Page 45 of Born in Sin (Phoenix #3)

Chapter Twenty-Three

VIRAT

The chill of the night air tugged at his hair as Virat stood on the narrow balcony of the safe house, arms braced on the cool metal railing.

The breeze carried with it the sharp tang of the sea mixed with the acrid smoke of distant street food stalls, drifting up from the city below.

Far beneath him, Mumbai sprawled in chaotic brilliance, a pulsing artery of headlights, neon signs, and the constant hum of life.

The city that never slept wasn’t just awake tonight.

It was alive and restless, like a beast prowling under moonlight.

The honk of an auto-rickshaw cut through the air, followed by a burst of laughter from a nearby street corner.

Pedestrians wove between cars with practiced ease.

Hawkers shouted over each other, selling spicy vada pav, chai, plastic toys, and imitation jewellery.

The world below was noisy, bright, and utterly indifferent to the war being waged in the shadows above it.

Behind him, the safe house was dimly lit and cluttered, filled with the quiet hum of activity.

His team sat on mismatched couches and bean bags, crowded around the open boxes of pizza strewn across the center table, eating straight from the cardboard like students at a dorm party—except each of these so-called students carried weapons, and had lives weighed down with secrets.

The faint scent of cheese and oregano clashed with the metallic edge of gun oil and disinfectant.

Monitors lined one side of the room, blinking quietly.

On the largest screen mounted to the far wall, a live feed from Majid’s residence played on loop—empty rooms, shadowy corners, quiet entrances under digital surveillance.

Another screen pulsed with incoming data—Majid’s phone activity, intercepted messages, call logs.

One of Virat’s techs sat hunched over the desk, his fingers moving in a blur across the keyboard. A coffee cup balanced dangerously close to the edge. Others rotated in shifts, never letting the stream of intel lapse for even a second.

Then he heard it, a knock on the front door, quiet but firm.

Virat turned slightly, eyes narrowing. Shourya was already moving toward the door, the shift of his weight catlike, his hand dropping instinctively to the concealed firearm holstered under his jacket. His posture was casual, but every muscle in his frame was ready to strike.

The door creaked open.

And she stepped in.

Cara. Alone.

No Kabir. No security detail flanking her. Just her.

Virat’s jaw tensed. The first sharp flare of anger lit in his chest, not the raging fire yet, but the slow, controlled simmer that was infinitely more dangerous.

What the hell was she thinking? Wandering around Mumbai at night without protection?

He clenched the balcony railing tighter, the metal digging into his palms.

She scanned the room, nodding greetings, offering brief smiles to people who looked up from their food or screens. And then, she looked toward the balcony.

Her gaze found his through the glass door. A flicker of something passed between them. Her smile faded, replaced by something unreadable. She didn’t move. Neither did he.

The door between them was shut. But everything else, the noise, the people, the city, the danger, fell away. For a suspended moment, it was just them, caught in the eye of a quiet storm.

She walked over, sliding the doors open and stepping out.

The noise from the room swelled for a second and then shut off as she slammed the door shut.

The glass vibrated with the force of the motion.

He saw his teammates dart startled looks in their direction before averting their gaze.

Virat gestured to Shaurya and he stepped up and drew the curtains, giving them an illusion of privacy.

“Problem?” he asked her.

“Many,” she answered crisply, her entire body seeming to vibrate with barely controlled rage and fear. “But I’m not here to discuss them. I’m here for one thing alone.”

Virat waited but she didn’t expand on that.

“Am I supposed to read your mind now?” he asked, his hold on his own temper wearing thin.

He’d spent the whole day watching other men love the woman who owned him, heart and soul, one on screen and one off.

He was dealing with it but for the love of God, could he not catch a break?

A few minutes to himself on this dark verandah was all he’d aspired to but now she was here too, looking at him like he was the devil incarnate when he had no idea what the hell he could have possibly done to make her mad now.

“How are we going to keep Kabir safe on Saturday?”

Right. Of course. This was about Kabir. Virat stared up at the night sky. It was almost a full moon tonight, stars scattered over the cloudy canvas. So many stars and still no light in the world.

“We’re on it. My team and I will ensure nothing happens to him. We’ll have eyes and ears on him at all times and we’ll have an armed team in close proximity.”

“I don’t want him to be forced to have sex with some poor, coerced girl.”

“It won’t get that far,” Virat told her quietly. “All we need is confirmation that the girl is being held there against her will and we’ll put a stop to it.”

“If you don’t, there will be two people being raped there that night, Vir!” Her voice was shrill, her composure shredding like cheap paper under a sharpened pencil. “You can’t let that happen!”

“Celi –“ He turned to face her.

“No.” She backed away from him, her body trembling. “I won’t do that to him. He means too much to me.”

“I know.” He walked over to her, cupping her cold face with his hands. “Trust me. I won’t let that happen. To him or to her. They’re both our plants, remember. The girl as well. We are in control of the situation. I promise you.”

“Vir.” Her breath caught in her chest, her eyes wild with fear, remembered and felt, her hands shaking as she fisted them in his shirt. “Vir, I-“

He pulled her to him, pressing her face to his chest, his arms going around her holding her close. She wrapped herself around him like a desperate koala clinging to a tree. He buried his face in her hair and held on to her trembling body.

“We’ll call it off,” he whispered. “We’ll call it all off, if that’s what you want.”

She stilled in his arms, her face still buried in his shirt. And then she asked, “You’d do that?”

“I’d do anything for you, Celi.”

His voice cracked at the edges—too quiet, too full of everything he couldn’t say.

He had done everything. Bled for her. Lied for her. Ruined pieces of himself without hesitation. All of it, only and always for her.

“We can’t do that. We can’t call it off,” she whispered. Her fingers clung to his shirt, trembling, like if she let go, she'd fall apart.

“We can do anything we want to,” he said. “Anything you want to.”

“Can we?” She looked up at him then, eyes glassy, smile like a fresh bruise. “Can we disappear? Pretend none of it happened? Live on some forgotten island, like the world wouldn’t come clawing back for us?”

The silence that followed wasn’t quiet. It was loud with everything they’d never outrun.

“If that’s what you want, I’ll charter the ship myself,” he said, swallowing hard.

“What I want is impossible,” she replied softly, stepping out of his embrace. As he watched, she built her walls back up, shutting him out.

“Nothing is impossible. Tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen for you.”

“I want to turn back time. I want that night to have never happened. And I want the boy I loved to have not abandoned me on a hospital bed.”

Virat stayed silent.

Cara laughed, a humourless sound. “So much for tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen.”

She glanced at a point beyond his shoulder, staring into the night. “Kabir has been there for me when no one else has.” Unspoken were the words that he had been there when Virat himself hadn’t. He cannot get hurt, Virat. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“This is a promise you cannot break,” she warned him, her gaze flashing to his. “Swear it to me.”

“On my life,” he told her quietly. “He will be safe. I swear.”

A sharp knock sounded on the glass door, the sound slightly muffled by the curtain.

“Sir.” Shourya sounded apologetic for the interruption. “I have some information on the FountainMore case.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

Shourya’s footsteps faded away as he left.

They stared at each other in silence, shadows gilding their faces.

“How are you managing the rest of your work with this going on?” she asked, curiosity seeping through her words.

Virat shrugged. “I have a good team. We’re on top of stuff.”

Cara walked forward, coming to stand beside him near the railing, her earlier panic seemingly under control.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything.” He braced his forearms on the railing, staring out at the bustling street below.

“Why a fixer? What made you choose this profession?”

Virat froze, clearing his throat and trying to think of a safe answer to give, one that would appease and soothe.

“No,” Cara said softly, reading his mind. “Don’t whitewash it. Tell me the truth as it is.”

“I couldn’t fix the most important thing in our life. I couldn’t fix us.”

“So, you’re going to spend your lifetime fixing everything and everyone else?”

Virat straightened. “You know what the most important thing in the world is, Celi?”

“Money?” she hazarded a guess.

“Power. Information is the ultimate power. Information in the form of knowledge, secrets, truths and lies…all of it. It’s a spider web of power and one that I weave to my advantage.”

He inhaled deeply. “That night, I was powerless. I swore I’d never be again. I’ve spent all the years since accumulating power in all its avatars. You’re not the only one who can’t sleep, Celi.”

She stepped closer, her shoulder brushing his side.

“You’re sure you want to go ahead with this?” he asked, the urge to protect her, to care for her strangling his good intentions.

“I am. This started with me. It should end with me.”

“Are you sure? You have a life now, Celi. A good one.”

“Do I?” she smiled, sadly. “I thought you said knowledge was power. Don’t you know everything there is to know about this good life of mine?”

Virat didn’t answer. Some questions didn’t need replies. They stood together in silence, the past and present swirling in a painful, tormented mess around them.

“Vir?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you ever think about the ‘what ifs’?”

Virat turned his head to look down at her. Her beautiful profile was gilded by moonlight, her thick, lustrous hair pulled back in a french braid.

“What if that night had never happened? What if you’d never left me?

” she whispered. “What if we’d grown up, gotten married, had children?

What if Vir and Celi had found their happy ever after?

Would you still be a fixer? Would I still be Cara Ferns, actress and star?

What would we have been if they hadn’t destroyed us, Vir?

Do you ever think about it? What would we have been? ”

It took him a moment to force words past the emotion clogging his throat but in the end, he managed to answer her.

“We would have been happy.”