Raahil's cell was cold. Not physically—it was climate controlled. But cold in the way institutions always are: sanitized, hollow, and watched. The silence wasn't natural. It was designed.
He sat on the metal cot, hands folded, staring at the wall. For hours, he wasn't questioned. That was the strategy now—starve the mind, not the body. Make him doubt his reach, his plan, his impact.
But Raahil wasn't unfamiliar with isolation. He had trained for it. He had lived in it.
A soft click announced a visitor.
A woman entered—dark gray suit, clean heels, glasses without a frame. She carried no folder, no phone. Just herself.
"Raahil Mirza," she said.
He didn't answer.
"I'm Eliza Mertens. European Security Liaison. And I'm not here to interrogate. Just to talk."
"Everyone just wants to talk," he said. "No one ever wants to listen."
She pulled a chair from the wall and sat down across from him.
"Then let's switch roles. I'll listen. You talk."
Raahil smirked. "You have clearance. You've read my file."
"I have," she admitted. "But files lie. Eyes don't."
He paused. "Then listen closely. Because I'm not repeating any of this in a courtroom."
—
Over the next hour, Raahil gave her pieces.
How the Glass House operation started. How his parents' deaths weren't accidents, but orchestrated internal terminations. How narratives were manufactured and sold to maintain the image of stability, even at the cost of truth.
Eliza took no notes. Just absorbed.
"Do you want to destroy the system?" she asked finally.
"No," Raahil said. "I want people to see the machine behind it. Let them choose if it deserves to exist."
"And if they choose comfort?"
"Then they do it with open eyes. Not blindfolds."
She stood up. "You'll be transferred soon. Belgium doesn't want the heat. They'll offload you. The question is, where?"
Raahil stood too. "Then you still think I'm dangerous."
Eliza didn't blink. "You're not dangerous because of what you've done. You're dangerous because you make others think."
She left without another word.
—
In Istanbul, Camille watched Raahil's leaked summit video for the hundredth time. It was all over encrypted forums, and now slowly bleeding into mainstream channels. Reaction was split.
Some called him a radical. A threat. A deluded ideologue.
Others called him the voice the world needed.
She drafted a statement from her burner device:
"They tried to cage a voice. But sound travels. Across walls. Through borders. Into the bones of the awake."
Then she activated Phase 3 of their plan: The Shadow Dossier.
A curated bundle of leaked files, testimonies, and firsthand recordings—all wrapped in a digital shell that could only be opened through collective access. The system required 100,000 unique logins from different regions to decrypt fully.
Truth would become democratic. The people would unlock it.
—
In Mumbai, Suhana appeared on an anonymous podcast. Her voice was distorted.
"You worked in Bollywood," the host said. "You know the inside."
"I do," she replied. "And I know how scripts get edited. Not for creativity—but for compliance."
"What do you say to those who claim Raahil's attack was terrorism?"
"I say terror wears many faces. Some wear masks. Others wear neckties. The question is, which one terrifies you more—violence, or truth?"
The clip went viral.
—
Meanwhile, Mahira met with a former Pakistani air force captain in Dubai. He brought with him a black case filled with shredded reports recovered from a classified dump.
"I pieced together what I could," he said. "Names. Orders. A kill list."
Mahira flipped through the fragments. Her father's name. Raahil's mother's name. Dozens of others. All listed for 'containment due to critical exposure risk.'
They had names now.
Faces would follow.
—
In Vienna, Raahil's cell door opened again.
A man entered this time. American. Sharp suit. Southern drawl.
"Mr. Mirza," he said with a smile. "We haven't met, but my people have been watching you for years. You've stirred quite the hornet's nest."
Raahil looked up. "And which agency do you represent?"
The man chuckled. "Let's say I represent interests. Interests that don't like messes like yours becoming movements."
He placed a contract on the table.
"We can make this all go away. Disappear the tapes. The leaks. Give you a new name. New passport. Somewhere sunny."
Raahil stared at the paper.
"And the price?"
"Silence. Public denouncement of everything you've said. An on-record apology. Tell the world you were manipulated. Broken. Deluded."
Raahil didn't speak.
"You think about it," the man said, standing. "But be quick. Offer expires in 72 hours."
He left the cell.
Raahil picked up the paper. Held it for a minute. Then tore it in half.
—
The next morning, a global news outlet received an anonymous flash drive.
It contained 300 pages of heavily redacted intelligence reports.
Buried in them: a joint India-Pakistan directive from 1997 titled "Operation Balance." Its goal? To neutralize double agents working toward peace initiatives deemed "too destabilizing."
Raahil's parents were listed as the first two casualties.
—
In an apartment in Brussels, Camille read the documents as tears welled in her eyes.
"This is it," she whispered.
She published a stripped-down summary in three languages: English, Urdu, and Hindi. Then she released it under the title "The Language of Shadows."
—
By nightfall, Raahil's story wasn't just one of rebellion.
It was one of betrayal.
Of hope.
Of inherited wars and deliberate silences.
And of a son still walking through the ruins, torch in hand.
To be continued...