Twisted Thrones

The Hunt Begins 4

Wednesday,

Inside A Dark Room

He woke to the taste of dust and the cold of metal against his cheek. Voices. Far away. His tongue felt enormous, useless. Movement. He tried to push his hands. They didn’t move. He realized his arms were bound to the chair that held him upright, the rope embracing him like a second skin. He opened his mouth to scream. The tape sealed it.

Panic was quick and bright. He flexed his fingers. The thought that kept coming was practical and sharp, one phone call, fifty men, ten minutes and the racket of the city would erupt and they would come with guns. He pictured Raju da, the sub-leader, skinny,tall, smooth, all smirks and threats, who would tear the room apart in five minutes if only Chhotu could call. He thought of the Chintu gang. He thought of the girl's boyfriend, sharp-faced, small, but with quicker hands than Chhotu had guessed. He thought of escape routes, of the slab of cracked road out front, of the one window that might still be open.

A shape moved out of the dark. The man was all black, hood, mask, jeans, an absence in motion. He carried himself like someone who didn’t waste small gestures. He paused a step away and tilted his head, listening to the ragged music of Chhotu’s breaths.

“You’ll tell me what I need,” the black figure said. The voice was a wire pulled tight. Calm. Without hurry. It was Arnab!

Chhotu tried to spit words through the tape. They came out as wet, frustrated sounds. Arnab reached out, slapped him across the ear. The sound ricocheted between the concrete walls.

Again Chhotu lunged to speak. Arnab only watched, as if testing him, measuring the exact moment when defiance turned to pleading. He moved like a judge. He moved like a man who had practiced patience until it became a weapon.

“Who sent you that night?” Arnab asked.

Wuu wuu. Breathless noise. Nothing articulate. Panic. The sort of animal noise a cornered animal makes.

Arnab smiled, a small flash. It had no warmth. It had the geometry of a knife. “Oh,” he said. “I almost forgot.” He reached into his pocket, slow. He crouched and looked Chhotu in the face. He peeled the tape from his mouth in one motion, as if unwrapping a small, useful present.

The first sound that came out was a raw, human plea. “Help—”

Arnab moved like a man who had rehearsed violence in the mirror too often to believe in mercy. He brought his hand up and pressed something hard into Chhotu’s hand, metal, cold. A screwdriver. It pierced through Chhotu's hand and got stuck on the chair handle. His scream filled the room when pain flared through the limb. He thrashed, for a moment, a wild, undirected animal, until he hit the chair back and exhausted himself into ragged sobs. Blood gushed out from the wound, painting his shirt with red.

“Listen,” Arnab said, and his voice was paper-thin but steady. “You’re going to tell me everything about Raghav Da’s operations in the north docks. Who moves the shipments. Who collects the cash. Who sleeps where. Names. Times. Numbers. Or you can scream for ten hours and I’ll be the one counting.”

Chhotu’s eyes were wide; tears cut tracks in the grime on his face. “I don’t know,” he managed. “I swear…I swear—”

Arnab’s fist landed again, this time his other hand. It was a precise, economy strike. Both his hands were now pierced by the screwdriver. Chhotu slumped and breathed like a man whose legs had been cut from under him, screaming on the top of his lungs. Arnab waited for him to quite down while holding the screwdriver.

“You know,” Arnab said, quieter now. “You danced close to their music. You sold small favors. You ran errands. Men like you have a ledger. Start singing, and the ledger opens.”

Names were a map. Names were currency. He searched the thug’s face. He watched for flickers, micro expressions that betrayed memory.Arnab leaned in.

“Who went with you that night?” Arnab asked, slow, almost conversational, as if they were discussing cricket scores and not a body.

Chhotu’s eyes slid to the right, looking for escape in an empty wall. "Wh-Where?"

"Eastern bypass." said Arnab with a cold expression.

"I- I was alon–"

Before he could finish the sentence, the screwdriver came down again. This time it gushed into his right thigh. Pain flared through his leg again. He thrashed like a wild animal, screaming his lungs out.After Chhotu quieted down a bit, Arnab spoke,

"Now, now, why don't you be a good boy and tell me everything? The pain will go away, I promise."

“Santu,” he spat, his chest heaved like a hammer on a stone, the name was pushed out like a curse. “And Tapu. They waited in the car.”

“Which car?” Arnab pressed, voice level, precise.

“Blue Alto. Old. Number plate...” His mouth worked, trying to hold pieces together. He couldn’t. He gave the number as if it were a cough.

“A driver?” Arnab’s tone hadn’t changed. He let the question hang.

Chhotu’s breath hitched. “Driver’s name was Munna. Big guy, with muscles.”

“And the order?” Arnab asked. “Who sent it? Who asked you to go after Amal Ghosh?”

A long, ragged sound escaped Chhotu. “Raju da called. Said there’s money. Said orders from...” He stopped. The words caught.

“From who?” Arnab’s voice sharpened, just a fraction.

Chhotu swallowed. The room seemed to shrink. “Raghav Da,” he managed. The name landed in the air like a stone.

'So the order came straight from the Top level?' Arnab thought, 'Why would a gang boss want a Scientist dead?' but he didn’t show surprise. He had wanted it, needed it. “Raju da passed the order?”

“He came by the bar. Gave the envelope. Said: ‘Do it. Quiet. Clean. No witnesses.’ Said Raghav da wants him gone. Said payment upfront.” Chhotu’s hands fumbled against the rope. “I don’t know why. I swear I don’t know the reason.”

“You didn’t ask?” Arnab’s tone suggested disbelief, but it was rhetorical.

Chhotu blinked. “You don’t ask questions when Raghav da’s right hand man opens his palm. You don’t ask when Raju da smiles and says ‘do it tonight’. You just do.”

Arnab watched him. Chhotu's admission filled a gap and shifted the shape of the problem. Santu. Tapu. Munna. Raju da as the executor. Raghav Da, the gang boss himself moved shadows like chess pieces. Motive? Unknown. A hole where motive should be, and yet the machinery had run smooth.

“Where did Raju meet you after?” Arnab asked, softer now, baiting the last knot loose.

“At the tea stall by the old bridge.Told us to wait. Said Raghav da would call. Then after he called Raju da gave us the money. That’s all.”

Arnab leaned back, the facts stacking in his head like neat boxes: names, vehicles, meeting points. Each box had an address. Each address had a link. Names were coordinates. He had what he needed to start drawing lines.

Minutes crept like cold water. Afterwards Chhotu gave pieces, small, broken, like fragments of pottery. A driver. A code phrase.Raghav Da. A container packed with something coded as “white cloth.” A safe house at the edge of the docks. One name, then another.

The room smelled of dust and the animal tang of fear. Outside, the city went on: a scooter cutting a corner, the distant wail of a TV seller's transistor, the patient rumble of a late-night bus. None of it touched the little dark room where a man bled answers.

When the rhythm of confessions ran thin, Arnab stopped. He stood against the single lamp that hummed overhead. He watched Chhotu shudder on the chair, his hands slick in the ropes.

“You’ll call Raju da,” Arnab said. “You’ll tell him there’s a man who knows too much. You’ll tell him you were taken. You’ll tell him to look to the north docks. Maybe he’ll come. Maybe he’ll bring men. Maybe he’ll burn the wrong house. That’s not my concern.”

Chhotu’s lips trembled. “I’ll—I'll tell him—”

“You'll do nothing of the sort,” a second voice cut in, close enough to be a cold blade. The black hoodie of Arnab moved aside for the first time to reveal a figure in the doorway, a smaller figure leaning, arms folded. Gaurav. He watched like a man who preferred the arithmetic of risk to its theater.

Chhotu’s face registered the betrayal as if it were another blow. He groped for the phone in his pocket in a reflex, but the rope held.

Arnab smiled again. “You see,” he said to the thug, “you imagine you’re protected by numbers. Men. Loyalty. You think someone will come. Tonight you will learn who will and who won’t.”

He leaned forward and pressed close so the thug heard every syllable. “Raghav runs a kingdom built of fear. People bow because they must. But kingdoms leak. Names fall through the cracks. You were lucky tonight. You lived longer than you should have.”

Chhotu sobbed. The sound was wet, small, a child's sound in the mouth of a man who had shown no mercy until now.

Arnab rose. He looked at Gaurav. Gaurav nodded once.

They left the kid in the chair. The tape back over his mouth. The ropes binding him still neat. In front of Chhotu, the door closed with a quiet click.

When Chhotu stilled, it was a small, human undoing: breath slowing, a body exhausted by shock and pain. He stopped fighting. He stopped making noise. The room hummed. The lamp ticked. Outside, a dog barked twice.

By morning, the alley would find its story. The rumor would travel in two directions, some would say the Chintu gang had disappeared him; others would whisper that Raghav meant to send a message. A few, who knew the city’s real ledger, would draw the line back to a cafe booth and the soft exchange of a paper bag.

Arnab walked away as if from a necessary thing. He had asked his questions. He had broken the silence that protected Raghav’s logistics for the north docks. For him, the arithmetic was simple: a name gained, a network weakened.

Gaurav lit a cigarette and took the first draw. He hadn’t shown surprise once. He never did.

Arnab had the ledger in his head now

A list, a map. Names and places. The hunt had begun.