Broken Girl

Chapter - 20

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The Farmhouse at 5 pm in evening

Back at the farmhouse, the "Level 4" lockdown had turned the luxury estate into a tomb of regret.

Inside the command center, the air was thick with the hum of servers and the quiet murmurs of tactical teams. Karan stood before the primary monitor, his eyes fixed on the feed from the Mehra suite.

The storm had finally passed. After an hour of explosive rage—of Abhishek Mehra screaming at the cameras, pounding the reinforced oak door, and threatening the careers of every officer in the building—a heavy, unnatural silence had taken over.

Abhishek was now a calm, solitary figure sitting in the center of the room. The transition from frantic shouting to this absolute stillness was more unsettling than the noise. He sat rigidly in an armchair, his hands resting flat on his knees, staring directly at the door he couldn't open. The entitlement and fury that had colored his face just moments ago had drained away, replaced by a cold, sharpened focus.

He wasn't defeated; he was calculating.

"He's stopped pacing," Faizuddin whispered from a nearby terminal. "Heart rate is stabilizing, but his adrenaline levels are still high. He's not resting, Karan. He's waiting."

Karan leaned in, watching Abhishek's eyes. They were narrow and fixed. Abhishek wasn't asking for his lawyers anymore. He wasn't even asking for Khanna. He sat like a man who had realized that his money and prestige were useless in this room, and for the first time in twenty-four years, he was being forced to sit with the silence of his own choices.

"He thinks he's the victim of a conspiracy," Karan said softly, his voice echoing in the dark room.

"He's sitting there thinking he's done nothing wrong, blaming us for 'caging' an innocent man. He has no idea that the man he's waiting for to rescue him has been a skeleton for nine years."

On the screen, Abhishek slowly turned his head toward the hidden camera in the corner. He didn't speak, but the look in his eyes was a challenge. He was a king in a cage, still convinced the world owed him an explanation, unaware that the only thing coming for him was a truth that would leave him with nothing.

"Karan , report," NK's voice crackled over the comms, cutting through the hum of the SUV's engine as she sped toward the final coordinates. "Has the king finally stopped roaring?"

Karan leaned closer to the monitor, watching the unmoving figure of Abhishek Mehra. "He's gone quiet, Captain. The storm lasted an hour. He broke a chair, threatened to sue the entire department, and demanded Khanna's presence fifty times. But now? Silence. He's been sitting in that armchair for twenty minutes, staring at the camera like he's trying to burn a hole through the lens."

"Is he broken or is he thinking?" NK asked, her voice tight.

"He's calculating," Karan replied, his eyes narrowing as he watched Abhishek adjust his cufflink—a reflexive habit of power even in a cage. "He's not a man who accepts powerlessness. He's sitting there convinced this is a tactical error on our part. He thinks he's an innocent man being persecuted, and he's waiting for the moment he can use his influence to crush us."

"Innocent," NK repeated, a bitter edge to her voice. "He thinks he's innocent because he hasn't seen the charred remains of the girl he replaced. He thinks he's a victim because he hasn't realized he's been paying his daughter's executioner for nine years."

"He's asking for an update every ten minutes through the intercom," Karan added. "He wants to know if Khanna has been located. He's still clinging to that name like a lifeline."