The High Court of Mumbai was a structure of colonial stone and cold, indifferent echoes, a place where destinies were weighed on scales of ink and evidence. On this morning, the humidity of the impending monsoon hung heavy in the air, but inside the courtroom, the atmosphere was glacial. The Rathore brothers did not arrive as the desperate, mud-caked wraiths who had haunted the charity ward. They arrived as a unified engine of destruction.

They wore suits of charcoal and black, tailored with the last of their salvaged resources, but the prestige of the fabric could not mask the hollows in their cheeks or the haunted stillness in their eyes. They were not there for a trial; they were there for an execution.