Chapter 11

The calls from his uncle would not stop.

Day after day, the screen would light with the same name: Uncle Arjun Singh. Each time Alexei’s chest tightened, torn between longing and dread. He had silenced the phone once, thinking he could bury the voice, but blood did not quiet so easily.

On the third night of ignoring, the buzzing grew non stop and unbearable. He slipped into the washroom, shut the door, and pressed the phone to his ear, whispering:

“Uncle… uncle.”

The older man’s voice hit through with relieved. “Alexei! Finally. My boy, why do you hide your voice from me? Are you in trouble? Tell me.”

Alexei stood in front of his his mirror. His reflection stared back, pale and hollow-eyed, more stranded than the boy. “I… am busy, Uncle. I work too much.”

Arjun sighed on the other end, the kind of sigh that carried both worry and affection. “You always say that. But I hear something in you. Something breaking. Alexei, do not think I am blind.”

Alexei closed his eyes, fighting the burn at his throat. “I cannot explain. Not yet.”

“Then listen to me,” Arjun cut in. “Whatever chains hold you, there are ways to break them. There are tools—things older than men, older than power. My grandfather once told me of a Cham.”

Alexei froze.

“A… what?”

“A Cham,” Arjun repeated. His voice dropped, almost reverent. “A relic, a ring forged centuries ago in the fires of sages. It does not just gleam like gold—it bends men. Makes them speak truths they’d die to keep. Makes them hand over secrets, wealth, power. Not because of fear, but because the Cham steals resistance. It draws out surrender. It tempts the strong to yield.”

Alexei’s blood stopped moving. He pressed the phone tighter. “And you… believe in such a thing?”

Arjun laugh. “Belief is not needed. I have seen it once, long ago. A man in Delhi wore it. Ministers who would not bow, bowed. Wealth that seemed locked in iron vaults, spilled into his hands. The Cham chooses who may wield it—and punishes those who wear it without fate.”

Alexei’s mind raced. A ring that could unmake the walls of power? Something stronger than guns, knives, and even Lucien’s networks. Something… that could free him?

Alexei couldn't believe the heck of what his ears were feeding him. A ring! He repeated.

His pulse hammering. “Why tell me this?”

“Because, I hear the storm in your voice. You are bound to someone who calls himself master. You want to be free, Alexei? Then you must seek weapons that are not of this world. I have searched, my boy. The Cham is real. And I believe—it belongs to you.”

Alexei’s throat went dry.

The call ended with a promise: Arjun would send word soon. Proof, not just stories. Alexei slipped the phone back into his mattress, his hands trembling.

For the rest of the night, he lay awake, whispering to the darkness:

“A ring… that can bend men? No”

Lucien was not blind.

For weeks, he had watched the boy with smart eyes. Alexei still carried out missions—quick, clean and efficient. But his focus was fractured. His silences grew longer. His hands, sometimes trembled at night when he thought no one saw.

Lucien saw everything.

He ordered one of his lieutenants, Henri, to track the boy’s room. To note who he spoke to. To trace the whispers behind closed doors. Henri reported back, hesitant:

“Phone calls. Frequent, at night.”

Lucien’s eyes blinked. “To whom?”

Henri shook his head. “We cannot yet trace. The boy hides it well. But the voice he speaks to—it softens and weakens him.”

Lucien sat back in his leather chair, smoke curling from his cigar. “Then it is a weakness. And weakness, Henri, is a luxury Alexei cannot afford.”

The next day, Lucien summoned Alexei.

“Boy,” Lucien called. “What do you know of power?”

Alexei stiffened. “Power is control, boss.”

“Good,” Lucien. “But not enough. Power is also silence and secrets. The moment you let another man touch your soul, you give him the knife for your own throat.”

Alexei said nothing, but his uncle’s words about the Cham rang in his ears.

Lucien watched him with predator’s patience, then smiled. “You’re distracted. Whatever binds you… cut it, or I will.”

Alexei bowed his head. Inside, his heart pounded.

The calls kept coming.

Sometimes, Alexei answered. Sometimes, he let them ring. But the subject now tilted always towards the Cham. His uncle fed him more fragments: stories of princes undone by its glow, of thieves who wore it only to vanish from the earth, of one man who held it for thirty years and built an empire without lifting a sword.

Each tale coiled itself around Alexei’s imagination.

He began to ask questions:

“Uncle… if this Cham makes men surrender, can it… make men like Lucien yield?”

There was silence. Then Arjun’s voice came in: “It can make even kings kneel, they would love until death.”

The answer festered in Alexei’s mind.

Meanwhile, Lucien’s suspicion deepened into something more dangerous. He watched Alexei from the darkness of his mansion. At dinner, he tested him with questions.

“You ever wonder, Alexei, what it would be like to own men without lifting a blade?”

Alexei nearly choked. Did Lucien know? “Power always requires blood.”

Lucien smirked, eyes closed. “Sometimes, power requires only temptation.”

The words chilled Alexei. He wondered—did Lucien know about the Cham, too?

One heavy night, the call came different. His uncle’s voice shook with urgency.

“Alexei, listen carefully. I have found it. The Cham. It lies with a collector in Vienna. An old man, obsessed with relics. But he does not know its true name. He wears it as ornament, he is careless.”

Alexei sat his bolt upright. His chest felt as though it might split. “You are sure?”

“I am very sure. I will send details. But beware. Such things are never unguarded by fate. If the Cham calls you, it will test you. If it rejects you, it may destroy you.”

Alexei’s breath caught. Destroy or free. Blade or boy.

The choice was already slowly killing him.

For the next days, Alexei carried out Lucien’s missions like no other, but inside, his thoughts burned. A relic that could unmake Lucien’s power. A chance to slip the leash. A way to belong to himself again.

But how could he reach Vienna without Lucien’s eyes?

The mansion itself felt more like a cage. Lucien’s men watched his every move. Henri trailed him like a ghost. Even in sleep, Alexei felt the eyes of his master somewhere in the dark.

One evening, when Lucien poured wine and gestured for Alexei to sit beside him, he leaned close, his voice was dangerous.

“You dream of freedom, don’t you?”

Alexei’s chest constricted. He masked it quickly. “Freedom is an illusion.”

Lucien smiled like a wolf. “Good answer.”

But his eyes said otherwise.

That night, Alexei whispered into the phone: “Uncle… send me everything. The name, the address, the path to the Cham. If there is a chance… I will take it.”

Arjun’s voice trembled. “Alexei, my boy, this is dangerous.”

“So is my life already.”

Silence, then: “Very well. Tomorrow, you will have what you seek.”

Alexei ended the call and buried the phone under his mattress. His hands shook, but his heart burned with something new. Not just fear. Not just duty.

Hope.

For a fucking moment, Alexei felt it.

But upstairs, Lucien stood at the window. His men had reported the whispers again.

And Lucien had made his decision.

“Tomorrow,” he murmured to himself, “I will know who calls him. And when I do, I will cut it clean.”

His eyes shining like knives in the dark.

Alexei did not know it yet, but fate was already moving pieces across the board.

In Vienna, a ring waited—glowing with a power that could unravel men.

In Brussels, Lucien’s patience tested, his suspicion hardening into a blade.

And in between stood Alexei, torn between blood and master, between chain and freedom.

The burden of secrets had already broken him. But the Cham…

The Cham would decide whether it remade him—or destroyed him completely.