Ravi Sahni pushed through the pub's warped wooden door like a man walking into his own funeral. The hinges groaned—metal on metal, a sound that belonged in nightmares. He slumped onto the stool closest to the bartender, body folding inward like something beaten too many times to remember how to stand straight.
Cold air from outside clung to his clothes, mixing with the stale smell of cigarettes and cheap rum that had soaked into every surface of this place over decades. The smell was permanent now. Part of the walls. Part of the furniture. Part of the men who came here to forget.
The bartender didn't even look up. Young guy, maybe twenty-five, dead eyes that had seen everything worth seeing and found it all disappointing. He polished a glass like he'd been born doing it, like his mother had handed him a rag and a tumbler in the delivery room and said, "This is your life now."
Ravi cleared his throat, the sound wet and desperate. "Whiskey. A full peg. I'll settle the bill later."
The bartender's eyes flicked to him for exactly one second. Just long enough to communicate complete and total indifference.
"Money first."
"I said I'll give—"
"No tab." The bartender turned away, already wiping another glass with mechanical precision. His voice carried the weight of a thousand identical conversations. "Last time you didn't pay. No credit."
Ravi's shoulders collapsed inward. The last bit of pride that had been holding his spine straight evaporated. He rubbed his face with both hands, palms pressing hard against his eyes like he could push the shame back inside. Words tumbled out—half-formed, half-apologetic, completely pathetic.
"Please… just one drink… I'll bring money next time… I promise…"
"No money, no drink."
The bartender's tone didn't change. Didn't soften. Didn't harden. Just remained flat, emotionless, final.
Ravi tried again, voice cracking with something between desperation and shame, the sound of a man who'd learned to beg but hadn't learned to accept it yet. "Give me the cheap one then. Anything. The local stuff. Just something to—"
The bartender didn't bother answering this time. Didn't even acknowledge that Ravi had spoken. Just kept polishing glasses, one after another, like Ravi had already ceased to exist.
Ravi sat there, empty-handed, hollow, trying to hold himself together while alcohol ghosts screamed inside his veins. His fingers twitched on the bar. His leg bounced nervously.
This is what desperation looks like, Rahul thought as he watched from the doorway. This is what happens when a man loses everything and then loses the ability to pretend he hasn't.
And that was when Soma and Rahul stepped in.
The door creaked again.
Soma and Rahul enterd followimg Ravi,
Soma saw Ravi immediately—drunk, desperate, defeated—and nudged Rahul with his elbow.
Rahul nodded once.
Perfect timing. Perfect opportunity. Perfect bait.
Soma walked straight up to the bar with the confidence of a man like who had money and wasn't afraid to spend it.
"Three whiskeys," he said, voice clear and commanding.
The bartender didn't question it. Didn't ask for money upfront this time because Soma looked like he had it. Three glasses appeared within seconds, filled quickly, amber liquid catching the dim light as they slid across the polished counter.
Soma picked up one glass and casually—so casually it seemed almost accidental—nudged it across the bar until it stopped directly in front of Ravi.
"On us."
Two words. Simple. Loaded.
Ravi stared at the glass like it might explode. Then his eyes—bloodshot, watery, suspicious—drifted slowly between Rahul and Soma. Back and forth. Trying to read them. Trying to figure out the angle. Trying to decide whether they were friends, cops, con artists, or something worse.
When Soma leaned closer and said, "We need your help," Ravi stiffened. His spine went rigid. His fingers began tapping nervously on the bar—tap tap tap—a rhythm that betrayed every lie he'd ever told himself about being in control.
"Why?" he muttered, voice thick from years of cheap alcohol, but not thick enough to hide the fear underneath. The fear that lived in his bones now. Permanent. "Why would you help me?"
Ravi flinched like someone had thrown a stone at him. His bloodshot eyes darted between them—left to Soma, right to Rahul, back again. Suspicion, fear, curiosity, all chewing on him at the same time, eating him from the inside out.
"Nothing's free around here," he croaked. "Nobody gives anything for nothing. What do you want?"
"True," Soma said, lifting his own drink in a mock toast. His voice was light, friendly, completely unthreatening. "But we saw you were out of chips. Figured you could use a drink. That's all."
A few tense seconds passed.
Pride fought hunger. Dignity fought need. The last shred of self-respect fought against the screaming thirst that had become the center of Ravi's entire existence.
Need won.
It always won.
He grabbed the glass—fingers shaking slightly—and swallowed half of it at once. No savoring. No appreciation. Just consumption. His eyes closed briefly. His throat worked. His shoulders dropped half an inch.
Relief? Regret? Impossible to tell. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe something worse that didn't have a name.
Rahul slid onto the neighboring stool, moving slowly, non-threateningly. Soma stood on Ravi's other side, not touching him, but positioning himself carefully. Boxing him in with casual, harmless body language. A soft trap. The kind you don't realize you're in until it's already closed.
They talked about meaningless things at first. The weather—too cold for the season, everyone's joints aching, old men predicting snow that would never come. The new dealer at table three—probably cheating, everyone knew it, nobody could prove it. The awful music playing from cracked speakers mounted in corners—Bollywood songs from twenty years ago, played so many times the tape was warping, vocals distorting into something inhuman.
Slowly, gradually, Ravi loosened. His shoulders dropped further. His lips loosened, words flowing easier. His eyes stopped darting toward the door every five seconds.
The alcohol helped. The company helped more. Loneliness was worse than poverty, worse than addiction, worse than shame. Loneliness killed you slowly from the inside until you'd trade your soul for five minutes of human connection.
Then Soma dropped the line—soft, effortless, deadly.
"You knew Malhotra, right?"
Ravi froze.
Complete stillness. The kind of stillness that only comes from pure terror.
Not like a man caught lying.
Like a man remembering a nightmare.
A tiny tremor ran down his fingers, making the glass rattle against the bar. His throat bobbed as he swallowed nothing. His pupils shrank to pinpoints despite the dim lighting.
Fear.
Pure, unmistakable, bone-deep fear.
Rahul caught it all. The micro-expressions. The body language. The way Ravi's gaze kept flicking toward the door like he was calculating whether he could run fast enough. The way he swallowed when Malhotra's name was spoken, like the word itself tasted poisonous.
This man wasn't just drunk. He was carrying something heavy. Something that might crush him if he put it down too fast.
"What… what's your relation with Malhotra?" Ravi asked, voice too careful, too slow. Each word measured. Testing the water before diving in.
Soma shrugged like a frustrated businessman, the gesture perfectly natural, perfectly believable. "We gave him money. Business deal. Import-export venture. He promised thirty percent returns in six months. He never paid us back. Never returned calls. Then he ends up with his throat open in his own study." Soma's voice hardened slightly. "Now we're trying to figure out if we'll ever see our money again or if we're just two more idiots in a long line of idiots."
Ravi sucked in a shuddering breath. Then the venom spilled out—anger sharpened by terror, rage mixed with helplessness.
"He owed everyone," Ravi hissed, leaning forward, the words tumbling out now like they'd been locked up too long. "Promised returns to everyone. Took advances from shopkeepers, businessmen, politicians, criminals—didn't matter who. Disappeared with the money. Cheated every single person he touched. People begged him. Threatened him. Cursed his family. Nothing worked." Ravi's hands shook, whiskey sloshing dangerously close to the rim. "If he died, he died because someone finally got tired of being fooled. Someone finally decided enough was enough."
Soma leaned forward, voice dropping to something quiet, intimate, conspiratorial. "People like him don't die alone. They drag everyone down with them. I need to know who else he dragged into this mess. People are coming after me now. Loans I didn't even know about. Phone calls in the middle of the night. Threats at my office. I need names. I need to know who's going to come knocking next."
Rahul placed a comforting hand on Soma's shoulder, acting the worried partner perfectly. His face showed exactly the right amount of concern—not too much, not too little. Just enough to seem real.
Then he turned to Ravi and said softly, only loud enough for Ravi to hear, "He's scared. Really scared. Help him out if you can."
The words worked like a key turning in a lock.
Ravi's shoulders sank. The defensive posture melted. For the first time since they'd walked in, he wasn't performing toughness or pride or control. He was just… tired. So incredibly tired.
"Fine," he muttered, staring into his empty glass like it held answers. "Maybe I can help. Maybe."
One drink became two. Two became three. The bartender kept them coming without being asked, sensing money on the table, sensing the conversation had reached the stage where men stopped caring about cost.
Names surfaced slowly. Floating up from the depths like bodies in a river.
Kamat, the businessman from Bhopal. Import-export scams that stretched across three states. Property frauds involving fake documents and bribed officials. Political protection that made him untouchable. Big money. Bigger lies. The kind of man who could make people disappear without anyone asking questions.
Then one name came with a different weight. Heavier. Darker.
"Tiwari," Ravi whispered, glancing around like the shadows themselves might be listening. "Advocate Tiwari. Had a property deal with Malhotra. Six months ago. Commercial plot in Ayodhya. Partnership agreement. Malhotra was supposed to handle the paperwork, the bribes, the clearances. It went bad. Really bad. Money disappeared. Documents were forged. Tiwari lost everything he'd invested." Ravi's voice dropped even lower. "Tiwari threatened him publicly. At a party. In front of fifty people. Said he'd 'put him in a grave out of mercy before someone else put him there without it.' Everyone laughed it off at the time. Rich men threaten each other all the time. Nobody means it. Until Malhotra ended up dead."
Soma pushed gently, carefully. "We just want our money back. That's all. And you want yours. Malhotra's property is still there. His house. His cars. His accounts. Enough to pay what he owed you… and what he owed us. If we work together—"
The words tasted like metal in the air. Dangerous. Sharp. Cutting.
Ravi blinked at them, trying to understand through the alcohol fog whether this was a trap or a lifeline. The panic in his eyes softened a fraction. Hope—dangerous, fragile hope—flickered somewhere behind the fear.
He leaned in, whispering like the bar walls had ears. Like the glasses themselves might report back to someone. "If you two are serious… then call this number." He pulled a crumpled receipt from his pocket—old, stained, barely readable—and scribbled digits with a shaking hand. "Tomorrow morning. Not before that. He doesn't answer at night."
He slid the paper toward them across the bar, pulling his hand back quickly, as if touching them too long might bring trouble. As if whatever curse followed Malhotra might be contagious.
"Be careful," he said, eyes clearer than they had been all night. The drunk act dropped for just a moment, revealing something harder underneath. "People around Malhotra… they don't just lose money. They lose their peace. Sometimes their lives. Everyone he touched ended up worse than before. That's not coincidence. That's a pattern."
He stood abruptly, the stool scraping loudly against the floor.
The conversation ended.
No goodbye. No handshake. Ravi just walked toward the door, shoulders hunched, disappearing into the night like he'd never existed at all.
Outside, the night hit them hard. Cold. Sharp. Watching.
They walked quickly down the empty street, footsteps echoing off closed shop fronts. Discussing Tiwari. Discussing Kamat. Discussing the debt network that seemed to spread like spider webs across half the city.
But underneath every sentence was the same quiet dread.
Too easy.
Too fast.
Too much.
"That went better than expected," Soma said, but his voice carried doubt.
"Or exactly as someone expected," Rahul muttered.
They split up at the main road—Soma flagging down an auto toward Chandkheda, Rahul walking toward his rented room on the other side of town.
Neither noticed the man who stepped out of the bar behind them.
A cigarette flared under the glow of a flickering streetlight. Orange ember in the darkness. Smoke curled around a slow smile that belonged on a predator.
He watched Soma climb into the auto, watched the vehicle sputter away into the night. Watched Rahul walk away alone, hands in pockets, head down against the cold.
Finally, he crushed the cigarette under his heel with deliberate slowness and strolled toward a nearby telephone booth beside a shuttered tea stall.
The booth's light was broken. Inside was darkness. Perfect.
He lifted the receiver. Dialed a number from memory. The ringing sounded distant, hollow, like it was traveling through underwater cables to reach somewhere very far away. Or very deep.
When the line clicked, he spoke softly, casually, like he was ordering food:
"I think I found two more you were searching for. They match the description perfectly. Reporters, right? Asking about Malhotra. Talking to Ravi. Getting names."
A pause. Breathing on the other end. Thinking.
"Do you want me to bring them in… or take them out?"
The voice on the other end answered—calm, measured, terrifyingly reasonable:
"I need them alive. For now. Follow them. Learn their patterns. Find out what they know. Who they've talked to. What they've found. Then we'll decide what happens next."
The cigarette man smiled again, wider this time. Teeth catching the distant streetlight.
"Understood."
He hung up the phone gently, almost lovingly.
The night swallowed him whole, like he'd never been there at all.
Somewhere in the darkness, Rahul walked alone, unaware that invisible eyes followed every step.
The trap had been set weeks ago.
They'd just walked into it.