Rise of the Devil - Part 46

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Chapter 46


Arnav’ POV


After our plan backfired, and whoever my enemy was, ambushed us with the chip which supposedly should have been with Khushi, the only choice I had at the moment was tracing the root from where this problem started. The Club!! Where I had gone to meet Swetlana where someone attacked us and according to my sources, they were Gujral’s men. So, with my men, I attack the most secretive hideout of the Gujrals where they conduct their dark business from - the casino where I have heard both Samrat and his father are usually there. I seize whatever arms and ammunitions they had been smuggling so far hidden at this place.


Akash warned me not to do anything unofficially, without letting the superiors know, but I don’t care anymore. My wife is abducted by some unknown enemy, and I’ll find her with whatever methods I can. Knowing I wouldn’t stop, Akash speaks to the senior most member of our mission, stating him the urgency of the situation and getting the necessary permissions. Whilst he is busy with that, Aman is backing me up with the info I need. My men have captured the senior Gujral who’s shot and injured. After a rigorous search, I find Samrat running away like a coward, when he realizes the Devil King has destroyed everything he and his father had built so far. I catch hold of him at the parking where he is about to escape in a car. Grabbing hold of him, I punch him down. He fights back, but too bad, he doesn’t beat my strength. I am an injured man today and no one can beat my fury. Defenseless, he gives up.

“Where is Khushi?” I ask, throwing him on the wall.


He falls down, having no strength left to even get up on his feet. Leaning, I grab him again and push him to the wall and grip his neck..

“Where is my wife, Samrat? I know you sent your men to attack me in the club where I met Swetlana. So you better speak up or die hiding it.”

“I don’t know..” he chokes. “I don’t know where she is. I swear..”


My grip on his neck tightens.

“Last chance,” I snap. “I don’t need a bullet to kill you. My hands are enough to choke you to death.”

“I swear.. I didn’t abduct her. I can never dare do that.”

“Then why did you attack on me?”

“Swetlana..” he gasps and I loosen my grip to let him answer. “Swetlana knew me and my father were hiding Jaipal. And she was about to tell you that.. So, I had to do something to stop her from taking our names. That’s why we attacked on you both. I have no idea where Khushi is. I swear on anything.. Please..”


For some odd reason, I trust him but that doesn’t mean I will let him go free.


“So you killed Jaipal?”

“No” He shouts.. Blood oozes out of his nose and I still don’t care.. “I didn’t.. I wanted to kill him but somebody else did it before us.. It’s not us Devil. It’s someone else who is probably more powerful than us.. then you…”


More powerful than me? Maybe, but I don’t like to hear that so I punch him and he falls on the ground, unconscious. No No No!! I want him conscious so that she can give me more clues. So far whatever he said doesn’t link me to my wife and who kidnapped her. I clutch his collar and shake him.


“Samrat? Samrat??”


He’s breathing but he won’t be conscious anytime soon. He needs medic!! I am about to tell Aman the same, through my Bluetooth ear piece as he is contactable to me throughout this operation, but before I say anything, he has something more important to tell me.


“Arnav.. There’s a movement in your Prime Safe house.”


What? Movement? What kind of movement? I press the ear piece closer.

“It’s a man.. lurking around that place.”

“Arrest him..” I command. “Could be a lead..”

“On it..”


In an hour, I am back to the Prime Safe house where I am told that man is arrested. Aman tells me who he is.. It’s Shyam!! The same senior Inspector who was once deployed to arrest me!! The king of the Devil. Obviously, our covet operation didn’t let me or my seniors to openly declare I wasn’t the real Devil but an agent missioned to put an end to the dark world. But as soon as Shyam started coming between my duties, I had to take assistance of some high political contacts to get him transferred from this case. What is he doing here again then?


The moment I enter the room where Shyam is locked up, my anger double folds. How can I forget he is the one responsible for my wife missing today.

“Arnav..” he walks to me, in an attempt to say something but I punch him hard on the nose.

“This is all your fault. You put Khushi’s life in danger,” I scowl. “It is because of you that the dark world thinks my wife is a spy on some secret mission.”


I punch him again, this time he defends himself. Clutching my collar, Shyam pushes me to the wall.

“I put her in danger, or you?” he shouts back. “It is your mistake that you dragged an innocent woman in your dark world by making her your wife.”


I grip his neck and tossing over, pin Shyam to the wall behind. Rage simmers through me as he continues.

“Admit it Arnav, you are the only one to be blamed for her abduction today because you failed in protecting her.”


Damn him!! I press the gun on his head, my fingers itching to pull the trigger.

“And you are making another mistake by not letting me speak what I am here for,” he adds. “I know who has taken her..”

And my grip loosens!! He knows?

“You have two minutes to make your point or lose your life..”

Shyam rolls his eyes and pushes my arm away.


“You can’t kill me because I know you wouldn’t kill an innocent police officer who wants the same as you do. I am not against you, Arnav. It’s only that I didn’t know you are also an agent and not the real King of the Devil.”


Fine!! So now he knows that too? How? Shyam doesn’t take long to start telling me whatever he knows.

“After you got me transferred, and came to my home to threaten me not to involve myself or come in your way, I knew something was amiss. If you were really the darkest soul of underworld, you would have killed me when you had the opportunity to do so which you didn’t. That’s why my curiosity peaked up and I started monitoring your moves. Obviously, it wasn’t easy. You were like a ghost. I found proofs against you but the next instant, those proofs went missing. I realized someone from the Law side was covering you up. But the kind of protection you were getting was impossible to get unless you were part of us.. That’s when I used my intelligence and sources only to find out that you are working for some secret mission which none of the juniors from our level are aware of. I was impressed. But that didn’t stop me from digging more. I shifted my attention on Jaipal who was on the loose after that club incident. I got a lot of info there and trust me it opened my eyes.”


Shyam takes out a pen drive.


“This has that info and the proofs of whatever I am telling you. Mind arranging for a laptop?”

I chew my teeth and turn to the right-side glass wall which looks like a mirror but is a camera in reality, controlled and monitored by Aman. In a minute, one of my men brings a laptop and Shyam seems impressed.

“You guys are quick.”

“Shut up and prove whatever you have to..” I bark.

“easy” he grins and connects the pen drive to the laptop. Files .. files and more files.. “These are all the previous crime reports of Jaipal that I could track so far and one of them has your mother’s name mentioned in the Victim’s list.”


My mother? I gape at him then turn to the screen where he opens the report. It has pictures of my mother’s dead body. She was shot. I knew that and I still remember that night when this happened.


It was during those days when Maa had got to know my father was the King of the underworld. He was hiding from his enemies once when he had met my mother and fallen in love with her. Obviously had my mother known his real identity she wouldn’t have agreed to marry him. Almost 7 years of marriage she had lived with him and had a family she doted on but when she got to know who he was, she decided to walk away from him, taking me along. That’s when my father’s wild side took over and he locked us up in a house, ensuring his guards protected us full time, never letting us out. It was one of those times when his long-term enemy was in town and Dad wanted to safeguard his family. One horrible night when Dad was out for tackling some of his rift, few men barged into our home. All of my father’s men who protected us were killed brutally. Mom hid me in a box and though I could not see anything, I heard. I could hear my father returning and he threatening his enemy to leave my mother. But it felt like he had no choice. He was outnumbered. I passed out in the box in fear for a few minutes but then suddenly the sound of a gunshot brought me back to consciousness. I heard my father yelp taking my mother’s name and I couldn’t hide there anymore. Fear of my mother being shot forced me to come out. Then there were more gunshots. My father’s men were here and the enemies fled. My mother’s body lay lifeless on the floor and I couldn’t even see the man who killed her. My father mourned for her, but not for too long as we heard the siren of Police. Grabbing my arm, he dragged me out from the backdoor.


I recall he taking me directly to Madhumatiji, who was the only woman whom my mother had trusted so far and my father trusted her too. He left me there to tackle with this enemy whose name he never mentioned to me despite I kept harassing me to tell.


‘This is not your fight at the moment. When you grow up, and if I couldn’t kill him until then, I will give you a chance to kill him by your bare hands.’


That’s what he kept telling me. In a few months he married Madhumatiji and my life took another turn. I had a step mother who wanted to shower me with love and affection, but avenging the death of my mother was the only thing I had in mind. I hadn’t given up though and one fine day heard him speaking to his ally Rana Pratap about the gruesome death of my mother. And that’s when I got to know my father was given a choice by that enemy. They knew I was hiding in the box, probably this happened when I was passed out for a while there and the choice was to either see me die or his wife. My father, chose to save me because I was his heir. I couldn’t believe he let his wife die. He let his mother die. I knew he might not have had a choice but if he hadn’t been a devil himself and ruler of the underworld, he wouldn’t have enemies and my mother would have been alive. He had no right to give someone else the right to kill my mother and save me.


So, I loathed him and when I got the perfect opportunity to tackle with his hatred, I pulled a bullet on his heart.. I had to!! I had to kill my father to avenge my mother’s death.. And I ran away!! I ran away from that house.. from that place, from my dead father and his kingdom, as far as I could and hid in an unknown jeep. The owner of that jeep found me, and surprisingly he knew my name. I tried to run away thinking he is one of my father’s enemy but he stopped me and told me I was safe.. That he wasn’t my father’s ally but his foe.. That he was from a secret agency which ran parallely to end the dark world which my father ruled.. And this man’s name was Shashi Gupta!!


Shashi Gupta had been a spy from quite a few years, disguised as a mafia only to keep an eye on whatever happens in this dark world and inform the agency so that they can take necessary action to end it. He took me to his home, gave me food and then a reason to live. Since my father was dead and the whole of the dark world left loose to do more crime in his absence, he asked me to join hands with him to end this. I didn’t know I could do that but I agreed. If I could put a bullet on my father’s heart, I could do anything to end the dark world forever who had snatched my mother from me.


He recovered Madhmatiji from her home and gave her shelter in Chandra Mahal where Shashi Gupta stayed in a disguise of a mafia. Obviously, whatever sympathy Madhumatiji had for me was gone for a toss after she was told I killed my father. Though she knew my father wasn’t a good man, she just couldn’t digest the fact that I killed him and made her a widow. I never complained. With Shashiji’s help I joined the special forces, got trained for years to enter the mission and once I passed in all their tests, I took the oath officially to put an end of the dark world which had gone crazy. The list of their crimes had peaked ten times then they were before and with no king to rule, there was enough chaos between every group. That’s when the agency came up with this idea of making me enter the dark world. Shashiji got me in as his bodyguard and then soon I became his left hand, doing everything he commanded to show the dark world how cruel I was and. But this disguise was not sufficient. We spread the news of my arrival in the dark world to take up my throne and since I was the son of the King who earlier ruled it, people accepted me as their king… though they never saw my face. My intellect and ruling abilities gave them enough chill to know that no matter what they do, someone was controlling them all. I only spoke to every head of these dark mafia groups on the phone. No one knew who I was, what I looked like or where I stayed until I announced my identity to them openly when I married Khushi Gupta. Many of my father’s ally, including Rana Pratap had come up to me then, asked me where I was, why I was hiding all this while and I gave them enough true proofs to confirm I was really the son of the earlier ruler and was hiding all these years to rise again not to take up my father’s place in this world but to outshine him. And I did. Ruling the dark world became easy and no one could ever become suspicious of me when anything went wrong. Every secret information on smuggling, women and child trafficking and others were sent out to my agency and we would tackle it in our way, protecting our laws. Things worked fine until Jaipal came in my wife, threatening me to abduct my wife and then went missing and later found dead.


My reverie breaks as Shyam continues explaining.


“The enemy of your father who killed your mother was no one else but Jaipal,” he informs.

My heart batters against my chest.

“Yes, and after he killed her, he left this country. He operated everything from abroad even after knowing that after a few years you pulled a bullet on your father. Probably he had no interest in your dark world and was enjoying the international mafia tag that he got staying abroad. Then after all these years, when he came to know you are back on the throne in your father’s place, he flew here and decided to do business with you. Women trafficking. He thought you would support him by paying him higher than the other bidders. Least did he know you were going to protect those women. That’s when I got involved in this task. I too didn’t know you were actually protecting them and I got Khushi involved in this task to get that diary from Jaipal’s cabin. She didn’t believe you much those days which is why she agreed to help me and then you know what happened at the casino. Khushi was caught, open firing, you saved her, but Jaipal escaped.”


I nod.

“It took me days to find who saved Jaipal and was hiding him.”

“The Gujrals” I say, and he nods.

Of course, I got this info just now from Samrat who confessed it to me that he was hiding Jaipal.

“That’s right. The Gujrals but they couldn’t protect him for long.. Someone entered that den where they were hiding him and took him away..”


Now I am even more curious..

“Rana Pratap..” he says, then shows me a footage of the video where I see Rana Pratap and his men taking Jaipal out from the den of the Gujrals. “It took me days to find access to this secret camera installed at the Gujrals hideout where it clearly shows Rana Pratap abducted Jaipal at around 01:00 am and then we find his body at around 03:00 am, badly injured.”


I recall that night. Khushi and I were sleeping, when I had got this call from Aman giving me this news of Jaipal’s death.

“Damn!!” I scowl as Shyam compares the two pictures of my mother’s dead body and Jaipal’s.

“Sorry that I am even comparing this but you have to be strong Arnav. I am doing this for a reason.” He adds. “You see these marks here?”


He points out at a few bruises and injuries on Jaipal’s body which matches with that of my mother’s dead body too.

“They are similar in nature..” I blurt, though it hurts seeing my mother’s dead body’s pictures. No matter how strong I have become, how emotionless and trained to be unaffected, this surely affects me but I don’t show it up on my face.

“Yes, they both were bruised in the same places. You know what that means?” he further asks.

I know what that means but he continues to explain it for me.

“It means Jaipal was tortured the same way your mother was before he was killed and there’s only one probability that the one who killed Jaipal wanted to take revenge of your mother’s death. So he injured Jaipal exactly at those body parts where your mother was injured.”


I swallow painfully.

“Rana Pratap abducted Jaipal from Gujral’s hideout but why would he avenge my mother’s death? She was just his friend’s wife..” I murmur.


Something doesn’t match.. Something doesn’t sync!! Though I know Shyam is hinting at Rana Pratap, I am very sure he is guessing it wrong. Something is amiss. No one can avenge my mother’s death the way I can.. OR … the way my father could have if he was alive.. Wait.. Could there be a possibility that Rana Pratap did this on someone’s instructions? Whose instructions can he take if not mine? My father!! But he is dead. I pulled a bullet on him. I killed him. Yes!! Did I ever see his dead body? No!! I recall Shashi Gupta telling me when he saved me that night, that when they got in that house to recover the body, the house was on fire. They never found my father’s body. Is there a possibility that he survived? That his ally Rana Pratap must have reached that spot and saved my father that night? Is there a chance that all these years my father was alive and he saw me taking up his role in the dark world? Damn! Is there a possibility that my father kidnapped my wife? NOOO! YESSSS!! He’s the only one who has access to the Prime Safe house which once belonged to my mother. He’s the only one who knew that location and that’s why only five men against my army could abduct my wife!! Damn Hell!! My father is alive? And my wife is with him??????????? If that’s so, she’s definitely not safe..


To be Continued.

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Note: Long part today and I hope u liked it.

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