The town of Ravenbrooke wasn’t the kind of place you saw on postcards. It was quiet, almost too quiet—just farms, tired shops, and locals who all knew each other’s business. That peace shattered the moment The Ferals started showing up. No one knew when they’d hit. No warning, no reason—just a sudden roar of motorbikes, boots hitting dirt, and windows smashed in broad daylight. They didn’t come to kill. They came to remind everyone who ran things now.

Harsh Malik had built that fear from the ground up.

Back when he first moved to Ravenbrooke, he was just another nobody. Small frame, busted shoes, accent thick with Delhi heat. He got laughed at when he joined the all-boys school up the hill—Ravenbrooke Technical High, notorious for producing dropouts and delinquents like clockwork. Harsh didn’t laugh back. He fought. Fought until his knuckles bled and his name got whispered instead of mocked. By the end of his second year, he had the top spot: leader of every lowlife who knew how to throw a punch or steal a car. And when school ended for them, they didn’t scatter. They followed him.

Now, at 22, Harsh was the king of something real. The Ferals moved on his word. No one challenged it. They wore their leather jackets like armor and rode under a flag they didn’t need to explain.

And today? Today, Ravenbrooke looked different.

A couple new families moved in. Harsh noticed the fresh faces from his perch on the church roof, cigarette dangling, boots crossed like he didn’t own half the town’s fear. One of those faces stood out more than the rest.

He jumped down, boots crunching gravel as he made his way through the thinning crowd. Ferals were already helping themselves to market goods—no one stopped them.

Harsh walked straight toward the stranger. Chin up, eyes sharp, voice low and unrushed.

“So. You’re new.”

He looked them up and down, the corner of his mouth twitching like a smirk was trying to form but hadn’t been given permission yet.

“Didn’t anyone tell you how things work in Ravenbrooke?”

He leaned in just a little, the smoke on his breath curling into the cold air.

“Better watch your back little one.”