I said. "This is what it's all been building to."

Yash rubbed his temples. "We took out Raaka and Sana. They'll replace logistics. They'll recruit new kids. But the First Affiliate… that's the brain."

"And now," Rudra said, "they're acting like they've already won."

No one said it aloud—but we were all thinking the same thing:

If this was a chessboard… we'd lost the queen, two rooks, and half the pawns.

And the king was finally moving.

---

14:12 HRS

The team disbanded temporarily. We needed rest, bandages, a minute of breath. But no one really rested.

Meena sat at her laptop, her injured wrist strapped. Her eyes darted across live data feeds and satellite overlays.

"I've been tracking digital signatures tied to the Serpents' known networks. The First Affiliate uses proxies that bounce through untraceable foreign nodes—military-grade firewalls. But last night… one of their drones pinged a tower in Bhandup West."

"Sloppy," Yash muttered.

"No. Intentional," she replied. "They wanted us to see it. Bhandup isn't just a cover. It's bait."

"Then we let them bait us," Rudra said, re-entering the room in a new jacket, one sleeve ripped after the fight with Raaka. "But we go in our way. No full frontal assault. We bleed them like they bled us."

I looked around.

This team had fought death. Betrayal. Each had bled for the cause.

But this?

This would be the real war.

---

Vijay's POV– 14:47 HRS : 

I stood in the back room, staring at a broken photo frame of Diya.

My sister.

Gone.

Raaka was dead. The pain in my chest—lighter. But not gone.

Because justice wasn't peace.

And revenge wasn't closure.

I clenched my fists. They still throbbed from the fight.

I thought about the children in Agnidwar.

I thought about our dead brothers at the HQ.

How long before we became like them?

I didn't know anymore.

But I knew one thing:

The First Affiliate had to fall.

Even if I had to die doing it.

---

Meena's POV – 15:03 HRS : 

I didn't cry when I saw Mourad's name on the death list.

But I felt it.

He'd trained me once. Not with kindness, but with purpose.

He was the first one to tell me I wasn't weak.

That I didn't need to prove my worth to anyone.

Now he was gone.

So I worked faster.

Tracked harder.

Planned deeper.

Because if we failed now—

His death would mean nothing.

---

Rudra 's POV – 15:30 HRS : 

Pain. Bruises. Scars.

They didn't matter.

Raaka was gone. My past buried with his corpse.

But the First Affiliate wasn't about my past.

It was about what came next.

They'd declared war on the Fangs.

So I'd return the favor.

With bullets.

With fire.

With truth.

---

Kiyaan Malik – 15:51 HRS : 

He stood outside the hideout, smoking again. Alone.

His shirt was soaked in blood—some his, most not.

He didn't flinch.

He didn't speak.

He just stared at the burning sun.

The fire behind his eyes never wavered.

He had lost friends. Brothers. His own blood.

He wasn't planning vengeance.

He was calculating extinction.

And for the first time in years…

He felt alive again.

---

Crimson Fangs Temporary War Room – 16:15 HRS

We regrouped.

One last time before the next descent.

The whiteboard was now a war map. Strings. Pins. Coordinates.

The First Affiliate's operations were guessed—but not known.

Their boss?

Still a shadow.

Meena looked up. "There's something strange. The files we recovered from Agnidwar mention a project called 'Zero Witness.' It's redacted almost everywhere. But I've got a partial location."

She zoomed in on the map.

A dense industrial sprawl near Thane.

Abandoned.

Private land.

Fenced off since 2013.

I narrowed my eyes.

"Zero Witness. That's where it begins."

Kiyaan finally entered the room again.

Silent.

He looked at us—one by one.

"Whatever's waiting there," he said, "we end it."

He turned to me.

"You lead this op, Amit. You've earned that."

I didn't speak.

I just nodded.

Because for the first time since this all began—

I wasn't afraid anymore.

I was ready to burn the Serpent from the inside out.

---

TO BE CONTINUED