Siddharth stumbled out of the hotel into the cold night air, every part of him burning. His shirt hung loose, half-buttoned, his fists trembling. The city lights blurred in his vision as tears stung his eyes, but he kept walking until his legs gave way in a dark corner of the parking lot.

He fell to his knees, clutching the gravel like it could anchor him. His body convulsed, and he vomited, his throat raw, stomach heaving. When it was over, he sat there shaking, gasping, tears streaming unchecked.

His mind was a hurricane—Avneet’s smirk, her voice whispering poison, the feel of being powerless, trapped. But behind it, another voice rose, darker, colder.

When the memories lodged in his chest like stones, they rolled free all at once.

He saw his father’s silhouette in the doorway of their house,  not a man who soothed, but a judge whose approval was a currency Siddharth could never earn. He remembered the times his voice had been a hammer, the ways his rules had reduced him to a smaller shape: shoulders rounded to carry expectations, words swallowed to keep peace. When he had stood up or shown any spark of independence, the look on his father's face had been worse than a slap, it was disappointment sharpened into control. Each reprimand had taught him how to make himself small.

“You don’t get to choose, Siddharth. You are mine.”

A memory hit him like a punch to the gut.

---

Flashback

He was fourteen, standing in his father’s office, the air thick with cigar smoke. The old man’s eyes, same ruthless hazel eyes.

“You want to study, to go to your fancy school?” his father had said, voice dripping disdain. “You think I’ll let my illegitimate bastard parade around like some prince? No. You don’t carry my name. You don’t deserve it.”

Siddharth had clenched his fists even then, hating the sting of the word bastard.

“But you will serve me,” his father continued, leaning forward, voice colder than steel. “You will do everything I ask. Every dirty deed. Follow Every order. And if you disobey…”

He had snapped his fingers. Two men dragged a terrified young girl forward, Siddharth’s little sister. Her cries still echoed in his mind.

“One mistake from you,” his father said, pressing the barrel of a gun against her head, “and she dies. You want to protect her? Then obey. Be my dog. Or watch her bleed.”

Siddharth’s heart had broken that day. He had nodded, jaw trembling, tears burning in his eyes, sealing the deal with the devil.

All these twisted together with the horror of tonight. Avneet’s violation. His father’s cruelty. Both leaving him helpless. Both taking from him what he could never get back.

Rage coursed through him, obliterating the shame. His tears dried into something harder, sharper.

Tonight that taught helplessness crashed into another kind of helplessness — the one Avneet had handed to him like a branded mark. Everything he had been trained to hide — the trembling, the vulnerability, the need — had been exposed and paraded. The echo of his father's voice — be quiet, hold it in, don’t make it worse — mixed with Avneet’s cruel laughter until he couldn’t tell which humiliation came from whom.

For a long time he stayed sitting on the curb, hands over his face, letting both memories fall over him. The city kept moving, uncaring. Cars passed. Couples stumbled past arm in arm, laughing. None of it matched what he felt: raw, sudden, all-consuming.

But grief and shame curdled into something else.

He went home because there was nowhere else to go. The house smelled exactly like it always had — espresso, his father’s aftershave, the faint chalk of old money. His father looked up when Siddharth stepped into the living room: a quick, assessing glance, the kind men give when they decide whether to scold or ignore.

“What happened to you?” his father asked, but it wasn't concern. It was inconvenience disguised as curiosity.

Siddharth’s fists clenched. For the first time, the answer he gave was not the one he'd been taught to give. He didn't shrug it away. He didn't apologize. He said, simply, “I really don't want to talk right now.” He left.

He went straight to the basement where the fighting ring waited, dim lights flickering, the smell of sweat and iron filling the air. Men twice his size circled, hardened killers, mafia dogs sharpening their claws.

Siddharth threw himself into the pit with them.

Every punch he landed carried Avneet’s face. Every blow he took carried his father’s voice. His knuckles split, his ribs screamed, but he kept fighting, kept rising. Blood streaked his face, sweat drenched his body, but his eyes blazed with a fury that scared even the veterans.

He wasn’t fighting to win. He was fighting to destroy the weakness in him, to burn away the boy his father had broken and Avneet had humiliated.

By the time he collapsed against the ropes, his body a mess of bruises and blood, he felt it—the birth of something new.

Not a boy. Not a victim.

A weapon.

And this weapon would never be used by others again.

His chest heaved, and slowly he lifted his head. His hazel eyes glowed like embers, swollen with tears yet hard with something new. Rage. Resolve.

Avneet’s laugh still echoed in his skull, blending with his father’s venomous words. Bastard. Pawn. Mine.

He pressed his forehead to the rope, whispering hoarsely, “Never again.”

He saw his sister’s face in his mind—the only pure thing he had left. The chains his father had wrapped around him tightened, suffocating. For her, he had bent, obeyed, swallowed his pride. For her, he had endured humiliation. But tonight… tonight proved something else.

The world didn’t care that he sacrificed himself. The world only cared how weak he looked.

He slammed his fist against the mat, fresh blood smearing beneath him. His voice cracked, but his words were iron.

“I’ll play your game, Father. I’ll wear your crown of rot. I’ll kill, lie, destroy… whatever you want.” He closed his eyes, chest burning. “But one day, I’ll take it all from you. And from her too. Avneet, my punishment for her will make tonight look merciful.”

The men watching exchanged uneasy glances. There was something terrifying in the way the boy spoke—not like a child grasping at anger, but like a man who had stepped into a furnace and chosen to stay.

Siddharth pushed himself up, swaying, every muscle screaming. He raised his bloody hand, curling it into a trembling fist.

“They made me their pawn,” he growled, his voice raw and low. “But pawns can reach the other side of the board.” His lip curled, a shadow of a smile breaking through the blood. “And when I do… I’ll be king. My way. Not theirs.”

He spat blood onto the mat, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and stood tall, battered but unbroken.

The boy who had entered the ring to bury his pain was gone.

In his place stood the heir the mafia never meant to create.

And he carried in his heart not just obedience, but vengeance.

The past would not be rewritten, but the future could be forged. And Siddharth Nigam was already at the forge. Atleast that's what he thought.

He slammed his fists into the ground, skin splitting, blood smearing across the gravel. “No more,” he rasped, voice shaking but fierce. “No one… NO ONE… will make me feel powerless again.”