The train groaned to a halt, its brakes screeching like wounded metal. The station was barely that—just a rusted platform surrounded by crumbling fences and cracked concrete. The air was thick with dust, sweat, and something fouler. This was the South Zone.
Jey stepped off first, his eyes scanning the broken buildings and graffiti-stained walls.
"Place looks like it chewed up hope and spat it back out," he muttered and laughed.
Surya followed, silent, but his eyes were focused—searching.
A crowd waited at the edge of the platform. Not guards. Not staff. Wolves.
Men with scarred faces and eyes too tired to blink. Women with knives strapped to their thighs and cigarette smoke curling from their lips.
The South Zone wasn't welcoming them—it was sizing them up.
And smiling.
A tall man with dreadlocks and a rifle slung across his back stepped forward. He wore no uniform, no badge—just a blood-red band around his left wrist.
"New blood," he said. "You've got two options here: follow our rules, or die wondering what they were."
He pointed at Jey. "You. Quiet one. Name?"
"Jey," he replied, wary.
"You'll do," the man said, then turned to Surya, his voice icy.
The man chuckled. "Then you'll fit right in. Name's Rajiv. I oversee this zone—or what's left of it."
He gestured toward the broken skyline behind him.
"Welcome to the gutter. Let's see if you're sharp enough not to drown in it."
While Rajiv explained the situation in the South Zone, he walked toward the five-story building—a towering structure of concrete and rusted steel that loomed like a prison pretending to be a factory.
Bullet holes pockmarked the outer walls, and faded bloodstains painted the stairs leading up to the main entrance.
Inside, each floor served a darker purpose than the last.
The first floor roared with chaos. Makeshift fighting pits dominated the center, encircled by gym equipment and bloodstained mats. Men sparred like animals while others lifted weights or smoked, laughing over bruises like trophies.
No rules. No mercy. Pain was the only language spoken here.
The second floor was colder, quieter—but no less vile. This was the lab. Rows of grimy tables and flickering lights illuminated a chemical graveyard. Glass flasks bubbled with narcotics. Powdered drugs were weighed, packaged, and stamped with the Desan logo.
Masked workers moved like ghosts through fumes, their eyes hollow, their loyalty bought with silence—or addiction.
The third floor was the lie — the mask over the monster.
A clean, polished office space with black-leather chairs, glass tables, and fake potted plants. Dozens of middlemen operated here, answering calls, laundering money, and drawing up contracts to keep the illusion of business intact. This was the front — the corporate face for the crimes stitched into the foundation below.
The fourth and fifth floors held the dorms.
Beds stacked like coffins. Showers that worked half the time. Guards roamed the halls, shooting glares into every corner, and some security had carved names into the walls with shivs made from toothbrushes.
Others whispered stories about those who didn't wake up in the morning.
But the basement was the worst of all.
They weren't taken there —
not yet.
But whispers traveled faster than footsteps.
Women. Trafficked. Caged. Sold.
The stories said the basement reeked of blood and perfume, a stench that never washed off. Only a few men were allowed inside — the ones who were trusted enough to enter.
Surya and Jey didn't flinch when they heard it.
But something in their jaws tightened.
Back on the first floor, both Surya and Jey were corralled towards the center of the pit. The air was thick with sweat, iron, and the sound of fists cracking bone.
"Every fresh face must bleed today," barked a handler with a tattoo on his face and a whip hanging from his belt. "Kill hesitation. Or die with it."
Jey was pushed first into the cage.
At the center, a tall man who looked like a veteran was already standing in front of him —
and the bell rang.
The fight lasted fifteen minutes, but eventually, Jey won.
He came out of the cage with a swollen cheek and looked at Surya.
Surya nodded. Jey was satisfied when Surya nodded back.
Then came Surya's turn.
He was pitted against a man twice his size — tattooed, scarred, and snarling like he'd been starved just for this moment.
Surya stepped into the cage, silent.
The crowd jeered.
The bell rang.
The man charged.
The fight was short.
Not because Surya was faster —
But because he didn't hold back.
He sidestepped the first lunge, grabbed the man's arm, and snapped it at the elbow with a sound that silenced the laughter. The man screamed.
Surya slammed his knee into the man's face—twice—until his jaw cracked sideways. A tooth flew out.
Surya picked it up and jammed it into the man's throat as he gasped for breath.
The man choked.
Collapsed.
Unmoving.
The room went dead quiet.
Even the weights stopped clinking.
Jey stood outside the cage, stunned.
From the balcony above, Rajiv, who had been watching, let out a slow, amused chuckle.
He leaned forward, voice low—but it carried like thunder.
"You've got wolf in you."
Then he smiled—a grin filled not with admiration, but recognition.
"Let's see how hungry you are. Both of you, come up."
Everyone in the fighting pit stepped aside.
Seeing Surya fight had frightened them. While he and Jey walked toward the stairs, people cleared the way.
Surya and Jey made their way to Rajiv's office.
Rajiv, seated in his chair, greeted them with a chuckle.
"Surya, I've been waiting for someone like you for a long time. You see, the South Zone is different from the others."
Surya narrowed his eyes.
"Why is that?"
Rajiv leaned back.
"Well, the other zones are under control. But after our boss from the South Zone went to jail, it fell into chaos. The zone got split into four sectors, each ruled by different organizations. No one's really in charge anymore."
Surya remained silent.
He already suspected Rajiv was working under someone else—and he wanted to know who.
But this wasn't the time to ask.
Jey asked in a calm but firm tone,
"So, sir, what is it you want us to do?"
Rajiv replied,
"You two need to take down one of the four organizations—the one in the central sector. They've got the most pubs and supply routes. If we control that area, we can move our stuff through it. It'll make South Zone profitable again."
Surya nodded.
"Okay. So we're targeting the organization controlling the central area."
Rajiv's smile widened.
"Yes. That's your first mission. Take three members with you. Get in. Take control."
Both Surya and Jey nodded and left the room.
But Surya's thoughts weren't on the mission alone.
His eyes were already set on the man behind the South Zone's chaos.
To find out who truly ran things, he needed Rajiv's trust. And to earn that, he had to deliver.
Control the central area.
Dominate.
Unleash.
He was ready.
And he would not be stopped.