CHAPTER 5 — WHEN MONSTERS GO HUNTING
995 Words
The warehouse smelled like rust and seawater.
It stood near an abandoned dock on the outskirts of Mumbai, far from traffic, far from witnesses, far from mercy.
Rain tapped softly against the metal roof, a quiet rhythm that did nothing to ease the terror of the man tied to the chair in the center of the room.
His name didn’t matter.
Men like him were tools.
Disposable.
His lip was split, one eye swollen shut, clothes soaked from being dragged through puddles and thrown into a van. His breathing came in short, panicked bursts as he stared at the concrete floor.
Footsteps echoed.
Slow. Measured.
The kind of footsteps that belonged to someone who had never rushed for anything in his life.
A pair of polished black shoes stopped in front of him.
The man dared to look up.
And immediately wished he hadn’t.
Rurik Morozov didn’t raise his voice.
Didn’t need to.
Power sat on his shoulders like a perfectly tailored coat — effortless, suffocating.
“You touched her,” Rurik said quietly.
The man shook his head wildly. “I—I didn’t know who she was! I swear! I was just told to grab her—”
Rurik tilted his head slightly.
“Told,” he repeated.
One of his men stepped forward and struck the captive across the face. Not wildly. Not emotionally. Just enough to remind him of his position.
Rurik crouched down so their eyes were level.
Up close, his gaze was worse than shouting.
It was calm.
Controlled.
Certain.
“She was frightened,” Rurik said, almost thoughtfully. “She ran.”
The man whimpered. “Please… I didn’t hurt her, I swear—”
“I know,” Rurik said.
That terrified him even more.
Because it meant this wasn’t about what he had done.
It was about what he almost did.
Rurik stood and walked slowly around him, like a predator assessing prey that had already been caught.
“Who sent you?”
“I—I don’t know his real name—”
The sound that came from the man next wasn’t a scream at first.
It was a sharp gasp.
Then a cry.
Then desperate, broken pleading that echoed off the metal walls.
Rurik didn’t look angry.
Didn’t look rushed.
He simply watched.
Waited.
Pain, when applied correctly, had a language of its own. And everyone eventually learned to speak it.
Minutes passed.
Or maybe longer.
Time moved strangely in places like this.
Finally, through tears and shaking breaths, the man choked out a name.
“Viktor Sokolov! He—he paid us! Said she was leverage! Said Morozov had something in India he cared about—”
Silence filled the warehouse.
One of Rurik’s men shifted uncomfortably.
Because now this wasn’t just an incident.
It was a message.
Rurik turned away slightly, jaw tightening just a fraction.
Sokolov.
An arms dealer. Former ally. Now competitor.
Greedy. Reckless.
And apparently suicidal.
“Thank you,” Rurik said softly.
Relief flooded the captive’s face.
He thought that meant mercy.
It didn’t.
Rurik gave a small nod.
His men understood.
They moved forward, and Rurik walked toward the open warehouse doors, rain mist drifting in from the dark sea beyond.
Behind him, the man’s pleas grew louder.
Then stopped.
The rain kept falling.
Unbothered.
Later That Night — Moscow
Mikhail stood across from Rurik in his office, tension heavy in the air.
“Sokolov is expanding into South Asian routes,” Mikhail said. “If he thinks Divya is leverage—”
“He doesn’t think,” Rurik interrupted calmly. “He reacted.”
Mikhail hesitated. “What are your orders?”
Rurik walked to the window, city lights reflecting in his eyes like distant fires.
“He wanted my attention,” Rurik said.
A pause.
“He has it.”
Mikhail exhaled slowly. “War, then.”
Rurik didn’t answer right away.
His thoughts weren’t in Moscow.
They were in a dim street in Navi Mumbai.
On a girl dropping medicine strips in fear.
On her running.
On someone daring to make her feel unsafe.
“Yes,” he said at last.
“War.”
Navi Mumbai — The Next Evening
Divya sat by her window, watching the sunset paint the sky in orange and pink.
Her arm still ached faintly where she had been grabbed.
Her mother had insisted she stay home from college, but Divya hated feeling trapped.
Still… she couldn’t deny something had changed.
The world didn’t feel ordinary anymore.
Twice that day she had the same strange sensation — like danger had come close…
…and then disappeared.
Like a storm that had almost hit but turned away at the last second.
She wrapped her arms around herself, whispering, “What is happening to me?”
A soft breeze moved the curtain.
For a moment, she could’ve sworn she felt… protected.
Not safe.
But watched over.
She didn’t know that hundreds of kilometers away, men were mobilizing.
That shipments were being intercepted.
That alliances were shifting.
That her name had been spoken in rooms filled with weapons and maps and men who would kill without hesitation.
She didn’t know a war had begun.
Because someone tried to touch a girl who cried at a train station.
Moscow — Midnight
Rurik stood alone in the dark, phone in hand, looking at a surveillance still image of Divya entering her building earlier that day.
Alive.
Unharmed.
Unaware.
His thumb brushed lightly over the screen before he locked it.
“Sokolov,” he murmured to the empty room.
“You chose the wrong girl.”
Outside, snow fell over Moscow.
In Mumbai, warm winds moved through the night.
And between those two cities stretched a thread of fate, pulled tighter with every violent decision made in the dark.
They still hadn’t met.
Hadn’t spoken.
Hadn’t even been in the same country at the same time.
But already…
People were dying in the space between them.
- Writer
