The entire house was covered in darkness. Even though it was the middle of the day, all the windows were shut and the curtains were drawn in a way that left not a single stray ray of sunshine able to enter the house. The only light came from the news channel playing on the LCD screen. It was enough to illuminate the living area, but still not enough to clearly reveal the person sitting casually on the sofa.

Kabir Rathore.

An undercover police officer who had adopted his own surname because he had never had one to begin with.

He sat comfortably on the sofa, a glass of wine in his hand as he listened to the news. The news was celebrating his victory once more, though, as always, his name was nowhere to be found. The credit belonged to someone else.

“Once again, our police force has shown us proof of their bravery. Earlier today, they raided a normally functioning establishment that no one could have suspected was actually a brothel where girls were being trafficked from different states. The police not only raided the place and arrested the criminals but also successfully rescued all the girls.”

Kabir took another sip of his wine, his expression remaining unreadable.

Still, he had won. He should have felt something.

Relief. Satisfaction. Maybe even pride.

But he wasn't feeling it. Not yet.

For him, one victory was never enough. Every successful operation only reminded him of how much was still left. Perhaps this race of his was never going to end.

He slowly got up from the sofa and turned toward the large map of India mounted on the wall of his living room. His eyes travelled across it for a moment before he reached for the marker resting beside the map.

He drew a thick line across one more state.

Another one was done.

His gaze moved across the remaining states, lingering over each one.

There were still so many left.

And Kabir knew he wouldn't consider himself a winner until every single state on that map was marked.

Another tiny light suddenly illuminated the room from the sofa, followed by the ringtone of his phone, mixing with the sound of the news channel.

Kabir lowered the television volume before picking up the call.

“Kabir, you disappeared again. Why do you keep doing this?” his best friend and coworker, Varun, asked, irritation clear in his voice.

Kabir only chuckled as he sat back down, taking another sip of his wine.

“These wins are yours, Kabir,” Varun continued. “These awards, the rise in position, the recognition—everything is meant to be yours. Why do you keep letting someone else take the credit?”

Varun sounded irritated, even though he already knew the answer.

“You know I can't come into the eyes of the public,” Kabir said calmly. “I can't risk it when I already know it's only going to make my future path more difficult and why would I run after something so small when I know I can get a lot more?”

Kabir said it casually, but before Varun could respond, his second phone lit up on the table beside him.

A notification appeared on the screen.

Payment received. Beneath it was a message.

I needed this recognition for my career. Thank you, Kabir. If you ever need anything, don't hesitate to contact me. Thank you again. This is the money you asked for. If you need more, don't hesitate to ask. My salary is going to increase three times after this.

Kabir glanced at the message without much reaction.

The senior officer who was currently standing at the award ceremony, accepting the honour as the hero behind the operation that had actually been Kabir's work, had just sent him his payment.

Kabir locked the phone and slipped it back into his pocket.

“You sell your hard work,” Varun said.

His voice came through the phone, but Kabir could already imagine the expression on his face. He was standing at the same award ceremony, watching the whole thing unfold in front of him.

Kabir leaned back against the sofa.

“No. I open a path to my next destination. Why don't you understand?” His voice remained calm, almost amused. “I can't come into the eyes of the public. If I do, they'll become alert. And if they become alert, it's over—not just for us, but for all those girls we could still save.”

He paused for a moment before continuing.

“I won't be able to keep doing this if I start running after recognition.”

“But I still feel bad watching these officers take your credit and climb higher while you stay stuck in the same position,” Varun complained. “You have to keep changing locations every few months, working under a different identity, and doing the same job without a promotion or even a proper raise. And on top of that, you've deliberately created this image of yourself as some corrupt officer who does nothing.”

Kabir chuckled softly.

“Stop acting like my wife.”

“You don't have one yet.”

“Exactly.”

“And you won't have one either with this fake image of yours,” Varun shot back.

Kabir couldn't help but laugh.

“Okay, enough complaining. Now tell me, is everything ready?”

“Ready. But are you seriously planning to leave already?” Varun asked. “At least rest for a few days. Don't you get tired of staying awake all day at the station and then spending your nights on missions?”

Kabir raised an eyebrow.

“Who says I stay awake at the station?”

“Oh, please.” Varun let out an exasperated sigh. “At least I know you're not actually sleeping at the station. That's just part of the cover. You pretend to be the useless, lazy officer everyone thinks you are, while I already know you're spending that time planning everything you're going to do at night.”

Kabir smiled to himself.

“Okay, enough now. Tell me, are my tickets booked or not? And what about the complete information I asked for?”

“Your tickets and the information file are placed right in front of you, sir. On the table.”

Kabir frowned.

He lowered the phone slightly and looked around the room before finally looking down at the table in front of him.

There it was. A file. And his ticket.

He stared at them for a moment, genuinely confused.

“When did you drop those here?” he asked, honestly unable to remember seeing them before.

“When you were finally having your beauty sleep,” Varun replied, amusement clear in his voice. “I thought I'd better not disturb you, so I just left them there.”

“You should have woken me up. We needed to discuss this,” Kabir said, picking up the ticket and checking the details.

“I wanted you to rest, buddy,” Varun replied dramatically, as if he had made some great sacrifice.

“Okay, whatever. Now tell me.” Kabir cut straight to the point as he opened the file and began going through the documents inside.

Varun cleared his throat before beginning. “Your next target is Mumbai. As for your posting there, the department is already aware that you're coming. They'll receive you at the airport and take you to your assigned station. Your accommodation is somewhere between the station and the brothel, so you'll be able to move around without raising suspicion.”

Kabir's eyes remained on the file as Varun continued.

“And your identity for the brothel is going to be completely different. You're playing the role of a rich businessman's son. You'll be arrogant, careless, dressed in gold, always carrying yourself like someone who has too much money and too little concern for the law.”

Kabir finally looked up from the file.

“And apparently, I also smoke?”

Varun laughed. “Yes.”

“What kind of fantasies do you have? You're seriously giving me these rules again?” Kabir complained. “Last time it was drinking, and now smoking. I'm already having a hard time quitting wine.”

“You look even more dashing when you're drinking,” Varun teased. “I can only imagine you smoking. You'll look hell-hot.”

Kabir shook his head and turned another page.

“Wait until you see the picture I added.”

Kabir frowned and looked down at the file again.

His expression changed instantly. “What the—”

Right there was a photograph of him Or more accurately, an AI-edited version of him.

It looked almost ridiculously realistic. His hair was messy, several gold rings covered his fingers, and a thick gold chain rested around his neck. His shirt was partly unbuttoned, his sleeves were casually rolled up, and a cigarette hung between his fingers while a bundle of cash was held in his other hand.

He looked like someone who had spent his entire life doing questionable things.

Kabir stared at the picture for several seconds.

“Hot lag raha hai na tu?” Varun asked proudly.

(You're looking hot, isn't it?)

Kabir slowly raised his eyes from the picture “Varun, tell me honestly. You are gay, right?”

“What? No!” Varun sounded genuinely offended.

“I think you are. Otherwise, who spends this much time editing pictures of another guy?” Kabir said, barely holding back his laughter. “I think I need to tell my sister-in-law.”

“Guy nahi, bhai hai tu mera!” Varun protested immediately. “Chup kar! Priya ko kuch aisa-waisa mat batana. Jaan le legi meri!”

(Not just some guy, you're my brother! Shut up! Don't you dare tell Priya anything weird. She'll kill me!)

That only made Kabir laugh.

“Okay, it's enough. This location and all, I already know.” Though he knew he wasn't going to follow the character script this time he certainly had no plans to destroy his lungs with cigarettes. He continued, “I'm asking about the brothel owner and the place. Is there anything specific I need to know?”

"There are two men who are almost always with the owner named Raghav and Sameer. There are other men working under them too, and you’ll find their names and roles in the file. These two, however, are different. They’re practically the second-in-command after the owner.”

Kabir’s expression hardened slightly.

“The owner mostly handles the clients,” Varun continued. “But these two handle a lot of the work behind the scenes. They use the girls for whatever task they need—sending them to meet someone, delivering things, gathering information, even approaching people through fake friend requests. They’re much stricter with the girls than the owner is because they’re obsessed with keeping them exactly the way they want them to appear to clients.”

Kabir flipped through the file and stopped at the photographs under their names.

It didn’t surprise him. During previous missions, he had dealt with men like these before.

“There’s one more person you need to watch out for,” Varun added. “The owner’s son. Armaan. He mostly stays away from the business, so you probably won’t see him often. But don’t underestimate him. The three of them are said to be sharp, and those two are especially ruthless when someone tries to escape. From what I’ve heard, they’re far more brutal about punishment than the owner himself.”

Kabir closed the file halfway.

“Anything else?”

“Oh yeah, you just reminded me. I heard there is one girl who is very popular,” Varun began. “She is the apple of the brothel owner's eye.”

“Is she her daughter?” Kabir asked, assuming.

“No. She just came to the brothel last year, and you know, she wasn't trafficked or anything. They say she came herself and is doing this work willingly,” Varun said.

“Which girl chooses prostitution willingly?” Kabir asked. “She must have some family problem, need money, or something.”

“No. Actually, I didn’t ask much about her since our main focus was on the controller and the network. But from what I did find out, she doesn’t send money to anyone. She keeps it for herself. She does the work, but uses the money to live a comfortable life.”

Varun paused before continuing.

“They say she is the owner's favourite because the owner started earning more than twice as much as before after her arrival. She's extremely beautiful, and she does the work without complaining. In exchange, she gets a small amount of freedom.”

Kabir only felt unsettled for some reason.

He wasn't able to accept that it could really be true that someone could actually choose prostitution as a career by themselves.

Because whatever he had seen until now, after rescuing so many girls from this work, none of them had been happy doing it. Even the ones who pretended to be happy eventually admitted that they had simply made themselves believe they were happy because it was easier than accepting the truth.

Prostitution wasn't really a silk bed where you could simply lie down and satisfy your sexual desires, even if you had extreme desires and thought it could be a way to satisfy them. It didn't work that way.

You never knew what kind of client you would come across or what they might do to you, not just sexually but physically and psychologically as well. Some men thought that once they paid, they owned the woman for those hours. They could hurt her, beat her, humiliate her, or cross every boundary they wanted, simply because they had paid for her time.

That was why it was so hard for Kabir to accept what Varun was saying.

Varun paused before adding, “ though Our informer said Sameer has had his doubts about her for a long time and keeps a close eye on her. But after an entire year, he hasn’t been able to find anything questionable about her. At this point, it seems less about suspicion and more about his ego.”

“Ego?”

“Sameer is used to control. His job is to deal with the girls who resist—to break that resistance, change their behaviour, and bring them into line. But she never gave him that opportunity. She does what is expected of her, follows the rules, and keeps her distance."

Varun paused.

“ Our informer thinks he is attracted to her but she doesn’t like him,barely even looks at him. Maybe that makes it worse"

Kabir remained silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on Sameer' picture on the file , but his mind was stuck on the girl he had just learned about.

“Are you there, Kabir?” Varun asked when he received no resp

“Yeah, I'm here. But cut the call. My packing is still not finished, I need to do it. My flight is in two hours,” Kabir said.

“Okay, go. But don't forget to tell me about her once you reach. Is she really like this, or is it just a rumour?” Varun asked.

“We'll see. Bye.” Kabir cut the call.

He picked up the file and read the name written in front of him.

Raina.

The girl who was tagged as the star of the brothel. There was no photograph attached yet. Kabir stared at her name for a moment.

“A year under someone’s watch, and still nothing for him to find. Either you’re exactly what they think you are… or you’re very good at pretending. We’ll find out,” he couldn’t help but say.

But Kabir had no idea that once he met her, getting his answer wouldn’t be that simple. Before he could uncover who Raina really was, something else was waiting for him—hate, rage, disgust… and an attraction he never expected.