CHAPTER - 3

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(Avyaan’s POV)

The world was silent when it shouldn't have been.

I sat on the edge of the armchair in my room, staring at nothing but the soft gleam of the city lights beyond the glass windows. It was past midnight. The house slept in silence, but my mind was storming — restless, bitter, unsettled.

Marriage.  

That word echoed like a death sentence in my head.

My fingers clenched the glass of whiskey tighter, veins tensed beneath my skin. The taste burned, but not enough to numb me.

"He's crossed the fucking line this time," I muttered to the darkness.

That man — my father — had always tried to control everything. Money. Power. Reputation. But now, he wanted to extend his strings to my life... to my future... to my goddamn marriage?

And the cherry on top? He was using my mother. The only person I gave a damn about in that cursed bloodline. Using her as bait in this twisted blackmail.

If I agreed to marry the girl he chose, he’d transfer the ownership of the ancestral house — my mother’s house — to her name. If I didn’t... it would go to an orphanage. Wiped clean from our hands. As if it had never belonged to us. As if she had never existed in those walls.

His conditions were clear. Brutal. Strategic. Ruthless.

1. Marry the girl he chooses.

2. No contract. No divorce. Or else, goodbye to the house.

3. Don’t tell anyone. Not a fucking soul.

I looked at the cold flame of the alcohol in my glass and let out a sharp, dry laugh.

Marriage? Me?

He really thought he could still play God in my life. I wasn’t the same boy who once begged for his approval. That version of me had died long ago — the day he left us.

I took a breath and finally made the call.

The moment the line connected, a voice from the other end spoke, calm and collected. I didn’t offer a greeting. I wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries.

"I need information," I said. My voice was sharp, low, controlled. "There’s a girl. Her name is Aradhya Mishra. I want every detail on her, but quietly. Discreetly. No mess."

There was a pause. The man on the other end didn’t speak right away. Just silence. Then—laughter. Dry, amused.

"You’re getting married?" he asked, half-choking on his own chuckle. "The MADVIPER himself? You? Bro, is this some new prank you're trying on me at midnight?"

"Does it look like I’m joking?" I muttered coldly.

He whistled softly. "Damn. The world really is ending. You finally giving up your wild nights and savage temper for a marriage? Wait—does she even know you’re a psychopath?"

I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to.

He kept going. "What’s next? You showing up at my door with wedding invitations and sweets?"

He chuckled again. "And here I thought you'd call me to plan your bachelor party. Instead, it's espionage."

"Less fun, more blood," I muttered.

"That's your love language, isn’t it?"

I sighed, rubbing my temple. "Are you done?"

"Nope. Not even close," he chuckled again. "But alright, alright. I’ll see what I can find out about the girl. Anything specific I should know?"

"Not now. Just... get me the full report. Background, contacts, affiliations—everything. If there’s even a hint of a secret, I want it before sunrise."

"Understood," he said, voice shifting into something more serious. "You got it. I’ll call you back once I have it."

"By the way... shipment from Cairo came in. HY handled it. But there’s a delay in Istanbul. Our ports there are being sniffed at. Unfriendly interest."

"I’ll handle it," I said flatly.

"You’d better. You're not allowed to die before the wedding, remember?"

The sarcasm pulled a smirk from my lips. "Hang up before I track your number and shoot your dog."

"You don’t even know if I have a dog."

"Then I’ll shoot something else you love."

He laughed. "Deal. I’ll call when I have dirt on the mystery bride. Try not to kill your future in-laws in the meantime."

The call disconnected. No name. No trace. Just silence again.

With that, we switched briefly to some business matters—shipment updates, a deal brewing in the Eastern zone, and a silent alert from the border. Routine, bloody, ruthless business. The things I was used to.

When the call ended, I stared at the black screen of my phone, wondering—not about the girl—but about the madness my father had entangled me in. I didn’t know who she really was. I didn’t care. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to be played. Not by him. Not by fate.

It was 4:03 a.m. when the group chat of THE VEYRIX buzzed on my encrypted device.

SM’s message lit up the screen:  

"We’ve got a problem. Outskirts. Urgent. Assemble immediately."

If SM — MADREGIN — had messaged in the group himself, it wasn’t just a problem. It was a firestorm.

I rose, grabbed the black duffel always ready near the door, and loaded my pistol. Slid it under the tailored jacket. One blade in the boot. Two in the belt.

I didn’t waste a second. My mind shifted into work mode—the only place I found clarity.

Sliding on my jacket, I tucked a blade into my boot, checked the pistol at my waist, and stepped into the dark corridor of my house.

Outside, the city was still sleeping, but I wasn’t. The MADVIPER never sleeps—not when blood is about to spill.

I was ready.

Because this? This was the part of my life I understood. The chaos. The missions. The blood.

Not arranged marriages.

Not houses held at ransom.

And certainly not the girl whose name now echoed in my ears like a curse I hadn’t seen coming.

Aradhya Mishra.

Who the hell are you?

Why did he choose you?

And why the fuck did I feel like this was only the beginning?

With one last look at the quiet home — the one my mother still called her haven — I stepped into the shadows.

Toward the outskirts.

Toward the Veyrix.

Toward war.

And perhaps... toward a future I didn’t ask for — but one I was now being forced to own.

One decision at a time.

The city never truly slept, but outside its steel boundaries, chaos often brewed in silence before it erupted with blood. By the time dawn cracked over the distant hills, a forgotten patch of industrial wasteland on the outskirts had already become a graveyard.

The air was thick with soot, smoke, and the copper sting of fresh death.

It had started just after four.

A convoy—five armored black SUVs, unmarked but unmistakably dangerous—rolled into a closed-down warehouse district. It wasn’t on any official radar. The government had forgotten it. The police never patrolled it. But The Veyrix knew. They knew everything.

The scent of betrayal always finds its way to them.

MADVIPER stood in the shadows of the structure, a looming specter in black, his eyes watching as the sun threatened to rise on a massacre. He hadn't spoken a word since they arrived. He didn’t need to. Presence alone was command.

The message had been urgent.

SM had written clearly: "South perimeter. Warehouse 9. Dead leak inside. Code white. Come armed."

Code white.

It meant intel had been sold.

It meant one of theirs had been compromised.

It meant bullets would speak.

By the time MADWOLF, MADCROW, MADRAGE, and MADREGIN joined him inside the rusted-out hulk of the old facility, the smell of gasoline and scorched rubber already painted the air with danger. Bodies littered the north entrance—not theirs. Outsiders. Bold, well-armed. But not Veyrix.

Veyrix didn’t fall. They made others fall.

They moved in silence, practiced and lethal. No commands. Just looks, signs, movement. They were the kind of myth nightmares whispered about. And they hunted like it.

The man tied to the chair at the center of the floor wasn’t a stranger. He wore the crest of a known associate, someone who had once eaten at MADVIPER's table. That made his betrayal worse.

He was barely breathing, blood gushing from a leg wound, a shoulder nearly dislocated. Yet even through the haze of pain, he whispered, "I didn’t mean to sell you out. They had my family."

"And what do you think they have now?" MADVIPER said coldly, voice like sharpened steel. His face was unreadable, but his eyes—they promised no forgiveness.

No one begged twice in front of The Veyrix. There wasn’t time.

A gunshot echoed through the metal shell of the warehouse. Final. Clean.

The man's head dropped.

MADWOLF didn't flinch. He never did. He had pulled the trigger without asking.

They didn’t need approval. Not from each other. Not for traitors.

Outside, the remains of an ambush smoldered. Three SUVs had been torched. Whatever backup the informant's enemies had called in—mercenaries, most likely—were now just ash and bullet holes in concrete.

MADCROW had taken out the last sniper half an hour ago. The shot was clean from 900 meters out. One bullet. No mistakes.

Inside, the temperature seemed to drop. It wasn’t the cold. It was the presence of death.

MADREGIN stood near the blood-splattered wall, silent, checking his phone. More movement in the north, the messages said. More fools thinking they could hunt shadows.

They didn’t know The Veyrix owned the dark.

"They were sent by someone bigger," MADRAGE finally said, her voice low, her hands slick with the mess of data files retrieved from the warehouse server. "This wasn't just about a leak. It was a test."

MADVIPER turned his head, eyes locked on her, sharp as a viper's strike. "Test for what?"

She didn’t blink. "How fast we bleed."

A beat passed. Then another.

And then the laugh—low, dark, dangerous—broke from MADVIPER's throat like thunder.

"They’ll learn," he said simply. "We don’t."

They moved out before the sun rose high. No sirens ever came. No cameras ever captured their faces. The dead were left for the flies and the rats. A message, etched in blood and silence.

No one crosses The Veyrix.

Not even God.

Back in the city, as the skyline shimmered gold and steel, a dozen news outlets reported a freak chemical explosion at an abandoned warehouse. No survivors. Cause unknown.

Only five men and women knew the truth.

But only one name made the rest kneel in silence w

hen it echoed in the underworld:

MADVIPER.

And he was only getting started.

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TO BE CONTINUED....... 

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