"I love you."

Then he left. What the f-ck?

It's been five minutes and you were still pacing across the living room, trying to process Shubman's words.

And light you brought into his life? As if Goa was not bright enough already.

You finally stopped, palm against your lips as you went through all the decisions that brought you to your current situation, then falling back on the couch.

"What just happened?" You mumbled to yourself.

Meanwhile~

"And when he got there, he just asked me to leave. Like, leave. The audacity!" Ishan ranted to Shahneel who honestly just wanted to drink her morning coffee peacefully.

"I hear someone praising me," Shubman said as he walked inside the living room.

"Where were you the whole night?" Ishan finally asked and he just looked at him with a smile.

"At a minimal but safe distance away from my one and only," he answered.

"Did you tell her?" Shahneel asked before Ishan could start again.

"Yeah," Shubman replied, setting his blazer on the couch before he sat down.

"And?"

"I came home," he shrugged, stretching his arms as his head fell back to the headrest.

"No reply, nothing?" His sister asked again and he shook his head.

"I'm taking it slow. She needs even more time to interpret that she gave me her chocolates," Shubman said, and only got a confused look from the duo.

"What does that have to do with your confession?" Shahneel asked and before she could get her answer, Ishan spoke up.

"Yashasvi called, by the way," he informed. "Some issue with the customs officer, currently vacationing in Goa. He took the money and then denied the arms shipment. And his assistant's in the basement."

"Send him to the restaurant," Shubman answered, pulling down his sleeves that were rolled up.

"As in Shastri's House?" Ishan asked for confirmation and the younger one hummed in response.

"I'm sure you've already extracted the needed information from him. What good is he alive then," saying that, he stood up from the couch. "I'll be downstairs when I'm ready. Let's visit this unfeigned officer as well."

Time skip~

The car came to a halt while Shubman was still on his laptop, checking the offshore accounts.

There was an eighty percent profit from a recent alliance. It was good but not good enough.

"Ishan," he called the man sitting beside him. "Get to the Mexican drug cartel again. Say we'll take up shipment and distribution in most of Asia and up the price."

"I'll send another delegation to Toluca," the older one added before the laptop was closed and placed away.

"Any word from the customs secretary?" Shubman asked as he got out of the car.

"Clearance is done. The containers are on for international transit," Ishan said as they walked towards the door. "Her signature will be valid when this scum is not in the chair."

And one of the men came forward and knocked the door. As in knocking it off its hinges.

The mafia boss walked over it, welcomed by the scene of two people coming running out.

"Ma'am, if you would," Ishan gestured his hand to the room the couple just got out of.

She took a shaken look around the living room before she went back in and a guard locked the door from the outside.

"Mr. Shetty," Shubman said with a smile as he walked further to sit on the couch with his right hand man.

His business facade, an indecipherable persona, the kind of smile that would make people want to crawl within themselves in fear.

"Please, have a seat," he said and the man in his late thirties slowly sat across on the other couch, clearly knowing who he was dealing with. "Would you like to resign?"

"What?" The man said, taken aback at such an irrelevant question.

"Your position as a customs officer in Kandla Port? Would you like to resign?" Shubman repeated despite how much he hated to do so. He never liked repeating himself.

He'll be compensated later anyway.

"I know who you are, Gill. And just because you have a fleet of armed men in my house, I won't-"

"Oh, look at him walking straight into the trap," Ishan laughed amusedly, shaking his head a little. "I'm sure Yashasvi's bribe would last you a lifetime if you had a longer one."

"You should've just done as told after taking the money," Shubman spoke in a monotonous voice. "And that's not even your wife. You're unfaithful on top of that."

"We hate such people, Mr. Shetty," Ishan said with a murderous glint in his eyes. Honestly, he just wanted to wrap his hand around the man and choke him to death.

Before it could be executed however, a pair of footsteps were heard and the trio turned towards the direction.

A boy around the age of eight or nine, stood confusedly at the bottom of the stairs, staring at all the suit-clad men in the room and then his father.

"Hello there," Shubman said with a smile and tilting his head to the side a bit. "Come here."

And the kid did as told, not seeing his dad shake his head, made to sit on the coffee table.

"You won't resign," Ishan recalled and looked at his best friend who gave him a nod. "Robin, do you think maybe we have his shoe size?"

"We do have one, sir," he answered and with another gesture his way, he had someone else bring a shoe box in a couple of minutes.

"Do you wanna try new shoes?" Shubman asked the kid as the box was placed on the floor and opened. "Go ahead."

The guard that knelt down took off the eight or something year old's home slippers and put on one of the shoes he just brought in.

Only a few seconds passed and the boy whimpered in discomfort which quickly escalated to loud cries of pain.

They could hear the sound of the door being banged at as his father immediately took the shoe off and threw it away.

It hit the wall, falling down after which a black scorpion the size of one's palm crawled out.

Robin bottled it immediately; Scorpius had a tendency to wander off easily. He was named by Shahneel.

The door was unlocked and the boy's mother rushed to him.

"You have ten minutes, ma'am," Ishan informed. "Make sure to get him to a hospital."

Panicking at her son's condition, she took off immediately, grabbing the car keys and without looking back.

His father stood up from the floor with worried eyes too, but unable to take another step forward because the mafia boss did too.

"You don't have to resign," he said, correcting his blazer as he took a few steps forward and the man in front of him did the same backwards. "Just one thing, I don't like cheaters."

Shubman wasted no time in playing out Ishan's wish, his hand wrapping around the man's throat and hoisting him up against the wall.

He waited as he heard him struggling to breathe or free himself, until he heard a sickening crack, his neck snapping to death and the life leaving his eyes.

Stepping back, he released his grip and watched the limp body slump down to the ground.

Then he took out his gun and emptied the magazine into the man's skull. You know, just to take out his frustration.

Also, a bloody crime scene would be more romantic. What better than red.

"Let's go," Shubman said, placing his gun back in its holster and walking out the house alongside Ishan, with blood still splattered on his face.

Just in case anyone forgot what kind of person we're dealing with here.