Episode 4: Shadows of a King

The city pulsed beneath him like a living thing, drenched in neon and secrets. Aryan stood at the top of it all, cigarette smoke curling around his face as he leaned against the glass wall of his office. The view stretched endlessly, a kingdom he owned, a graveyard of those who dared to defy him.

Behind him, the sound of footsteps broke the silence. Aarav was already there, flipping through a file on the desk as if he belonged in the room as much as Aryan did. He was the only one who could.

“You’re late,” Aarav muttered without looking up.

Aryan didn’t bother to explain. He poured himself a drink, amber liquid catching the low light. “I don’t owe the clock anything.”

Before Aarav could reply, the office doors opened with a thud. Two men dragged in a rival, his shirt bloodied, his wrists bound. The man collapsed onto the polished floor, trembling as he tried to form words.

“Aryan, please,” he stammered, voice cracking. “I didn’t touch your shipment. I swear on my life.”

Aryan said nothing. He took a slow drag of his cigar, exhaled the smoke in deliberate silence, and finally met the man’s eyes.

“You should’ve thought of your life before stealing from me.”

The rival sobbed, begging for mercy, but Aryan’s expression didn’t waver. One nod, and the guards dragged the man away. His cries faded into the distance until there was only silence again.

Aarav closed the file, his tone edged with dry amusement. “You don’t even flinch anymore.”

Aryan poured another drink, swirling it lazily. “Why should I?”

It was true. Death no longer moved him. Blood was as normal to him as air. But when Aarav finally left to make calls, and the office fell into silence once more, something else pressed into him—restlessness. He sat heavily in his chair, loosening his cuffs, staring at nothing. His mind, traitorously, drifted to her.

Aria.

That infuriating girl from the café. The way she’d met his eyes without fear, without the false reverence he was used to. She hadn’t trembled or stammered. She had looked… annoyed. Like he was just a man.

And that bothered him.

It shouldn’t. He should’ve forgotten her by now. But the memory of her defiance replayed in his head like a song stuck on repeat.

Aarav came back in, catching the distant look in Aryan’s eyes. He smirked knowingly. “Thinking about her again?”

Aryan’s jaw tightened. “Watch yourself.”

“You can scare the whole city, Aryan. Not me.” Aarav leaned against the desk, folding his arms. “You’re distracted. That girl’s in your head. That makes her dangerous.”

“She’s nothing,” Aryan snapped, but even to himself, the words felt hollow.

When Aarav finally left for good that night, Aryan leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. For a moment, the present dissolved, and the shadows of his past clawed their way back.

The sound of a child crying. His own voice, high and broken.

The sting of a belt against skin. His father’s cold, merciless eyes staring down.

His mother, silent, watching with indifference.

He remembered the long nights of silence afterward, lying in his room with bruises on his arms, his back burning. He had begged her once—his mother—to stop it. To help. She had only turned away.

That was the night he stopped asking for help.

And then came the breaking point.

He had been fourteen, fists clenched at his sides as his father raised the belt again. Something inside him snapped. Rage surged hotter than the pain. When the man struck him, Aryan didn’t cry. He didn’t plead. He picked up the glass on the table and smashed it against the wall. His father had paused, surprised, and Aryan remembered the strange satisfaction in that moment—the first time he’d seen fear flicker in the man’s eyes.

It hadn’t stopped the beatings, but something inside Aryan had shifted. He had promised himself that night he’d never be weak again. He’d never beg. He’d never let anyone see him break.

By the time he was sixteen, his father was dead. The details of that night were burned into Aryan’s memory: the shouting, the crash, the blood. No one ever proved he’d had a hand in it, but he knew. And so did his mother. She hadn’t cried. She’d just looked at him with something colder than hatred.

That was when Aryan truly became alone.

The glass in his hand now trembled slightly before he set it down with force. His reflection in the darkened window stared back at him, fractured by city lights.

And then—Aria’s face. That spark in her eyes. That defiance.

Why did she remind him of the boy he used to be, before the cruelty stripped him raw? Why did she linger in places where no one else had ever stayed?

“She doesn’t matter,” Aryan muttered to the empty room. His voice was sharp, desperate. “She won’t matter.”

But even as he said it, he knew it was a lie.

The king of shadows had been touched by light, and no vow, no cruelty, no power could undo that.

Across the city, Aria slept peacefully, unaware of the storm she had stirred.

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