Chapter 1
1: Stranger in the Rain
The alarm pierced the quiet for the fourth time, its insistent trill slicing through the haze of sleep like a scalpel.
"Bas yaar..." a groggy voice muttered from beneath a mountain of fluffy white blankets.
A slender hand emerged, groping blindly across the bedside table. It toppled a half-read novel with a soft thud before finally locating the phone and silencing the offender with a decisive swipe.
Five blessed seconds of silence followed.
Then the alarm blared again.
Ruhi Rathod bolted upright, her long brown hair a wild curtain across half her face. She groaned, pushing the tangled strands away with both hands.
"Why do I even bother setting alarms if I’m never going to wake up on the first ring?" she muttered, yawning so dramatically her jaw cracked.
With the reluctance of a soldier heading into battle, she dragged herself out of bed and padded toward the balcony.
Morning light poured into her high-rise apartment through floor-to-ceiling windows, bathing the space in liquid gold. Fifteen floors above Mumbai’s chaotic arteries, the city appeared deceptively serene — a shimmering mirage of glass and steel under a pale sky.
But illusions shattered the moment she slid open the balcony door.
A furious symphony of horns erupted from below. “Arre, side de na!” someone bellowed. An auto driver yelled back with equal venom. The familiar cacophony of Mumbai mornings wrapped around her like an old, rowdy friend.
Ruhi laughed softly, leaning against the railing. The cool breeze carried the faint scent of rain-soaked earth and distant sea salt, brushing away the last remnants of sleep.
This had become her sacred ritual — five minutes of stillness with the city. No phone. No textbooks. No expectations. Just her and Mumbai, breathing together.
At twenty-two, Ruhi Rathod was many things: a final-year MBBS student on the cusp of becoming a doctor, a hopeless caffeine devotee, and chronically terrible at waking up. She possessed a green thumb that somehow always turned brown, collecting houseplants with optimistic enthusiasm only to forget them weeks later.
She came from one of Rajasthan’s most powerful business families. Her father, Rajveer Rathod, helmed one of India’s largest pharmaceutical empires. Her mother oversaw a network of charitable hospitals across the state. Wealth had been abundant in her life; freedom, however, had always been rationed.
Her parents had wanted her safely tucked away in Jaipur — studying under watchful eyes, traveling with drivers and bodyguards. But Ruhi had fought for this life in Mumbai with every ounce of her stubborn spirit. Weeks of emotional negotiations, dramatic tears, and passionate pleas had finally worn them down.
“You can stay in Mumbai,” her father had conceded, voice heavy with reluctance. “But you call your mother every single day.”
“I promise.”
“No staying out late.”
“I promise.”
“And no dangerous adventures.”
“I definitely promise.”
She had broken the third promise more times than she could count. Stray puppies, elderly strangers, and lost souls seemed to find her wherever she went, as if she carried an invisible beacon for anyone in need.
Her apartment was a perfect reflection of that beautiful contradiction — expensive furniture handpicked by her parents standing alongside quirky, heartfelt touches chosen by her. Medical textbooks lay in precarious towers on the dining table. Colorful sticky notes bloomed across the refrigerator like modern art. A small Lord Ganesha idol watched over the entrance with serene benevolence, while a resilient little cactus stood beside it, bearing a handwritten label in Ruhi’s neat script:
“Please stay alive — unlike my other plants.”
Miraculously, the cactus had endured six months. It had earned her quiet respect.
After a quick, refreshing shower, Ruhi slipped into comfortable blue jeans, a simple white kurti, and well-worn sneakers. She gathered her long hair into a loose ponytail, applied nothing more than sunscreen and a touch of lip balm, and grabbed her backpack.
The moment she stepped out of college campus, the sky opened up.
Rain lashed down in silver sheets. Ruhi sighed, shaking her head with a resigned smile as she unlocked her sleek white Mercedes.
“Perfect timing, as always.”
She tossed her bag onto the passenger seat, started the engine, and let soft Bollywood melodies fill the cabin. The windshield wipers fought valiantly against the downpour as she merged into Mumbai’s rain-drenched traffic.
The city in monsoon was pure poetry in motion — chaotic yet mesmerizing. People hurried under bright umbrellas, roadside tea stalls overflowed with steaming cups and chatter, and the intoxicating aroma of wet earth mingled with the sizzle of fresh pakoras drifting through her cracked window.
Ruhi smiled to herself. Mumbai in the rain… messy, maddening, and impossibly beautiful.
At a red light, her gaze drifted toward a narrow, shadowed lane across the road.
A man staggered out from the darkness.
He was dressed entirely in black, his clothes plastered to his body — not just from rain, but from blood. One hand pressed desperately against his abdomen as he took two faltering steps before collapsing onto the slick asphalt.
The light turned green.
Impatient horns erupted behind her. “Madam! Chaliye na!”
Ruhi didn’t move.
Her medical instincts surged forward like a tidal wave, drowning out everything else.
Without hesitation, she switched on her hazard lights, pulled over to the side, and sprinted through the pouring rain toward the fallen stranger.
A small crowd had already gathered, murmuring anxiously.
“Looks like a gangster…”
“Gunshot wound, sahab…”
“Police matter hai. Don’t get involved.”
Ruhi ignored them all. She dropped to her knees beside him, her kurti instantly soaked. Her fingers searched for a pulse at his neck.
“He’s alive,” she whispered, relief flooding her chest.
Carefully, she lifted the blood-soaked fabric of his shirt. A gunshot wound. Deep. Bleeding profusely.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. *If I leave him here, he won’t make it.*
She looked up at the reluctant faces around her. “Can someone help me get him into my car? Please!”
Most looked away. Then an elderly taxi driver stepped forward, his face kind despite the worry in his eyes.
“I’ll help, beta.”
Together, they managed to lift the tall, powerfully built stranger into the back seat of her Mercedes. Blood stained the cream leather, but Ruhi didn’t care.
She thanked the old man profusely, slid behind the wheel, and sped toward her apartment, the rain blurring the world outside.
Neither of them noticed the two shadowy figures watching from the mouth of the lane.
One of them raised a phone to his ear, voice low and cold.
“Sir… King has been taken.”
The reply from the other end was chillingly calm:
“Follow the girl.”
