Chapter 1: The Queen of Mumbai

The scent of jasmine and gunpowder clung to the night like a whispered warning.

Mira Thakur stood on the terrace of the Thakur Mansion, overlooking the city that had bent to her will for the last five years. Below her, the chaos of Mumbai pulsed—honking rickshaws, neon signs, and street vendors shouting prices—but up here, it was silent. Her empire breathed with shadows.

Dressed in a black silk saree with a gold border, Mira looked like a goddess of death. The six men standing behind her—her trusted lieutenants—waited for her word. No one dared speak until she did.

“The Sheikh wants a port in Nhava Sheva,” she said, her voice calm. “Sameer Rao promised him that. Who authorized it?”

The room stiffened. No one responded.

Mira didn’t repeat herself. She didn’t have to.

From the back, Zoya Khan stepped forward. “Rao's playing both sides again,” she said. Her eyes, sharp and unforgiving, met Mira’s. “I say we cut him loose. Quietly.”

Mira turned slightly, brushing her hair from her face. “Quiet never taught anyone a lesson.”

She walked over to a table where a glass of wine waited for her. As she took a sip, her mind moved faster than the trains weaving through the city. Sameer Rao had been useful once—greasing cops, cleaning crime scenes, disappearing bodies—but power made men sloppy.

Tonight, she would remind the city who ruled it.

---

In the narrow lanes of Dharavi, a man knelt under flickering candlelight, his eyes closed, his lips murmuring prayer. The little chapel of St. Dominic was mostly empty, save for an old woman in the front pew and a couple whispering near the altar.

Father Arjun’s face was serene, carved from something more noble than flesh. People came to him with sins too heavy for temples. They didn’t know that beneath the cassock was a past layered in secrets.

As he finished prayer and rose, he noticed the woman waiting by the door. Even in the shadows, she radiated danger.

“Mira Thakur,” he said softly, with a faint smile. “You’ve been away for a while.”

“I don’t come here to confess, Father,” Mira replied, walking in without permission.

“No,” he said, locking eyes with her. “You come here to feel something you’ve buried.”

Mira smirked but didn’t deny it. She walked past the rows of wooden benches and lit a candle near a stained-glass panel of Mary cradling a sword-pierced heart.

“My father died on this day, five years ago,” she murmured. “In this very church.”

Arjun stepped closer, the candlelight dancing across his face. “And yet you never asked me who lit the last candle beside his body.”

She turned sharply.

“Who?” she demanded.

He shook his head. “Some questions carry a price. Are you willing to pay it?”

For a moment, the queen of Mumbai looked like the girl she used to be—furious, fragile, and too human.

Then the mask slipped back on.

“No,” she said. “I pay for loyalty, not riddles.”

---

That night, as Mira returned to her armored car, Zoya slipped in beside her. The air inside was thick with unspoken tension.

“You went to the priest again?” Zoya asked casually.

“He’s harmless,” Mira said, without conviction.

“You know better. Men who hide behind God often have the sharpest knives.”

Mira didn’t answer. Instead, she stared out the window as they drove past the harbor. A small smuggling boat unloaded crates. Children danced near the dock, oblivious to the guns hidden inside sacks of grain.

She remembered what Arjun had said. “Are you willing to pay it?”

Why did it feel like he already knew the price?

---

Elsewhere in South Mumbai, behind the mirrored windows of Mehra Corp, Arjun stood dressed in a tailored charcoal suit. He tapped the screen of his tablet, scanning financial projections, logistics charts, and personnel reports.

The moment the doors closed behind his assistant, his face changed. The priest was gone. In his place stood a king.

“Send a message to Raghav,” he said to his secretary on the intercom. “The Thakur port is mine. Tell him to move his deadline up. We strike in two weeks.”

“Yes, sir.”

Arjun looked out his window at the skyline. Somewhere in the distance, Mira was lighting candles for her dead. She didn’t know the empire she’d built was about to be dismantled—from inside and out.

He picked up a small silver crucifix and traced its edges.

“I’m sorry, Mira,” he whispered. “But I buried my brother five years ago too.”

---

Back at the Thakur mansion, Mira stood before a locked safe behind a portrait of her father. Inside was the journal he left behind—one that no one had read. Not even her.

She had always feared what it might reveal. But the way Arjun had spoken tonight…

She unlocked it.

The scent of old leather filled the air. She flipped through the pages until she found the final entry.

"If I die today, it will be by the hand of someone I trusted. And if Mira is reading this, remember: not all angels wear wings. Some wear white collars and lies.”

Her breath caught.

Arjun.

---

As midnight struck, two things happened:

A warehouse under Mira’s name exploded, killing three of her most loyal men.

And a message was delivered to Zoya's burner phone: "You’ve picked the wrong side, Agent Khan."

The war had begun.

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