They think I want power.

They think I want control, money, fear, a throne built on blood and broken men. They whisper my name in fear-filled rooms and assume I am just another king hungry for a bigger crown.

They are wrong.

Power was never my goal.

It was only the road.

Mumbai stretches beneath my balcony like a living beast—restless, breathing, glowing in artificial light. From here, the city looks obedient. Small. Almost harmless. The same city that swallowed my sister and spat her back to me in pieces.

I rest my hands on the railing, knuckles white, eyes scanning streets I already own. Every dock, every illegal warehouse, every corrupted official bows when my shadow passes.

And still, it is not enough.

Because Anaya is not here.

She should have been standing behind me right now, complaining about the smell of cigarettes, telling me to sleep more, scolding me for becoming someone darker than I used to be.

She should have been alive.

Anaya was never meant for this world of guns and blood. She belonged to softer things—sunrise tea, old songs, books with folded corners, laughter that came easily. She believed people were good, even when they showed her otherwise.

I warned her.

God, I warned her.

But she smiled and said, “Bhaiya, you can’t fight the world forever.”

She was wrong.

The world came for her because it couldn’t touch me.

I remember the night clearly. The air was heavy, the city unusually quiet. I was in a meeting—another negotiation, another territory dispute that meant nothing in the long run. My phone vibrated once.

Unknown number.

I ignored it.

That decision will haunt me longer than death ever could.

The second vibration came with a video attached.

Something in my chest tightened before I even opened it. Instinct. Fear. A brother’s curse.

The screen lit up.

And my world ended.

Anaya was on her knees, hands tied, hair messy, face bruised but still defiant. Even then, even broken, she looked strong. Stronger than the men surrounding her.

She was crying—but quietly. Like she didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.

The camera angle was wrong. Deliberate. Whoever filmed it wanted me to see everything.

A man stepped into the frame. His face was hidden. Masked. Coward.

He spoke calmly, almost politely.

“This is what happens when you forget your place, Shaan Singh Rathore.”

My name.

My blood froze.

Anaya lifted her head then, eyes finding the camera. She knew. She knew I would see this.

“Bhaiya,” she whispered.

That one word shattered something inside me that will never heal.

I don’t remember screaming, but my throat burned. I don’t remember throwing the phone, but it cracked against the wall. I don’t remember breathing.

I remember her scream.

I remember the sound.

I remember the way the video ended—not with mercy, not with silence, but with cruelty meant to echo forever.

They didn’t just kill her.

They sent her death to me.

That was the moment power stopped being ambition.

It became necessity.

I hunted everyone even remotely connected to that night. Gangs disappeared. Men begged. Lies were ripped out along with fingernails and teeth. Streets ran red enough that even Mumbai flinched.

But the man in the video?

Gone.

No name. No face. No trace.

Just a ghost who thought himself untouchable.

I turn away from the balcony, the city lights blurring for a second. My chest tightens the way it always does when I think of her. Grief is a strange thing—it doesn’t fade. It sharpens.

People say time heals.

They lie.

Time teaches you how to function with a wound that never closes.

I didn’t take over Mumbai because I wanted to rule it.

I took it because Mumbai remembers everything.

Someone always knows something.

Fear loosens tongues.

Money buys silence, but power breaks it.

Every territory I claimed, every enemy I crushed, every alliance I forced—each one brought me closer to the truth. To the man who thought killing my sister would end me.

Vivian once asked me, late one night when blood still stained his sleeves, “Why don’t you stop now? You already have everything.”

Everything.

I almost laughed.

I don’t want everything.

I want her.

Or at least… what’s left of her.

Her body was found three days later. Dumped like garbage. The police called it a “gang-related incident.” I made sure the officer who said that never spoke again.

I identified her myself.

I wish I hadn’t.

There are images you can never erase. Scars that don’t show on skin.

I didn’t cry then.

I promised.

I promised her I would find the man responsible. That I would make him feel every second of fear, every ounce of helplessness he forced on her.

And then more.

Much more.

People think I’m cruel.

They have no idea how restrained I am.

I sit at my desk now, files spread out, maps marked with territories, photos of men who are either dead or praying not to be next. In the center, locked away, is a drive.

The clip.

I watch it sometimes. Not because I want to—but because I need to remember why mercy is a luxury I cannot afford.

The man who sent it wanted to break me.

Instead, he created me.

One day, I will find him.

I will find his name, his face, his family, his fear. I will strip him the same way he stripped my sister of her future. He will beg. He will cry. And I will make sure he understands one thing clearly before he dies:

This was never about power.

This was about love.

A brother’s love twisted into vengeance.

Mumbai will burn quietly until it gives me what I want. And when I finally stand over him, when I look into his eyes and see realization dawn—

Only then will this city truly be mine.

Because I didn’t conquer Mumbai to rule it.

I conquered it to force it to remember my sister.

And to deliver me the man who dared to take her from me.