FATHER

CHAPTER 4:- FATHER

REAL TRUTH ALWAYS HIDES AND BIDS ITS DIGNITY

Lana went dead silent. The air in the room didn't just feel cold; it felt like it had been sucked out completely. She stared at John, her eyes searching his face for a flicker of the man she thought she knew.

John leaned back, a slow, predatory calm settling over him. The aggression was gone, replaced by a terrifying, quiet clarity.

"Lana," John whispered, his voice smooth as silk and sharp as a razor. "Do you remember that night? The way the light hit the blade? The way you looked while you were killing Father?"

Lana’s breath hitched. Her eyes widened, her pupils shrinking in pure, unadulterated shock. She looked at him like he was a monster rising from the grave.

"Yes," John said, a dark, twisted smile finally breaking across his face. "It’s me. I am Drex."

Lana tried to speak, but no sound came out.

"I know you didn't kill those six men," John continued, his voice devoid of any brotherly warmth. "Of course you didn't. Because I killed them. Why would I let you have that satisfaction? Listen to me... for seventeen years, a fire has been burning inside me. I watched you slaughter Father with zero mercy. That night, I made a vow. I decided I would avenge him. I would take everything from you."

He leaned forward, his eyes boring into hers. "For seventeen years, I hunted them down. I found every single one of those animals who touched you. But don't you dare think I killed them for you. I didn't kill them because of what they did to you. I killed them because they were the reason Father is dead. If they hadn't come that night, you wouldn't have broken. You wouldn't have picked up that knife. They were the spark, but you... you were the hand that took his life."

John let out a dry, hollow laugh. "I could have killed you in a heartbeat, Lana. A quick snap of the neck, a blade to the throat—that would have been too easy. I wanted you to rot. I wanted you to feel the walls closing in. So, I started building the cage. I planted the hair. I staged the evidence to mirror exactly what they did to you, ensuring every lead pointed straight to your door. I needed the police to see you as the monster I know you are."

He stood up, pacing the small room, the authority of his uniform feeling like a cruel joke. "I wasn't sure if it was Aman or Arhan who started it all. That’s why I went to Arhan first. Remember when I asked him if he had done something seventeen years ago? I looked into his eyes, and I saw the truth—he was just a coward who watched. He wasn't the leader. So, I moved to Aman. I took him out, then planted the weapons, the clothes, and the trophies in your apartment."

John stopped at the door, looking back at his shattered sister. "I even led my own team to Father’s old house under the guise of an investigation, just to make sure they found the path to you. I didn't just catch a killer today, Lana. I completed a masterpiece."

He straightened his cap, his expression turning stone-cold.

"Today, Father is finally avenged.”

VERDIT

John stood by the window of the precinct, the rain blurring the world outside, but his internal vision was crystal clear. To understand why he was doing this, one had to understand the silence that followed the night in 2009.

When the knife stopped moving in Lana’s hand, a part of the universe simply ceased to exist for Drex. He was only a child, hidden behind the heavy, dust-caked curtains of their living room. He remembered the smell of the room—it didn't smell like a home anymore; it smelled like copper and iron. It smelled like the end of the world.

For months after that night, Drex lived in a state of permanent winter. His father, Mark, had been his north star. Mark was the man who could fix anything with a smile and a pair of pliers. He was the man who smelled of sawdust and cheap tobacco, a smell that meant safety. When Lana carved the life out of him, she didn't just kill a man; she murdered the concept of "home."

Drex had run into the night, his small lungs burning, his bare feet cutting against the gravel of Andheribagh. He didn't go to the police. Not then. He knew instinctively that the law couldn't fix a shattered soul. He slept in alleyways, shivering, his mind replaying the image of his sister’s face—not the face of the girl who used to braid her hair, but the face of a predatory animal.

The grief wasn't a wave; it was a slow-acting poison. Every night for seventeen years, he woke up with the same metallic taste in his mouth. He would sit in the dark, staring at his hands, wondering how the same blood that ran through a murderer like Lana could also run through him. He felt contaminated. He felt like a walking grave.

As he grew older, the sadness began to harden into something much more dangerous: purpose.

He realized that if he killed Lana right away, she would be a martyr. She would be a victim of her circumstances. He didn't want her dead; he wanted her erased. He wanted her to be remembered as the very thing she hated most—a monster.

He forced himself to study. He forced himself to be the best. Every exam he passed, every physical training session he endured in the police academy, was fueled by the memory of Mark’s lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling. He wasn't training to protect the citizens of Mumbai; he was training to become a ghost who could manipulate the system from the inside.

He watched her from the shadows for years. He saw her try to build a "normal" life. He saw her work that corporate job, wearing her professional clothes, drinking her coffee, pretending she didn't have the blood of her father under her fingernails. It disgusted him. The fact that she could breathe the same air as innocent people made his skin crawl.

"You thought you were the only one who suffered, Lana," he whispered to the empty office, his voice a ghost of the child he used to be. "You thought your trauma gave you the right to destroy the only good thing we had. You blamed the six of them. You blamed the world. But you were the one who broke the covenant."

Every time he looked in the mirror, he didn't see "John," the decorated officer. He saw the boy behind the curtain. That boy was still there, crying, waiting for justice that was never going to come from a courtroom. He had to create his own justice.

He began to collect the pieces of her life. He watched her apartment, learned her routine, and slowly started gathering the "ingredients" for her downfall. He stole her hair from the trash. He bought the exact clothes a shadow would wear. He tracked down the six men, not to save her honor, but to use them as stepping stones for her execution.

The weight of seventeen years was finally lifting, replaced by a cold, hollow satisfaction. He had become the very thing the city feared—The Parasite—but in his mind, he was just a son finally bringing his father home.

He didn't feel like a hero. He didn't feel like a villain. He felt like an architect who had finally finished the last room of a house built on bones.

The rain continued to pour, washing the streets of Mumbai, but for John, the winter was finally over. The fire of revenge had burned everything away, leaving nothing but the cold, hard truth of what they had become.

The world saw a hero who solved a cold case. Lana saw a brother she thought she knew. But in the shadows of the 21st block, there was only a boy, finally putting his father to rest. The crime was over, but the silence had just begun."

"FATHER: The debt is paid

A STORY BY

TANVIR HOSSAIN