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The smell of a delicious roast had enchanted Cabir in the direction of the kitchen and uplifted his spirits a tad. Alia had been basting the chicken every ten minutes with a dollop of butter and some fresh herbs that locked the aroma within the bounds of the living area.

He had been hopeful about seeing Manik at the indoor gym ripping his muscles apart with a rigorous workout just as he had been doing for the last few days. If not for his bullet injury – which was a blessing in disguise given his current state of mind – Manik would have been three-fourths of the way through his lifespan already with all the exertion and his self-destructive tendencies.

But he was slumped on a chair near the dining table instead, neatly swiping some pills he ground earlier into a line with a credit card.

"It's mid-day!" Cabir scolded while by his shoulder.

Nawab, with a three-day old stubble, angled himself and sniffed on the table, sending the line straight through his respiratory system and clearing a congesting feeling in his body. The numbing pain around his torn muscle had psychologically dissipated after ingesting white poison.  

He turned around while massaging his nostrils, his knees emerging from the table. The man was dressed in a blue and white blazer with a diamond pattern on it and dark-washed jeans, resembling the chocolate boy from some photos he uploaded on a dating app some weeks ago.

The only difference was the boyish smile that adorned him was long lost.

"When has that ever stopped me from snorting?" He grumbled, wiping the table with his jacket sleeve.

"That's... Okay, you make a fair point, but with Adira in..."

"She's out with Mukti," Alia answered, joyfully returning the glazed chicken back to the oven after which she took off her mittens.

She had been in a gleeful mood since the time Manik had been in her vicinity, which was nearly all morning. Both his presence around her and his slight regard for her gave her some renewed hope, that there was still a chance for the two of them but time and again when she glanced in his direction, she caught him stroking a finger. Shrugging it off as a wound she could address later, she carried along her duties.

This time, she was able to see what it was – a black ring.   

Where had that come from? As far as she knew, he wore rings very often on the job but no part of his 'Nawab' look would persist or melt into Manik. It was woven on his ring finger; even though she wasn't a sentimental woman and knew Manik wasn't one either, she could not help but feel a certain significance to it. 

The idea of rebuilding a future together had brought her immense joy and subsequently coaxed her to linger around in the living area for much longer than usual. It was one of the primary reasons why she volunteered to make a chicken roast for lunch to win back his heart, but the whole ordeal was now nauseating and disgust overpowered her.

Which godforsaken woman did he have his eyes on now?

As Nawab began to relax from the drug, Cabir also took note of Dhruv, who had his legs stretched over the coffee table as his eyes deeply rooted in a romance novel, not noticing his friends in the vicinity. Everyone else in the house seemed either at ease or in their element, nothing out of the ordinary.

Everyone except him and Manik.

And as always, Cabir found it the easiest to approach him. 

He took a seat beside Nawab and tossed a cursory glance at his disturbed friend. Manik had not been the most transparent person to read, and since the injury, he had been acting quite strange himself; the reasons for it had been apparent from the beginning but it had taken Cabir a solid few days to piece those clues together.

Restlessly, Cabir fisted his hands and alternatively tapped the table. He gulped, unsure of how exactly to approach the topic.

Had the conversation between Cabir and his lover not taken place an hour ago, he would have quite frankly preferred to shove the matter under the rug for longer. He would have blamed his anxieties on his insecurity in love and would have preferred to address it on his own... not wanting an audience to witness how his issues shaped him as a person.  

But the Professor had unabashedly insinuated a third entry in their lives – as if Cabir had been just another meagre hitpoint on Raghav's scorecard of men – and the gut-wrenching fear of being so easily replaced skewed his thoughts in an ugly direction.

The next thing he did was run through call histories, message transfers, and internet searches that reached their home router in a paranoid manner for any clues of cheating. And one thing had led to another. 

Manik would understand, however, because one of the primary rules of being in the clan was to protect one's people with everything one could. Love was included in that, and worth fighting for: Manik's actions exuded that.

If his hunch was right, his friend Manik was experiencing one of the most delightful phases in his life. Reaping the benefits or pain points of biting into the forbidden fruit. In fact, that was what made Cabir's relationship even more exciting at the start. Now, he could only hope he could still fix things.   

As his friend reached for another pill from a ziplock to drown away his joys, Cabir snatched the packet. "Manik, that's enough now! Tu SPACE canteen ka exotic pizza khaane chalega?"

Nawab furrowed an eyebrow, and then scanned the living space, before deciphering softly, "You want me to come with you?"

Cabir nodded, pulled out a bunch of keys from the key hooks near the door and led the way to one of their European cars. "Actually, let's wear you off your high first. Let's walk. That will also get us hungry for lunch!"

Was he even Cabir Dhawan if food was not the first thing on his mind every breathing living second of his life? Manik rolled his eyes and followed his friend out the door, shutting it behind them.

They walked a few hundred metres silently, with Cabir bouncing on the topic and Manik quietly admiring the calm air surrounding them with fists in his pockets. How had the atmosphere outdoors never felt so clean before, or was he just not paying attention to it all those days?

"I have an idea that will blow your mind. I think we should..." One of Cabir's hands came up in a stopping motion. Halting in his tracks, Manik was confused while Cabir's other hand dug into his pocket. Out emerged a folded sheet of paper as Cabir slyly grinned, "...spy on our lovers!"

"WHAT?!" Manik ridiculously intoned.

Cabir pressed his lips and opened the sheet, holding it at arms' reach while he read it in a steady proclamatory manner, "Hmm... Indian Army contact number... Aiyappa temples in Ahmedabad... ahh, now who do we have here..."

A hand with a kada came to crumple it. "Shut it!" He snapped. 

The smirk embracing Cabir's lips grew wider.

"Come on, you must have an explanation for all those searches."

"You're a sick motherfucker, you know that, right?!" Manik retorted sharply. Who in their right mind would go dumpster-diving into other's internet search histories?

While Cabir laughed, Manik desperately tried to regain control of the situation but was out of words.

What could he possibly say to justify himself, or explain to others why an insane part of him yearned to hear her voice just one more time? Why? Why was it just never fucking enough?

"I... I just don't want to talk about it." He confessed, eyeing the ground. 

It was an uncomfortable topic, certainly, but when Manik knew most things about Cabir's relationship, it was only fair that Cabir expected not to be in the dark about any advancements in his friend's life. That he was sure of, that something had changed in him since the entry of this character called Nandini Murthy, and the most humane side of Cabir associated it with a feeling so beautiful and utterly selfish.

What a devastating realisation it must be: to spend all one's life protecting yourself and learning to live for and with yourself, only to completely lose control in the presence or absence of another human being. And the worst part of all, it thoroughly defies one's will and fights against all odds.  

Placating the young man whose heart was in shambles, Cabir mentioned, "It's not wrong, and trust me you're definitely not the first person in this line of work to fall..."

Two eyes steeled him with a death grip of a glower. "WHAT?! Whaaaat?" Manik nervously chuckled as he sang, "I've... not fallen for anyone, okay, let's get that straight first."  

Yeah, sure, I buy that, Cabir appeased for his friend's sake.

"...down a rabbit hole of searches was what I was going to say." While continuing to smirk, the sober man raised an eyebrow at a rather agitated Manik who was trying really hard to maintain a nonchalant composure. It would not hurt to pull Manik's leg just a tad more now, would it? "But now that you mentioned falling for someone..."

The grin on Cabir's face faded as stark reality collided with his deluded dreams. No, reality was not as cozy and dreamy as one would assume. Maybe that was why it was called falling for someone instead of falling with someone because there was not a guarantee that those feelings would be protected or reciprocated by the other.

It was indeed a lonely battle to fight. 

Manik exasperatedly groaned, "Cabirrrrr..."

"I think Raghav has a thing for Harshad." The queer man blurted, cringing at his brain that concocted such a repulsive scenario.

His friend's jaw opened to vouch in his defense – against his feelings for Nandini – but had not anticipated the turn the conversation took. "Oh."

Manik's blank stare was proof enough that he was being absurd. "I know, I know you find it ridiculous but..."

"I actually don't. I've been finding it fishy how the Harshad fiasco went under everyone's noses. Nobody vouched for him within Raghav's clans, I'm sure of that. And a recruitment like that is only possible when..."

"...there is a special interest in mind for the candidate." It pained Cabir to say it, but just the mere reassurance that he had not been imagining things and that his thoughts and feelings were valid brought him much-needed comfort. It was quite possibly one of the reasons why he bonded best with Manik.

Manik caught an angsty glimpse of some emotions in his friend's face that mirrored his own turmoil. Deeply gazing into the bright sky and searching for something between them, he politely asked, "Do you think our actions define who we are?"

It took Cabir longer than a moment to realise where the discussion was steering towards.

"Are you by any chance talking about your night with Nandini? Because I've been meaning to ask, what exactly happened there? From what I can guess, it didn't end well because how could it if you had to leave her?"

Refusing to answer, Manik shifted on his feet and deviated from his thoughts, rubbing a banded finger on his left hand. "What did you think about the dead man on the cruise?"

How did they go from talking about Nandini to the dead man? Cabir wondered how they were connected at all. Unless it was the drugs talking.

"As in?"

"It can't be a coincidence that Harshad magically popped up on the cruise the same day one of Malhotra's men was shot dead. And if the card landed in Harshad's possession, that's proof that he too was against the Malhotras. This would make perfect sense as to why Harshad would join hands with Raghav, the Malhotra's enemies... I think exploring the dead man's involvement further will solve your problem."

"But what about yours?"

Manik did not meet his eyes, but looking into the distance, he murmured, "Chale?"

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At the central hospital's mortuary unit, a saree-clad woman in her forties approached two men donned in flawlessly woven wigs, thick-rimmed gold glasses over sharpened noses and densely painted eyebrows. To complete the looks were the distinct moles on their faces.

One non-banded hand came to greet her. "I'm Ranbir Dutta, we spoke on the phone. This is my best friend Ayaan Malik, thank you for arranging to meet with us."

She nodded firmly and ushered them into a vacant chamber where a cold body lay. Ayaan's blood went icy at the sight.

"It's an open and shut case. He was caught trying to make a drug deal and refused to cooperate. Two packets of cocaine were in his blazer, along with some traces of it in his bloodstream mixed with alcohol." One of the men distinctly remembered patting the man down for a card, there was no way two packets were found on him. Absolutely nothing was on him. 

Ranbir crooked his eyebrows. "You mean it was an encounter type of situation?" While the lady spun around to lay down some reports, Ayaan's healthy bicep was nudged and seemingly recollecting something, he jotted down notes while Ranbir eagerly listened.

"Unfortunately, yes. Bullet went straight into his brain, so it must have been a painless death. Shot with precision, I must say, a mark of a skilled policeman at work."

Ayaan nearly scoffed at the phrase, not the slightest surprised by the cover-up. "Where did the report say the body was found?"

"In a firework factory on the outskirts of the city."

"And about the weapon?" Ranbir questioned, earning a careful look of consideration from the woman.

She adjusted her hair stealthily as if trying to cover herself up, "You said you are his family, can I see some form of ID?"

Ayaan clutched Ranbir's shoulders and had a blanched look of desperation in his eyes that was bound to snatch hearts. "I must apologise on behalf of my brother here, he has been shaken since hearing the news and has been tugging at straws to cling to some hope and a different reason for the demise." Ranbir did his best to sniffle at some sensitive phrases.

The lady felt a twinge in her heart but her duty called for more. "Didn't you say he was your best friend?"

"Woh kehte hai na, brothers from different mothers... and best friends since birth... He has been sheltered from much of his Dad's ugliness since childhood."

Wanting to relieve the men of their distressing thoughts, she revealed, "I'm not certain of all the details but I was told the team that busted him surrendered their gun as evidence, the fingerprints of the shot bullet matched those on the gun. I'm sorry I need to meet with another family now."

"Thanks for your time," Ranbir said softly, letting himself be dragged away by Ayaan.

Once they made it back to the main road and to the car, they ripped off their disguises. 

"None of what that said makes sense. He was clearly pronounced dead on the cruise!" Cabir said, amazed by the lies.

Manik huffed sarcastically, "And how convenient is it that the firework factory went up in flames two days ago!"

"That was just a cover-up, that was why Mr. Malhotra asked you to meet him there. Regardless of whether you negotiated with him or not, he was going to blow the building up!" Cabir's eyes widened as it snapped towards Manik. "It's all the more frightening now to think what would have happened if we could not get to you in time."

Unfazed by the thought, Manik said, "I don't believe the theory that he was drugged, or had drugs on him. When I was in the factory, Mr. Malhotra revealed that he could go to any extent to get what he wants; after all, anything can be fudged when money is involved." There was a certain spot on the concrete that appeared to be an oil stain.

Manik wondered if that was integral evidence to something nastier, and hence on needing to get rid of that evidence – and a nuisance like Nawab – the location had been nitpicked for the hand-off.

"They could not reveal that the death had happened on the cruise because that would raise questions on the source of money for such an elaborate party – that I understand, but everything else – it's fishy."

Cabir nodded, "Someone paid the police to write up such a case. Then why is Mr. Malhotra not doing anything about it, it's one of his men?! Or was there an undercover cop on that boat?" With whatever limited knowledge he was exposed to, Cabir made some mental deductions and ruled out some absurd possibilities but of the ones that remained, the branches of options were endless. "No, it couldn't be, everyone who was there was either invited or part of the transaction."

"Except Harshad." Manik said, cementing Cabir's fright.

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