Title: Aryan Malik – Reborn in the Shadow
Chapter 3: The Game is Mine
Dehradun, 2024
Age: 16
The sun dipped lazily over the Dehradun hills, casting golden rays through the glass windows of a sleek new café in Rajpur Road. Students filled the tables, gossiping over cold coffee and Insta reels. But in the corner, away from the noise, sat a boy in black.
Aryan Malik, now sixteen, leaned back in his chair. A single AirPod in his ear. His eyes scanned his phone, not for entertainment, but for patterns—stock charts, cryptocurrency spikes, and darknet threads.
Across from him, a girl from school laughed at something he hadn't said.
He looked up and smiled.
She blushed.
Aryan hadn't spoken more than ten words the entire evening, but she was already halfway in love.
That was the thing about Aryan now.
He didn't chase.
He attracted.
A year ago, Aryan had lived in silence.
Watched, learned, analyzed.
Now, he moved.
Not for others. Not for the country. Not for justice.
For himself.
For power.
For freedom.
The decision came quietly one night.
No dramatic trigger. Just a mirror. A stare. A whisper in his own voice:
"I've served enough in one lifetime. This time… I rule."
The next morning, Aryan wrote down three words in his locked journal.
Money. Influence. Control.
And every step since had been toward those three.
The teachers still adored him. The students still feared him. But now Aryan played the social game.
Subtle upgrades.
Wore limited-edition black sneakers no one else had.
Rolled up in an electric scooter no other 16-year-old owned.
His lean body, sculpted through relentless training, stretched the school shirt in just the right places. Sharp jawline. Veins on his arms. A stare that made girls pause mid-sentence.
They started calling him more than "silent prince."
Now they whispered: "The Ice King."
He didn't flirt.
He selected.
A glance across the hall, and a girl would find herself lost in a storm she couldn't name.
Aryan had no emotional weakness. He gave just enough to keep them hooked, never more.
He wasn't heartless.
He was... precise.
At night, Aryan built things.
On his second laptop, he began investing. Crypto, foreign micro-cap stocks, high-yield funds. Using techniques from intelligence trading he remembered from his RAW days.
He created a false identity: Aadi Sharma, a 21-year-old "FinTech consultant."
Aadi began offering "anonymized" consultancy services on forums only high-tier coders and market sharks used.
By the end of the year, Aryan had grown a portfolio worth ₹14 lakhs — all untraceable.
But it wasn't just about cash.
It was about networks.
He began working with elite coders, data scrapers, info traders — people who didn't care who you were as long as you delivered.
And Aryan always did.
Aryan never planned to be a player.
But power attracts.
And girls from every batch, every school, every colony — began orbiting him.
Isha, the daughter of a bureaucrat, was the first. Smart, elegant, and bored of rich Delhi brats. Aryan's silence captivated her.
Mehar, from Oak Grove, found his cold detachment maddening and magnetic.
Kavya, a rebellious airforce brat, challenged him at a debate meet and ended up giving him her number "just to continue the argument."
He never lied to them.
He just... never promised anything.
His time with them was real. But fleeting.
None of them had his heart.
Because Aryan's heart wasn't available.
Not in this life.
Not anymore.
Anita Malik, watching from a distance, noticed the changes.
Her son had always been different.
Now, he was becoming dangerous.
Not in a criminal sense. In a strategic sense.
He was too powerful. Too independent. Too cold.
So she did what any seasoned intelligence officer would do.
She set a trap.
Using an encrypted phone, she leaked fake chatter about a local espionage courier using Rajpur Road to smuggle microchips.
She let the news slip through a contact Aryan had unknowingly tapped.
Then she waited.
Within 36 hours, Aryan had:
And — rather than report it — hacked into the contact's phone to find out who leaked the intel.
When he confronted Anita, he didn't shout.
He just said, "Next time, make it harder."
And walked away.
She stared after him for a long time.
"I've created something I don't even understand anymore," she whispered.
At Café Horizon, a local influencer brat got drunk and shoved Aryan during a party hosted by Isha's circle.
"Bro, don't act like you own the f***ing place!"
Aryan didn't respond.
He just stared at the boy.
A stare so sharp, so unsettling, that the boy dropped his drink.
The next day, that influencer's page was banned for terms-of-service violations.
A week later, a leaked clip of him mocking the Chief Minister surfaced — taken six months ago in a private event.
His father was forced to resign from a government post.
No connection to Aryan was ever found.
But Isha saw the clip. And the timing.
"You destroyed him," she whispered later.
Aryan didn't deny it.
He simply said, "You touch my world, I erase yours."
By the end of 2024, Aryan was known across Dehradun's elite circles.
Not by name.
By legend.
Girls spoke of the mysterious boy with eyes like ice who never chased, only chose.
Boys avoided direct conflict. Even school captains deferred to him in competitions.
His mock exam scores topped state-level rankings.
His investments quietly grew into real estate assets in Goa and Pune under dummy companies.
His encrypted network of contacts now included:
He was 16.
And already building an empire.
In his room, beneath the calm, Aryan still read military strategy books.
Still woke at dawn.
Still trained alone.
But now, he smiled more. Subtle. Controlled.
Because now, he lived on his terms.
If the government came knocking — he'd choose if he wanted in.
If enemies came — he'd see them first.
If betrayal approached — he'd already have the counterattack ready.
This wasn't the life he had last time.
This was better.
This was power.d
End of Chapter 3
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