Chandni

The midwife had barely lifted the child properly before the first tentacle unfurled from his back.

“Ya Allah!” the old woman shrieked, nearly dropping the infant. “Yeh kya paida hua hai?!”

Another wet tentacle curled outward instinctively, black and glistening like a reef dragged from the bottom of the sea. Rehman’s cries only grew louder, tiny lungs struggling desperately while the room recoiled from him in horror.

His mother, exhausted and pale from childbirth, turned her head weakly toward the child.

And screamed.

“Isko mujhse door karo!” she cried hysterically, scrambling backward against the bed despite barely having the strength to sit upright. “Door karo isko! Door karo!”

The baby kept crying.

Nobody picked him up.

For several horrible seconds, he lay there on bloodstained cloth while grown adults stared at him like God had made a mistake in front of them. Tentacles erupting from his back, rising from between his shoulder blades like dark living serpents that curled and swayed with a terrible autonomy, while below the waist, he was entirely, cruelly human. Two legs. Two feet.

His tentacles were shimmered with drops of gold pigmentation running across from the tip to where it attached themselves on his back. His suckers were pitch black, with gold ribbed linings, giving him the look of a fabled sea monster, dipped generously in a gold rush. It was fit for a King of the Sea, and perhaps that was his biggest tragedy, for he was never accepted as one of land

Out of pure pity, the boy was named Rehman, for the mother prayed secretly that the world would be merciful to the abomination.

His mother never touched him unless necessary. Even as an infant, Rehman noticed, as children always do. She fed him with stiff hands and an averted gaze, going through the motions of care with the mechanical efficiency of an employee performing a task they found distasteful, and if one of the tentacles brushed her wrist accidentally, she flinched so violently that sometimes she dropped things. 

He could sense the alienation from his mother before he started speaking, he could feel the distance in emotional warmth from her before he started walking, and while in a child’s brain it did not feel unusual until he had grown slightly older and intelligent enough to understand the lack of it. 

Rehman was barely three years old the night he woke from a nightmare and toddled toward her, tears still wet on his cheeks, the tentacles behind him moving restlessly with his distress. "Ammi," he sniffled, tiny hands reaching out for her. She froze at the sight of him. For one brief moment, hope lit up the child's face, that pure and uncomplicated hope residing only in very small children who have not yet learned to stop hoping. Instead, she stepped back. "Ruk jao wahin!" she snapped. Rehman stopped immediately. 

He stood there silently, confused and trembling, his little chest still hitching from crying. "Ammi kya maii sach mai rakshas hoon?," he whispered again, softer this time, as though lowering his voice might soften her cruelty. But she only pointed toward the thin mattress in the corner of the room. "Yeh bakwas band karo aur un cheezon ko mere paas mat lao." Those things. The little boy looked over his shoulder at the tentacles moving anxiously behind him, as though trying to understand what exactly about them had made his mother look at him like an ugly, unwanted monstrosity. He found no answer. He turned back around and, without another word, returned to his corner.

That night, he cried into his own arms because nobody else would hold him. The tentacles, as though sensing his misery, had curled gently around him, their tips moving softly through his hair and across his back with a tenderness that nothing else in that house had ever offered him. It was a strange and lonely comfort, being soothed by the very things that had driven his mother across the room, but it was all he had, and so he took it.

It had not stopped there, for what Rehman had dismissed as a one-off with his childlike justifications had repeatedly and the most cruel ways possible proved him wrong. 

One evening, when he was around seven, he saw a woman in the street laughing while her son clung to her from behind as she cooked at a roadside stall. The woman had reached back absentmindedly and kissed the child's forehead without even turning around, the whole exchange so casual and unremarkable that neither of them seemed to notice it.

Rehman observed them as humans would stare at animals in the zoo, his eyes taking in the behaviour; it was something foreign to him, something unseen, a hug. He had discovered, he had never received one of those, it was an alien concept, though he imagined it must have felt so warm, being held in your mother’s arms.

He wanted a hug. 

That night his mother was in the kitchen preparing dinner while rain hammered softly against the windows and the yellow kitchen light flickered occasionally, throwing strange shadows across the walls. Rehman stood near the doorway for nearly five whole minutes with his tiny hands twisting nervously into the fabric of his oversized sweater, gathering courage. Then carefully, hesitantly, he walked toward her and wrapped his small arms around her waist very gently, terrified his tentacles might shift beneath the sweater if he got too excited. “Ammi...” he whispered shyly.

She jolted violently. "Door raho mujhse!" The force with which she shoved him sent his small body crashing backward into the dining table, the corner striking his shoulder before he stumbled onto the floor with a startled gasp. His mother was breathing hard, genuine panic spread across her face, her eyes fixed on the movement beneath his sweater where one of the tentacles had reacted instinctively to his emotions, shifting near her side before recoiling again. 

He scrambled backward immediately, hands shaking. "Sorry ammi, sorry," he stammered, "main bas hug kar raha tha." His voice cracked near the end. He rubbed at his eyes furiously with his sleeve because crying always seemed to make adults look at him with even more disgust, but he was still just a child, and a child who had only wanted his mother.

She pressed herself against the counter, needing the distance. "Pehle knock kiya karo jab mere paas aao," she snapped, her voice still trembling. Rehman nodded too quickly, the way he always did when he was trying to fix everything at once. "Haan ammi, theek hai." His throat hurt badly from trying not to cry out loud and perhaps for the first time fully, the realization dawned on Rehman that his mother was not strict with him or angry with him but afraid of him. 

The tentacles behind his back curled inward instinctively at his distress, protectively, and that only made him hate them more. He lowered his head so she would not see the tears finally spilling over. "Sorry," he said, his voice reduced to a small whisper.

He never hugged her again. 

The feeling did not stop or limit to his mother, it slowly spread outside the boundaries of his house as well. He was young enough then that the tentacles were still largely beyond his control; they responded to his emotions before he could stop them, shifting and curling beneath his sweater. He had not yet learned to manage them, and they had not yet learned to behave, and so they moved freely and visibly and announced him in rooms where he would rather have been invisible.

At family gatherings, he sat watching cousins be pulled into laps and have their hair ruffled and their cheeks pinched, watching the ordinary traffic of affection move through a room and reroute itself before it reached him.

Another time his cousins had crowded together in the sitting room, watching cartoons, giggling and sharing snacks from a large bowl. Rehman lingered near the doorway for several minutes gathering courage, then slowly walked toward them carrying his own small packet of chips. One of the tentacles shifted nervously beneath his shirt and immediately a little girl's smile vanished. "Ammi," she whispered. Her mother looked over and sighed. "Tou Rehman beta," she said carefully, "tum dusre kamre mein cartoon dekh lo na." The other children went quiet. 

Rehman stood there clutching the packet tightly. "Par... main yahin baith jaon?" he asked softly. His aunt smiled again, strained and uncomfortable. "Beta baat samjho." Even at six years old, Rehman understood perfectly. He nodded quickly before anyone could see his face properly, said "Theek hai," and walked back to his room carrying the unopened packet while laughter slowly resumed behind him once he was gone.

During one Eid, a younger cousin wandered near him while playing and smiled innocently and tried offering him a piece of mithai. "Yeh lo!" Before Rehman could even reach for it, the boy's mother hurried over sharply. "Ahmed, idhar aao." The child blinked in confusion. "Par ammi—" "Abhi."

She pulled him away so quickly the mithai slipped from tiny fingers and fell onto the floor. Rehman bent quietly to pick it up, and nobody noticed his trembling hands as he brushed the dust from the crushed sweet and stuffed it into his mouth anyway, fat tears rolling silently down his cheeks.

At ten, Rehman had just about had it up to here with the constant rejections, at his home, from his family, from his school. He was unofficially the societal outcast, and while he had learnt to accept his new reality, it did not lessen the anger that was bubbling inside him, building up slowly like molten lava.

And then came Sameer.

His only friend.

Perhaps that was why the betrayal destroyed him so thoroughly.

Sameer had been the only person to speak to Rehman without visible fear. Loud, annoying, endlessly talkative Sameer who shared stolen snacks with him behind classrooms and laughed at his terrible cricket throws instead of mocking them. Around him, Rehman had almost begun forgetting himself and for the first time in years, he experienced moments where he did not feel like a creature pretending to be human.

When Sameer eventually asked about the rumors, Rehman panicked initially.

“Sach bata,” Sameer whispered one evening while they sat near the docks watching fishing boats sway against dark water. “Kya waqai tere paas... woh cheezein hain?”

He should have lied.

God, he should have lied.

But Sameer looked genuinely curious rather than cruel, and Rehman had been lonely for far too long. Loneliness made people reckless. It made them mistake temporary kindness for safety.

“Tu darr jayega,” Rehman muttered quietly.

Sameer rolled his eyes. “Pagal hai kya? Main tera dost hoon.”

Dost

The word had felt unbearably precious.

Later that evening, hidden inside an abandoned storage shed near the harbor, Rehman finally showed him. His hands trembled as he peeled off his oversized jacket, and beneath the dim flickering bulb overhead, the tentacles slowly unfurled from his back, black and glistening, shifting nervously like living shadows conjured from the depths of the Arabian Sea itself. 

For one horrifying moment, Rehman watched fear begin its slow crawl across Sameer's expression and his heart immediately began its descent. Then Sameer let out a low whistle. "Yeh toh waqai asli hain." Rehman swallowed against the tightness in his throat. "Bohot bure hain na?" 

A long pause stretched between them before Sameer spoke. "Ajeeb hain," he conceded, with the careful honesty, choosing his words like he were stepping across wet stone. "Par tu toh wahi hai na." Rehman thought he might come apart at the seams from sheer relief. That night he slept with an ease he had not known in years, unaware that he was sleeping on borrowed peace. 

Sameer had called him to the docks the next afternoon and Rehman, giddy with the unfamiliar warmth of feeling accepted, happily trotted over to meet his dost, entirely unbothered by the world for once. What he found waiting there stopped him cold. Sameer stood at the edge of the dock, and by the looks of him, not by his own volition, beside him loomed older teenagers, scrawny and brawn both, hardened by the Lyari sun, their eyes gleaming with evil skepticism. 

Before Sameer could open his mouth, the boys pounced, thrashing Rehman with a ruthless efficiency, demanding he show them those dreadful monstrosities on his back, and by the time they were done they scattered off like rats leaving him bleeding and barely conscious on the docks of Lyari, and leaving Sameer standing there shivering, trembling like a leaf caught in a storm of his own making.

"Rehman mujhe maaf kardo, I never wanted this to happen," Sameer rambled, a sob developing in his throat as he crouched down, his fingers reaching out trying to offer some clumsy comfort. "Jab Rafiq ko khabar mili mere bhai se, woh mujhe zabardasti yaha le aaya." Rehman lay still for a moment, his tentacles having risen around him like overgrown walls, coiling protectively. 

When Sameer's fingers made contact, a feral spark detonated inside him. "HAATH MAT LAGA MUJHE," he screeched, the sound tearing out of him like a wounded animal acting purely on primal instinct, and before Sameer could react Rehman was already on his feet and darting away, running hard toward home, the adrenaline flooding his system fast enough to dull the injuries for a while, his feet pounding the cracked Lyari pavement while the docks disappeared behind him.

When he reached home, he entered the bathroom to get the first aid kit and removed his shirt, scanning for injuries, he looked into the mirror, tears now streaming down his youthful face, meeting the sight of those cursed tentacles again, who were hovering, looking unsure as to how to comfort the boy, who was already broken beyond repair. And the molten lava erupted. Rehman went to the kitchen and came back with a knife.

The tentacles writhed violently the moment they sensed what he intended, twisting and pulling, trying to remove themselves from his reach, but Rehman was crying too hard to care and hating too completely to stop. He hacked into one of them with trembling hands and the pain that followed was not pain in any sense the word had previously meant to him. It was agony, total, consuming, with no negotiation and no ceiling. 

It felt as though his spine had been dipped into molten metal. He screamed so loudly that neighbors later said they thought someone was being murdered inside the house. Blood flooded the bathroom tiles, black-red and thick from the slashed ribbed suckers, pooling in the grout lines and spreading slowly toward the drain, and Rehman stood in it screaming because the worst part had not arrived yet.

The tentacle grew back. Slowly, violently, it regenerated from torn flesh while his body convulsed against the cold tile wall, the new appendage bursting back through skin with a force that drove the breath entirely from his lungs and sent him sliding to the floor. 

He lay there through the entire night, his cheek against the wet tiles, his body shaking, the tentacles curled around him in the dark, slowly, carefully, the way they always did when he was in distress, the only comfort that house had ever offered him. Rehman lay inside that strange and terrible embrace and sobbed until there was nothing left in him to sob with, his throat raw and his body wrecked and the bathroom tiles cold and unforgiving beneath him.

From thereon, he started binding himself. Every morning before school, before any family visit, before stepping out of his room for any reason at all, he would take the long strip of bandage he had found in the house and wrap it tightly around his chest and back, pinning the tentacles as flat against his body as he could manage, winding it again and again until the restriction made it slightly harder to breathe and the tentacles were compressed into stillness. 

It hurt. A dull, constant, pressing hurt that sat with him through entire school days and family afternoons and long evenings at home. But that hurt was manageable, predictable, and private, unlike the other kind of hurt, which served a constant reminder of his monstrosity, the hurt which made him skilled at occupying the least amount of space possible, making himself forgettable in every way he could control.

As the years passed and Rehman crossed the threshold into his teens, the onset of depression was not surprising to anyone who had been paying attention, though of course nobody had been.

The constant neglect, the indifference, the loveless architecture of his childhood, the mockery and the beatings and the doors closed quietly in his face, it had all accumulated with the patient persistence of debt, and by the time he was thirteen, it had collected itself into a mask of disdain and indifference. 

He dropped out of school without ceremony, nobody particularly noticing his absence, and took up odd jobs as a runner and messenger for the local gangs of Lyari. They were no different from every other set of hard, judgmental eyes he had encountered throughout his life, but they were the first to monetize what they saw rather than simply recoil from it, and that distinction mattered.

Haji Laalo was not a man who let potential go unexploited. It was Haji who had him pulled out of the jail cell where the police had thrown him after the neighbors reported what they found in the house  The killing of his mother had been witnessed by half the street but what had preceded it was more devastating than anyone outside those walls would ever know. 

Rehman felt something inside him curl uglily and permanently as he heard his mother talk on the phone about Babu, about the affair, about the boy she had been saddled with as its consequence, how she regretted having him.

He had heard about Babu through the whispers spread across the streets of Lyari, the beast from the sea, who made appearances once in a while to haunt the dwellers of Lyari, but his father?? His body recoiled with disgust, and shame pooled in his belly. 

All his life, he had constructed an explanation for himself from the only materials available: that he was a genetic deformity, a cosmic accident, perhaps a punishment levied by the Almighty against some sin committed in some previous existence he had not been informed of. It was a brutal explanation but it was his. He had grown up believing the tentacles on his back were a divine sentence. He had grown up believing he deserved the cold rooms and the empty doorways and the mother who flinched at his touch.

And now the foundations of that understanding collapsed entirely, his body shuddered, fat tears rolled down his cheeks, as the truth of his beastly heritage lay exposed to him. Cecaelia's blood. Oceanic and monstrous in the most literal genealogical sense. He had read about them in books, heard their lore on the docks, and often played an essential part in the nighttime fairytales that children were narrated.

Before Karachi was a city, before it was a port, before it was even a name spoken by human tongues, the Arabian Sea held its own counsel. It was older than memory, older than the civilizations that had risen and crumbled along its coastline like sandcastles surrendering to tide, and in its deepest and most lightless corridors it kept its own creatures, its own hierarchies, its own ancient and ungovernable royalty.

The Cecaelia were among the first.

From the waist upward, they wore the architecture of humanity with an unsettling perfection, with broad shoulders, dark eyes holding the depthless quality of water with no visible floor, faces that could have belonged to kings. Below the waist, the pretense dissolved entirely into a mass of tentacles, thick and ink-dark, moving with an intelligence that reached and crushed and navigated the deep currents with a fluency no human leg could approximate. They were sovereign. They were ancient. They moved through the Arabian Sea with the absolute authority of creatures who had been there before the first human being drew breath on the subcontinent and intended to remain long after the last one had gone.

And now mixed with the blood of a woman who had wanted neither the man who made him nor the child that resulted, poured together into a vessel that satisfied the requirements of neither world. 

Babu Dakait was not the first of their descendants to walk on land. He was simply the most recent. And Rehman, born of that bloodline's most improbable collision with the terrestrial world, was an anomaly, the sea had not quite produced before assembled from two incompatible inheritances, carrying the ancient Cecaelia legacy

The sea had not claimed him. The land had never wanted him. He existed in the hollow space between two existences, a question that neither world had bothered to stay around and answer, born into a life that had been a mistake from its very first breath and shaped by a mother who had known it and said nothing, who had looked at her son every day of his life and chosen her secret over his peace, over his understanding of himself, over every morning he had spent in hallways hoping she might say something kind before he walked out the door into a world that despised him. 

He had spent fourteen years punishing himself for being what he was, believing he was the problem. And all along, the truth had been the fear of acknowledging the reality of his magnificence.

A cold, sadistic smile surfaced on his face, settling in realization of his truth, of his existence, of his origin. The bloody beast in him had awoken, and it was time to see to what extent he could embrace the brutality of the blood he carried. 

With menacing fury he stepped outside, fists curled tightly, staring coldly at his mother as she had tried to justify her actions. By now, Rehman was far gone, beyond saving; his eyes had turned pitch black, mirroring the dark shades of his tentacles.

A single tentacle emerged from his kurta, moving forward. It curled around his mother's neck, “kabhi kise zindagi mai aap jaise maa na mile” and SNAP, with a single crush, her mother’s neck shattered, dropping dead instantly.

That night, he sat beside her body, not having a single drop of remorse. Just a feeling of relief washed over him, and when the police found him, he was thrown into jail for the adults to feast on him. Word traveled quickly in Lyari, as it always did, and within days it had reached Haji Laalo.

He had the boy extracted, brought before him, and made his proposition directly. Rehman accepted without negotiation. He had nothing left to protect and nowhere else to go, and Haji was shrewd enough to recognize that a man with nothing to lose is either the most dangerous asset or the most dangerous liability, and the distinction lay entirely in how well you managed him.

As Rehman had grown in size, so had the tentacles, longer and stronger than they had been in childhood, capable of reaching well beyond the range of ordinary arms, of crushing objects and men alike with impeccable brutality. Haji dispatched him on hit jobs around Lyari, and Rehman executed each one with a frightening efficiency that required very little in the way of method or planning. 

The last thing those men saw was a nightmarish eruption of thickly coiled darkness ascending from Rehman's back like a sea serpent god descending upon its feast, before the tentacles found their bones and reduced them to powder with the indifferent thoroughness of a grinder completing its function. 

Rehman Baloch died. Rehman Dakait was born. 

The terror directed at him he had grown accustomed to long before Haji Laalo ever entered the picture; it was simply the weather of his existence, unchanged since childhood. If people simply saw him as a monster, it was better that he just embrace it. The money was newer, though. He was slowly becoming accustomed to the particular sensation of having it, of being useful rather than simply unwanted. 

While he accumulated an infamous reputation that preceded him into every room he entered and emptied streets when he walked through them, it was only Uzair who stood in his path with a huge smile, his cherub cheeks pulled high, rushing into Rehman's arms every day with a fearless and uncomplicated love

Uzair was twelve years younger, his cousin on his maternal Balochi side,and Rehman had taken in the just-out-of-his-toddler-phase baby, because Uzair’s parents were murdered in broad daylight due to the ruthless gang politics of Lyari, and the sight of the chubby-cheeked, floofy-haired Uzair, crying so hard his small body shook with every breath, wrenched his heart so violently. 

That child looked unbearably small sitting beside death like that, cheeks wet with tears, tiny fists rubbing desperately at swollen eyes while calling for parents who would never answer again.

“Ammi…” Uzair sobbed weakly. “Ammi uth jao…”

The scrapes of warmth left in Rehman’s soul propelled his innate paternal instincts. Even the tentacles reacted violently, pushing against his back beneath the bindings almost frantically, every instinct inside him screaming the same thing:

Protect the baby.

Protect him.

NOW.

Without thinking further, Rehman had crouched before Uzair, whose tiny face was blotchy red from crying, curls sticking messily to his forehead. For one terrible second, Rehman did not know what to do for nobody had ever comforted him properly as a child. He had no memory to copy from, no template to follow, no muscle memory of tenderness to draw upon. Still, he reached forward awkwardly. "Uzair," he said softly. The child stared up at him with huge watery eyes and then immediately launched himself into Rehman's arms with a force that nearly knocked him backward.

Uzair clung to him desperately, tiny fingers bunching tightly into his shirt while sobs wracked through his small body. "Rehman bhai," he cried brokenly. "Ammi nahi uth rahi." Rehman's throat tightened painfully. He had pulled the child closer instinctively, and one of the tentacles slipped free beneath his clothes, curling protectively around Uzair's tiny back like a living shield, acting on an instinct of a Cecaelian beast protecting its cub. 

"Nahi dekhna, jaan" Rehman whispered shakily, pressing Uzair's face against his shoulder. "Udhar mat dekho." Uzair cried harder. "Mujhe ammi ke paas jaana hai." Rehman shut his eyes briefly. The child was exhausted from grief, from terror, from crying without comfort for hours, his tiny body trembling violently against Rehman's chest.

He adjusted Uzair carefully in his arms, holding him securely against his chest despite how profoundly unfamiliar the gesture felt. "Main hoon na," he murmured, the words rough from disuse. Uzair hiccuped weakly against him. Within minutes, the crying slowed, then softened into tiny broken sniffles, and eventually the child went still, asleep against Rehman's chest with his face tucked against his neck and tiny fingers still clutching desperately at his shirt.

Rehman stared down at him in silence. The speed at which the feeling moved through him then nearly knocked him off his feet. An emotion so unfamiliar it sat in his chest like a foreign object, his body did not quite know how to process it because it had been given so little opportunity to practice receiving softness or extending it. 

Carefully, almost hesitantly, he bent his head and pressed a soft kiss against Uzair's hair. And then he stood, adjusting the sleeping child securely against his chest, and walked away. Nothing in either of the worlds that had rejected him would ever be allowed to touch this his child.

Since then, the little ruffian had been the singular source of his headaches and the sole reason his dead heart still bothered to pump out anything resembling emotion.

“REHMAN BHAI!” Uzair would scream at ungodly hours while barging into his room like a tiny hurricane. “Mujhe pakro!”

And before Rehman could even process what was happening, the child would launch himself directly at him from considerable heights.

“UZAIR!” Rehman nearly dropped the steel cup in his hand once as he caught the four-year-old midair. “Pagal ho gaya hai kya?! Gardan toot jaati toh?”

Uzair only laughed shamelessly, tiny arms wrapping tightly around Rehman’s neck.

“Aap pakad lete.”

Rehman was pretty sure he had grown some grey hairs at the tender age of 16, but as long as the kid was happy, he was happy, and he was down to endure as many headaches if it meant to keep a smile on his brother’s angelic face. While causing headaches, his brother was equally efficient at causing somersaults to Rehman’s poor heart. 

There were times at night when Rehman held Uzair and cried, silently, unable to understand why someone would not hold their child, hug them, love them, kiss them. “Kaise kar lete hain log yeh...?” he whispered, looking down at Uzair, kissing his forehead, brushing off the floppy hair, his heart overpouring with affection “Apne bachon se mohabbat na karna... kaise kar lete hain...”

The tentacles used to come out, comforting the sixteen-year-old, placating his broken heart. They curled carefully around his shoulders and waist while he cried soundlessly in the dark, moving with strange instinctive gentleness. 

It was one of those days when Rehman came home well past midnight, the house swallowed in quiet darkness save for the weak yellow bulb flickering with mild desperation in the kitchen. His knuckles were split open again, dried blood crusted along his fingers and beneath his nails, a cut drawn cleanly across his cheekbone and another near his brow, bruises blooming in deep purples and browns beneath the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

Pain had long since been demoted from experience to routine, stripped of its drama through sheer repetition. He entered his room, lowered himself onto the edge of the bed with a tired exhale, and reached beneath the table for the old metal first aid box. 

Uzair materialized in the doorway in oversized pajamas, rubbing one eye with the back of his fist, swaying slightly with the particular unsteadiness of a child fighting a losing battle against sleep. "Aap phir late aaye." Rehman exhaled quietly. "Tu abhi tak jaag ra hai?" Uzair ignored this entirely and waddled forward until he had stationed himself between Rehman's knees, at which point his sleepy eyes sharpened with sudden focus upon the injuries. 

"Aapko bohot lagi hai." "Nahi," Rehman muttered, dabbing at the cut near his jaw. "Choti chot hain." Uzair's frown suggested he found this assessment deeply unconvincing. He settled beside Rehman and watched with unsettling concentration as blood was cleaned methodically from split knuckles, his tiny face scrunching with visible distress each time Rehman hissed against the antiseptic's bite. Finally, in a voice carefully calibrated to sound casual and failing entirely, he asked "Aap theek ho jaoge na?" 

The genuine worry threaded through those four words made Rehman's chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with his injuries. "Haan," he said quietly, nudging Uzair's knee. "Main mar nahi raha." Uzair did not laugh. He stared at the cuts with grave seriousness and then asked with complete sincerity, "Main kuch kar sakta hoon?" Rehman almost smiled. "Nahi jaan. Bas so jao." But Uzair had already retreated into his own thoughts, tiny eyebrows furrowed with concentration. "Ammi kya karti thi," he mumbled to himself, less a question than a problem being worked through aloud. Before Rehman could inquire what he meant, Uzair reached forward and took his injured hand carefully between both small palms. 

Then Uzair pressed a tiny kiss against his bruised knuckles. “Uzair tu kya–”, his breath hitched. Another landed against the scrape near his wrist. Then another against the cut on his cheek, soft, careful, each one placed with utmost sincerity, each kiss making Rehman’s heart twist in delirium of the cruel past; he must be high. Uzair pulled back and looked up, his eyes filled with sincerity, "Ammi mere ghaav pe kissi karti thi taake woh behtar ho jayein," he explained with complete innocence. "Maine socha aapko bhi acha mehsoos hoga."

Rehman stared at him. His baby brother had just kissed his injuries. Such a small thing, the kind of thing mothers did without thinking, the kind of thing that happened in ordinary households a dozen times a day and meant nothing precisely because it was so abundantly available. But Rehman had never lived in an ordinary household. 

He had lived in the particular famine of a loveless childhood, had grown up with his hands perpetually outstretched toward a warmth that kept moving just beyond his reach, and seventeen years of that reaching had left him so hollowed out, so thoroughly emptied of the expectation of tenderness, that when it finally arrived it arrived like rain on ground that had forgotten how to absorb it. 

Here sat this child, this small and ferocious and entirely impossible child who had wandered into the ruins of his life and taken up residence in his heart without asking permission, looking up at him with hopeful eyes as though Rehman was worth the tenderness of his tiny hands.

His body did not know what to do with it. It had no mechanism for this, no practiced response, no muscle memory of being handled gently, only the long, ingrained reflex of bracing, of waiting for the recoil, of making himself smaller before the flinching began.

His vision blurred with an embarrassing swiftness; he looked away hard and fast, his jaw clenching against everything rising in his throat, because seventeen years of hunger had broken open, messily and without dignity, and Rehman had always been so careful, so ferociously careful, never to be seen breaking.

"Aap ro rahe ho?" 

"Nahi," Rehman said instantly, his voice betraying him completely. Uzair squinted with the forensic suspicion, "Jhoot." He pulled Uzair into his arms partly because of not wanting to be seen sobbing like a baby and partly because of the sheer amount of love gushing through his tattered heart for his brother, that made the child squeak, crushing him against his chest and burying his face into his hair, pressing kiss after helpless kiss against the top of his head as though he did not know what else to do with the unbearable swell of emotion rising through him. "Meri jaan hai tu, Uzi," he whispered, his voice unsteady and barely holding on. "Meri jaan." 

The sensory overload that Rehman had received due to the onslaught of affection had involuntarily made his tentacles spread ut from his back and while Rehman never voluntarily let Uzair witness his tentacles, thanks to puberty they had started to settle within the skin of his back, molding inside, giving his back a scarred appearance, now they had wrapped themselves around them ina warm embrace, and when the brothers parted Rehman’s heart dropped as he saw the black tentacles whirling around them enthusiastically, as if they were too celebrating for Rehman’s emotional jubiliation. 

Uzair was gonna freak out; all the admiration and love the boy held for him was gonna disappear instantaneously, but at five-year-old showed Rehman more humanity than any adult had managed in his entire painful span of seventeen years. Rehman tried to snap them behind his back, but Uzair's traitorous, sharp eyes caught them, and he stared at the tentacles with enormous, round, curious eyes. "Wooooow," the child breathed.

Rehman stiffened immediately. "Uzair, neeche utro." Uzair ignored this entirely and shifted closer instead. "Yeh kya hain?" Rehman opened his mouth and closed it again, genuinely unsure how to answer without sounding monstrous. “Yeh tentacles hai Uzair,” Rehman let out, whispering, waiting for his reaction rejection, “Main yeh kaha se lau bhai, mujhe bhi pasand hai !!” Uzair rambled excitedly, and Rehman stared at him in disbelief, because sure, people were repulsed by his ungodly avatar, but here sat his baby brother, in his arms, his eyes twinkling with excitement, admiring his tentacles, “Uzair mai inke saath paida hua tha”, Rehman huffed. 

“Aap kitne mast ho bhai”, Uzair mumbed in awe, ”Aapko pata hai mere class mai aur kisi ke bhai bhen ka paas yeh nahi hai, and that makes me the coolest younger sibling”, Uzai finished off with a smile. Rehman had to gulp the flood of raw emotions formed in his throat for the second time that day, and before he could reply,  "Main choo sakta hoon?" Uzair asked politely. 

People recoiled from the tentacles, feared them, beat him for them, and here his five-year-old asked gently as though they were delicate and worthy of the highest degree of care. Gulping an incoming sob, ”Haan dheere se, unko kisi aur ki touch ki aadat nahi hai”, Rehman whispered, bringing a smaller tentacle closer to Uzair’s chubby hands.

Uzair reached forward with tiny fingers and softly patted the tentacle. "Oh" he whispered in fascination. "Aur yeh toh thande hain." The tentacle curled slightly beneath the touch, and Uzair burst into delighted giggles. Then with utmost concentration, the little boy began stroking it gently, the way adults soothed frightened children. "It's okay," he whispered to it. "Good boy." Rehman froze completely. "Ammi kehti thi jab koi darrta hai na, toh usko softly touch karte hain," Uzair explained wisely. "Phir woh shaant ho jata hai." 

One of the tentacles slowly wrapped around Uzair's wrist, not tightly, almost cautiously, like even they could not believe kindness was being offered. Uzair gasped dramatically. "BHAI! ISNE MUJHE PAKRA!" Rehman lurched forward instinctively. "Uzair ruk, kahin—" But the child only laughed harder. "It's hugging me!" 

Rehman smiled hard, his face relaxed and his shoulders pushed back, his muscles not tensed, as he sat back taking in the first blessing which appeared in his life, he wanted to take a snapshot of it, tattoo it to his memory, hell just live in that moment forever, as he watched the tentacles slowly warm up to Uzair, tickling him, ruffling his hair, and hugging him from his back. It was just perfect. 

Of course, the calmness of the moment was interrupted by one of Uzair's comical theatrics when he discovered the deep blemishes of intricate gold patterns while tracing the tentacles with his tiny fingers. He became insufferable, "AAP GOLD WAALE LIMITED EDITION HO?", Uzair gasped suddenly, squinting hard at the shimmering streaks of gold running along the tentacles. Rehman snorted, "Uzi mai koi limited edition nahi hoon, bas yeh Allah ki den hai". "

"Acha have you seen anyone else with gold on them, aap hee allah ke manpasand bache ho", Uzair said in reverence, which made Rehman's heart skip a beat, damn this child and his ability to melt his stupid emotional heart every damn time.

"Aur aap bina security ke kaise chale jaate ho bahar, pata hai kitne chor ghum rahe hote hai Lyari mai, aur ek din aapka sona chura liya toh?", Uzair questioned worriedly, Rehman threw his head back, as a deep laugh rumbled through him, his hands went up to cup Uzair's head, "Mujhe security ki koi zaroorat nahi hai, yeh apni rakhwali khud karte hai", intentionally grabbing a block of cement with his tentacles, from the window sill and crushing it to demonstrate the meaning behind his words.

"Aur waise bhi mera sabse kinti sona toh mere hifazat ke neeche hamseha rahega", Rehman muttered, looking at Uzair, his eyes warm and full of love, kissing his forehead softly, "Offo bhai aap bhi kitne dramatic ho jaate ho", Uzair complained, his cheeks going impossibly red, "Acha bete, aa tujhe dikhata hoon, dramatic ke bache", Rehman with his tentacles, tickled Uzair, pearls of laughter escaping, echoing across the tiny room, until the little boy couldn't breathe, falling asleep exhausted in his arms.

Uzair became inseparable from him after that, though more accurately, he became inseparable from the tentacles. He named them terrible things like Kaalu, Noodles, and Chintu. He spoke to them individually and fed them tiny biscuit pieces despite Rehman repeatedly insisting they did not need feeding. .

Once Rehman woke from an accidental nap to find Uzair carefully tucking one of the tentacles beneath a tiny blanket. "Sardi lag rahi hogi isko," he whispered seriously. They became capable of affection, calmer and gentler than they ever behaved around anyone else, curling protectively around the little boy while he slept against Rehman's side. 

Back in the present, as Rehman walked down the cobbled streets of Lyari, he heard him before he saw him, the familiar thunder of small feet against stone, growing rapidly louder, and then Uzair came tearing around the corner at full velocity, arms already outstretched, less running toward him and more launching himself in his general direction with the absolute confidence of a rugrat who has never once been dropped. 

Flying would have been the more accurate description, and the reason for that confidence were the tentacles, those traitorous, shameless creatures, had developed the deeply undignified habit of rising to meet Uzair without consulting Rehman whatsoever, catching the boy mid-air and pulling him into an elevated embrace with a tenderness that Rehman found personally mortifying and could do absolutely nothing about. He had stopped arguing with them about it. They did not listen.

At eighteen, the life Rehman had built from the wreckage he had been handed was more than he had ever permitted himself to expect, but contentment, it turned out, had a ceiling, and he had reached it. The hunger that stirred in him now was older and deeper than ambition, older than strategy, older than anything the terrestrial world had taught him to want. 

It came from the blood. The Cecaelian merfolk were not merely mythical creatures; they were apex predators, beasts of nature in the most uncompromising sense, creatures for whom total dominance was a biological imperative, and that inheritance had been running quietly through Rehman's veins his entire life, waiting with the patience of deep water for the right conditions to surface, and now his soul yearned to become the merciful. 

He was never the one to demand power through fear, despite his contrarian reputation. Lately, he had been active in assisting the elderly women and children get across through different parts of Lyari under his protection, and other than what his blood was screaming him to pursue, it was also the feeling of being looked at with kindness, with respect, with admiration, that fueled his desire to get to the top. His blood screamed dominance. His history craved belonging 

It helped that lately, Laloo was proving to be a pain in the ass, with his constant micromanagement over Rehman to control him, but the King of the Jungle could never be tamed. So Rehman had shaken hands with the slimy Jamil Jamali, the dirtiest of politicians one could ever find scouring every square inch of Earth, but well, one’s gotta get their hands dirty to remove the dirt, and soon Laloo got arrested and thrown into jail by a slick coup organized by SP Aslam. 

The gang, which already aligned with Rehman massively, accepted him as their new Badshah. Half monster, half human? He didn’t give a fuck. He unfurled his tentacles proudly at Cheel Chowk, where passerbys stared, with visible fear in their eyes, as they watched the newly crowned Baloch warlord of Lyari, his tentacles gripping tightly around his latest prey, and the sickly crunch of bones heard in the following seconds. 

Smirking, he turned around, droplets of blood speckled on his kurta in decorative patterns, “Aaj se Balocho ki hukumat hogi”, he growled, ”aur jo bhi dagabazzai karega,” continuing, ”uska yehi ashar hoga”, he finished. The tentacles rose behind him in a dark and magnificent arc, ink-dark and ancient, giving him the unmistakable silhouette of the Cecaelia's true successor.

The King of the Land and the Son of the Sea had ascended.

=====================xXx=====================

Yalina stared at the big purple suitcase half her size that she was somehow supposed to fit her entire life into. The tickets and passports sat right next to the open suitcase like a glaring reminder of everything that had transpired only a few hours ago, and every time her eyes drifted toward them, a strange heaviness settled deeper into her chest.

Hamza—

No.

Even in her own thoughts, it suddenly felt wrong to call him that now, as though the name itself had become another mask she had accidentally peeled away with trembling fingers and tearful accusations. Her husband, then. That was the one truth she was still certain of amidst the ruins of everything else, and so her husband he shall remain, no matter what names he had worn before her.

Her husband had sat her down the previous night, and for the first time in years, she had seen that harsh decisiveness return to him. The hesitant guilt and awkward apology that had clung to him ever since ... Aalam Chacha’s death had melted away, revealing the same man she had married, the man with burning eyes who had proclaimed that he would be the King of Karachi. His words had been firm, clipped, leaving very little room for argument, but his eyes had betrayed him entirely. Worry. Fear. Desperation. A kind of frantic hopefulness that almost frightened her more than panic would have.

Vancouver.

They would leave Pakistan. Start over. Build a new life from scratch, away from the lies, away from Lyari, away from the ghosts trailing behind them like bloodstained shadows. No more carefully maintained facades, no more pretending that their marriage had not been born from deceit and sharpened into something painfully real afterward.

But Yalina did not know how much of that promise was truly possible and how much of it was simply something her husband desperately wanted to believe.

How did people simply start over?

What happened to the years already lived? The memories already built? The walls of the house they had chosen together, the marks of Zayan’s height on the corridor wall, the gardens she had bullied Hamza into planting despite him insisting they would attract insects, the dinners, the birthdays, the fights, the reconciliations, the ordinary little moments that had slowly become the shape of her life? She did not understand how they could have a new beginning when they already carried so much history between them, so many wounds, so many lies, so much love twisted painfully around betrayal.

And what of her parents?

If she left Pakistan today, there was a very real possibility she would never see her Ammi or Abbu again. They fought often, yes, and her mother could carve wounds into her with words sharper than knives, but they were still her parents. She loved them despite everything. She had always prepared herself for the eventuality of outliving them because her Abbu had already been old when she was born, but she had never imagined a future where he still breathed somewhere under the same sky while she could never again touch his hand or sit beside him over tea.

Her thoughts wandered, as they often did these days, back to that night in Rehman Bhai’s complex.

The night her husband had given her an out.

At the time, blinded by love and anger and hurt pride, she had mistaken it for a challenge. She had not understood the enormity of what he had been offering her. In hindsight, she understood it now for what it truly was—the last sliver of protection the man beneath Hamza’s mask had tried to secure for her before all chances to back out vanished.

On some days she regretted her choice.

But that regret never lasted long.

Not even when she had been forced to learn how to move amongst the polished, prissy wives of politicians who simultaneously looked down upon her for being a gangster’s wife, feared her for the exact same reason, and tried to cozy up to her because of her husband’s influence. Not even when she had learned how to maintain composure while one of Hamza’s rivals tried to intimidate her during public gatherings, or when another had attempted to attack her in broad daylight simply to send a message.

Her husband had always reached her before real harm could be done.

And those men had always paid for it afterward.

Still, fear had lodged itself somewhere deep inside her after those incidents, becoming a permanent part of her life. But over time, that fear had transformed too. It stopped being merely a weakness and became something sharper, harder, almost weapon-like.

She had not regretted her choice even when her husband had begun insisting that she learn how to use a gun with the precision of a soldier. She had learned without complaint, learned how to hold it steady, how to aim, how to fire without flinching, and in the process had earned the quiet admiration of her husband’s men.

When the truth had finally come out, her regret had never truly been about the path he had walked. It had only ever been about the lies.

She had grown up watching her father and his associates treat ordinary Pakistani citizens with the same careless disregard her teachers once described when speaking of Marie Antoinette and the French monarchy. Her patriotism had never belonged to the wolves who sat in powerful offices wrapped in the flag of the nation while feeding on its people. It had only ever belonged to the land itself. To the ordinary people who suffered beneath those men.

If he had told her himself, if she had not discovered the truth in the worst possible way, her clothes stained with the blood of guests she had invited into her home while the SP’s threats rang in her ears and every single lie she had trusted came crashing down at once, she would not have begrudged him at all.

And she would never betray the man she had given space in her heart, especially not when his actions were ultimately meant to protect people from monsters wearing uniforms and titles. The same people who would call her a traitor if they ever learned the truth were people she had seen abandoned repeatedly by those claiming to protect them.

She knew the difference between patriotism and sadism.

The men hailed as the greatest patriots of her country often had eyes gleaming with cruelty. Their righteousness had always felt hungry. Violent. Hollow.

Her husband’s eyes had not looked like that when he had knelt before her begging forgiveness for deceiving her while simultaneously confessing that everything he had done had been for his motherland, there had been sincerity in him. Pain too. Shame. Love.

So she had accepted her lot in life. Accepted him too.

Her eyes drifted absently across the room as she tried to locate Zayan’s favorite shirts amongst the mess around her.

The reveal had changed many things, she mused. She had assumed that now that he no longer needed to maintain a facade with her, they would eventually become strangers behind closed doors. She had thought he would begin detaching himself from the life they had built together.

Instead, somehow, he had done the opposite.

After that brief awkward period where he seemed uncertain whether she would expose him, he had become even more involved in their lives. A better father. A more attentive husband. He spent increasing amounts of time with Zayan, reading him stories, helping prepare him for school, taking him out for picnics, teaching him little things with patient seriousness, playing with him whenever he found the time.

Sometimes it almost felt as though he was trying desperately to give their son enough memories to survive an entire lifetime.

And with her too, he remained unchanged in all the ways that mattered. He still insisted she did not need to mingle with the shark-like harpies that were the other politician's wives. He pushed her to finish her studies. Encouraged her to open her own businesses. Taught her how to manage finances herself. Quietly ensured that she had her own loyal guards among his men, men who answered to her first before anyone else.

It felt like preparation. Like he was preparing her for a future where he would no longer be there to protect her.

That realization hurt her in ways she could never fully explain. For some reason, even after the truth had come out, Yalina had never truly imagined a life without him.

A few months ago, after his relentless insistence that she memorize routes, names, accounts, safehouses, and his gang’s operational details finally snapped the last thread of her patience, she had dragged him into their room and screamed at him for behaving like a dead man walking.

He had only smiled at her then. A small, sad smile filled with such resignation that it had terrified her more than anger ever could have.

And afterward, with his head resting against her shoulder, he had finally told her fragments of the truth. Not his real name. Not where he came from. Nothing concrete enough to unravel the entire lie. But enough.

Enough for her to understand that he had once had two sisters, and that only one lived. And she had lived only because he had stained his hands in the blood of her abusers instead of waiting for justice. Enough for her to understand that he had paid for that choice with his own life long before he ever became Hamza. Enough to understand that the state which abandoned him, later returned demanding loyalty anyway, and he had given it despite everything.

That conversation had changed something fundamental in her perspective of him.

Because suddenly she no longer saw him as merely a deceiver who had manipulated her people and her country. Instead, he looked like a man who had been punished repeatedly for trying to do the right thing and still somehow choose goodness afterward. A brave man. A wounded man. A good man trapped inside impossible circumstances.

She had chosen the right man.

Perhaps at the wrong time, in the wrong circumstances, in the wrong life entirely, but still the right man.

For one brief moment that night, doubt had crept into her heart again. What if even this story was another lie? Another carefully crafted cover?

But the wetness soaking into her kurta while he refused to lift his face from her shoulder had answered that fear better than any words could.

And she knew.

She had never truly known Hamza or any of his masks. But she knew her husband. And that was enough for her.

That night, as they lay in their bed, both to keyed up to truly sleep, she had begged her husband to come back to her, to try to live for her even if his motherland had asked for his life. She had held his folded hands, looked into his glassy eyes that shone even in the dark, and had asked in her most brave voice, that she wanted to raise their son together, and that she wanted to cash in his promise that she had rights over him for all his life, that if Hamza Ali Mazari had to die for India, she would not complain, but she wanted her husband to return to her, safe and sound. He had merely nodded once and said nothing. But his preparations had taken on a different light, and he had kept his promise to try, with the proof of his sincerity sitting innocuously next to her suitcase.

As she stared at the things she had absentmindedly gathered while lost in thought, her eyes drifted toward the deep red suit folded carefully at the back of the cupboard.

The color had always been her favorite. But she had never worn that suit again after that day.

Slowly, she reached for it.

Women in her husband’s country wore sindoor, she remembered him once saying casually, in the many midnight talks they had taken to having, after that night where she had demanded he live. Something of a similar shade, red like devotion and passion, worn for the long life of one’s husband.

Before she fully understood what she was doing, she had already unfolded the suit and changed into it. She stood there silently afterward, fingers brushing over the familiar fabric. She did not know why she had done it.

Was this prayer too?

For a husband who had pushed passports into her trembling hands with promises that he would return to her, while holding her so tightly it had felt less like comfort and more like a man trying to memorize the shape of the person he loved before walking toward something terrible?

She did not know.

All she knew was that, that was what she was wearing when Laila hurried in, her eyes panicked, her breath heaving with urgency. It was Omar.

Omar, the fucking SP who had begun sniffing around Hamza after Aalam’s death.

Something cold and ugly twisted inside Yalina’s belly.

Laila kept speaking in frightened bursts, explaining how he had arrived at dusk with uniformed officers, how Hamza’s men had stepped away for dinner while only the ornamental security her father insisted upon remained near the gates, how Omar had forced the guards down at gunpoint and entered without warrant like some stray dog emboldened by an open door.

And then she uttered the words that undid whatever calmness Yalina had been pretending to have.

“He has Zayan baba.” Her vision tunneled.

Her son. Her little boy.

The shameless rogue was holding her son hostage. Anger licked at her mind, but if being the wife of a gangster with many enemies had taught her anything, it was to stay level headed in such situations. Omar must have thought that her husband's bloodthirsty men, who had hung up the officers of Lyari Task force when Rehman bhai had still been alive, and had made a joke out of SP Aslam, would go back home for dinner.

Omar had made one mistake already.

He thought Hamza’s men would truly leave the estate unguarded simply because dinner was being served. The fool did not understand how these men lived. This was not merely their boss’s house. It was their home too. They ate here. Slept here. Guarded the walls like family property. Even when scattered, they remained close enough to return at a moment’s notice.

And so Yalina called them.

Her fingers shook only slightly as she dialed Lassan first, then Taheer, her voice frighteningly calm as she informed them that Omar was inside the house and had her son. They were across the estate grounds and would need ten minutes at most.

Ten minutes. They felt too long.

Then Jahana rushed in next, this time openly crying.

“Memsahab…” she whispered shakily, “woh Zayan baba pe bandook taane baithe hain…keh rahe hain agar aap abhi neeche nahi aayi toh—”

On gunpoint? Her little Zayan? He dared to threaten her son in his own home? Demanded from her and threatened his life?

Worry and rage warred within her. She had tried to protect Zayan from his father's line of work as much as possible, he didn't even know that Hamza was a gangster, he thought his Abbu ran a business. His little mind had never known fear, he would not recognise the danger.

But her son was in danger! Her feet carried her even before she knew where she was going.

“Zayan!” she shouted while hurrying down the hallway, her voice echoing sharply through the corridors. “Zayan, beta!”

No answer came.

Her heart slammed painfully against her ribs as she moved faster, cursing the sheer length of the hallway between her room and the formal sitting area downstairs. But fear sharpened the senses in strange ways, and even amidst the panic she immediately noticed details Hamza himself would have noticed.

Every uniformed guard had been forced outside. They knelt near the porch while policemen stood over them with rifles drawn. Not one officer remained inside the house.

All of them are out, he left no one standing here, Yalina. You have a chance to not be the weak, unarmed side, her husband's voice whispered in her mind.

Her gaze darted immediately toward the drawer near the staircase. Gun.

Hamza kept one there.

She retrieved it silently and checked the safety with fingers that somehow still obeyed her. She had never understood Hamza’s strange habit of keeping mirrors angled near room entrances so someone outside could partially observe interiors without being seen. She had once mocked him for it.

Now she silently thanked God for his paranoia.

From the reflection she could see the sitting room clearly enough. Omar sat there with one thick hand gripping Zayan’s shoulder so tightly the child looked uncomfortable already. The gun barrel pressed carelessly near her son’s face.

She pushed Laila gently toward the doorway, hoping the maid understood what she wanted.

“Memsahab aa rahi hain, sir,” Laila said shakily from the entrance. “Woh keh rahi hain tab tak aap baithiye aur Zayan baba ko daraaiye mat…Baba, idhar aaiye…”

Through the reflection, Yalina watched her son attempt to move.

Then she watched him wince in pain as Omar’s thick fingers dug brutally into his tiny shoulder. The barrel of the gun pressed into her child’s cheek. Then shifted towards his neck.

“Tell Yalina,” Omar snarled, “that if she wants to see her son alive, she better hurry. Warna aaj woh apna shohar bhi khoyegi aur beta bhi.”

Yalina saw red.

He would murder a child?

Her child? Her baby?

The red haze that had briefly receded came roaring back so fast that it almost blinded her. Laila carefully stepped aside from the doorway but refused to flee entirely. Brave girl. Loyal girl.

The SP would die today.

If someone later asked Yalina exactly what happened after that moment, she would never fully know how to explain it. One second she was still in the hallway trying to keep her breathing controlled as she raised the gun properly, and the next she was already inside the room, her arm steady despite the hurricane inside her chest.

wo bullets struck Omar in the chest before anyone fully processed what had happened. The third entered his throat.

She fired that one deliberately.

The sound exploded through the room. Omar collapsed instantly, his grip loosening from both the gun and her son simultaneously as blood spread rapidly beneath him.

A scream of “Ammi!” through the haze, her arms extending towards her son by habit, and Zayan crashed into her arms so hard she nearly lost balance.

Yalina dropped the gun immediately and held him with terrifying desperation, pressing frantic kisses into his hair while checking his face, his neck, his shoulders, searching wildly for injury. She could feel his frightened little breaths against her throat and only then did the hysteria truly begin to recede enough for her knees to stop shaking.

Her son was alive. Her son was alive.

After checking him twice more, she pushed him gently toward Laila. “Isko upar le jao,” she ordered hoarsely. “Abhi.”

Zayan resisted instantly, frightened tears gathering in his eyes, but she hardened herself and sent him away. Only after he disappeared did she finally look back at Omar.

The dying man still watched the direction her son had gone with those hateful little eyes.

She wanted to gouge those eyes out herself. Rip his throat apart with her bare hands for daring to terrorize her son inside his own home.

She stepped closer until she could see tears gathering in his eyes from the agony of the bullets lodged inside him. His lips moved weakly.

Yalina crouched down to hear the aborted sounds beneath his wheezing breaths.

“Hamza…” he rasped wetly. “Spy…yes?”

And strangely enough, Yalina felt regret then. Not for shooting him. Never that.

But regret that perhaps Pakistan’s first honest police officer had died on the floor of her home and she had been the one to kill him.

If only he had not threatened her son.

“My…men…” he struggled. “Outside…you…not…escape…”

She felt bad for his naivete. He really was an honest man.

“I am the daughter of the Education Minister of Pakistan,” Yalina told him quietly. “The wife of the most feared gangster of Karachi. Main tumhe aur tumhare aadmiyon ko yahin marwa sakti hoon aur mujhe kuch nahi hoga.”

As if summoned by her words, sounds of violence erupted outside.

Gunshots. Screaming. Then Lassan’s profane mouth saying things she would have scolded him for, on a normal day. Taheer yelling murder.

“Sun rahe ho, SP?” she asked softly. “Those my husband’s men.”

Omar’s eyes remained fixed on her face. He was a persistent man.

“You know,” she continued, voice growing steadier, “my husband, who walks amongst people like Iqbal Ahmed, head of ISI’s Indian wing. Mir Iqbal. General Shamshad Hassan himself. But you are a dying man. You will not leave this room alive. Let me tell you the information you threatened to kill my son for". He had the gall to look offended.

"He is a child Omar! You threatened a child to get information, you are no better than the criminals you claim to protect our people from!" His eyes were back to looking beseechingly at her, and so she spoke again. "You were right. Hamza is a spy." His eyes gleamed in triumph and she felt the sudden urge to wipe it away. He did not deserve the feeling after his actions.

“But he was killing terrorists,” she continued. “Tell me honestly, SP sahib…did you take your oath to protect terrorists? Or innocent civilians?” The triumph in his expression faltered.

Good.

Because this pursuit had never truly been about justice. It had been about pride. Hamza had stopped gang wars, built factories, given work to desperate people, dragged Lyari toward something almost resembling stability, and still Omar had hunted him not because innocents were suffering, but because he could not tolerate being outplayed.

“My husband will succeed,” she said quietly. “And you have failed. Both in catching him and protecting the people you swore to serve.”

She stood slowly then and moved away from him, only now noticing the blood staining the red fabric pooled around her legs. Red. Like blood. She had never killed anyone before. She was a murderer now. Her hands began trembling.

Her gaze drifted toward the family portrait hanging nearby. Her husband stood there with one arm around her while Zayan sat laughing on his shoulders.

She stared at that photograph for a very long time.

It had to be worth it.

Her son was safe. Her husband would come home safe. She had to believe it.

It had to be enough.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later, when Jameel Jamali rushed into his daughter’s house, alerted by Nafeesa, the cook he had personally sent with Yalina after her marriage. There had been no call from his daughter herself.

The drive there had felt endless despite the short distance, every horrifying possibility clawing through his mind one after another. Nafeesa had been crying so hard on the phone that half her words had dissolved into incomprehensible sobs, but he had still understood enough. Gunshots. Police. Zayan. Blood.

His daughter.

Ya Allah, his daughter.

For all his political experience, all his years navigating dangerous men and dangerous situations, nothing had prepared him for the helpless terror of imagining his only child trapped somewhere frightened and alone. By the time he reached the estate, his own heartbeat was pounding loudly enough to make him feel sick.

What he found instead was silence.

Not true silence, because outside there were still murmurs, hurried footsteps, Hamza’s men dragging bodies and barking orders at each other, but inside the house itself there was a strange stillness, heavy and stunned, as though the walls themselves had not yet processed what had happened within them.

And there, in the middle of the sitting room, stock still like a frozen statue, sat his daughter staring at the family photograph mounted upon the wall like she had forgotten where she was. And a corpse beside her. The SP's corpse. A vague thought entered his mind that his daughter's family had a penchant for killing SPs.

Then she saw him.

“Abbu…”

The word broke apart halfway through as she stumbled toward him, and suddenly she was no longer Yalina Mazari, wife of the most feared man in Lyari, no longer the poised politician’s daughter who knew exactly how to speak and smile and manipulate a room to her liking. She was simply his little girl again, crying so hard against his shoulder that her breath kept catching painfully in her chest as she pointed weakly toward the corpse lying several feet away and tried desperately to explain herself between hiccups and gasping breaths.

His child.

His only child.

His pride. His baby.

She had not hugged him like this since she was nine years old and had burnt her hand trying to iron her own clothes because she had decided, after watching a maid work, that she too should “learn responsibility and be a big girl.” He still remembered how inconsolably she had cried that day, less because of the pain and more because she thought he would scold her for touching the iron and ruining the clothes like how he did with the help.

Now she clung to him with that same frightened desperation, her fingers knotted tightly into the fabric of his kurta as though he alone was holding the world together for her.

“He…he pointed the gun at Zayan, Abbu,” she cried brokenly. “Usne Zayan pe bandook taani thi…main darr gayi…maine bas…”

Her words dissolved into another sob.

“I shot him…aur..aur woh…”

Jameel closed his eyes briefly and tightened his hold around her.

Her tears soaked through his shoulder as she kept speaking in frantic bursts, telling him how Omar had threatened her son, how she had panicked, how she was terrified they would take her away now, how she would never see Hamza again, how she would never see Zayan again, how she was scared she would never see him again either.

Only the last confession sounded sincere.

And despite everything, despite the corpse cooling only feet away from them, despite the political disaster already forming in the back of his mind, Jameel almost smiled through the ache in his chest because his daughter had always been sly in moments of crisis. Yalina had inherited his instincts too well. Even as a child she had known how to weaponize tears with frightening precision when she wanted protection or forgiveness.

But she was still a good girl.

And more importantly, right now, she was terrified. Truly terrified. She needed her father and she needed Jameel, the politician too.

Jameel knew enough about Hamza’s operations to understand there had already been contingency plans in place for extraction a day later. Three people. Hamza. Yalina. Zayan. He had never asked too many questions because plausible deniability had kept him alive in this God-forsaken country, but he had not been blind either.

So he did what he had always done best whenever disaster struck.

He handled it.

He pulled his daughter closer and stroked her hair the same way he used to when she was little and frightened by darkness, murmuring softly, steadily, “Bas, bas, meri bachi…Abbu hai na. Main dekh lunga sab. Kuch nahi hoga tumhe. Kisi ki himmat nahi hai meri beti ko haath lagane ki.”

She cried harder at that.

He let her. Let her mourn, later, he would too. After whatever pretense of a call she made in goodbye. After he received a call about her convenient demise around the same time her husband perished. But for now, he would be strong. Strong for the daughter he will never see again, in three days' time.

Then, after pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he gently guided her upstairs toward her room, pretending not to notice the half-open suitcase lying upon the bed or the passports carelessly visible beneath scattered clothes. Pretending not to understand exactly what those things implied.

“Kapde badlo, beta” he told her quietly once they reached the room. “ These clothes must be sticky, change into something comfortable.”

The blood upon her dress had dried in places already.

Yalina looked down at herself almost blankly, as though only now realizing what she was wearing, then nodded weakly and disappeared into the washroom.

Jameel stood there for several long seconds after the door closed. He took a quick glance at the passports. Leena Thapar and Rayan Shergill. Sanyal sahab and his firm belief that Hamza was a lion in disguise. He shook his head.

Then he exhaled heavily and went back downstairs, where Zayan sat curled miserably upon the sofa looking far too small for the enormous room around him. The moment the child saw him, he climbed immediately into his grandfather’s lap without a word, still shaken enough that he did not even attempt his usual chatter.

Jameel held his grandson close with one arm while reaching for his phone with the other.

Outside, men were already cleaning blood from marble floors. Somewhere deeper in the estate, someone was shouting instructions. Another body was being dragged away.

Inside the sitting room, however, there was only the quiet sound of Zayan breathing against his chest while Jameel made call after call in a calm, measured voice, arranging protection for his family with the same efficiency other men reserved for business meetings.

Being a parent was a strange thing.

You would go to impossible lengths to protect your children. You would cross lines and limits you once swore you would never even approach. You would stain your hands, your reputation, perhaps even your soul itself, if it meant keeping your child safe.

He was a parent.

And tonight, he realized with a strange ache in his chest, so was his daughter.

======================xXx======================

Masterlist

A/N: Haan, haan, I know, I had promised you guys the next part of the Ulfat series, I am sorry, I was thinking of how this scene could have gone differently and I kept returning to the saying that a woman might be weak, but a mother never is. In one world, a scared Yalina capitulated to the SP. In another, her motherhood did not allow for such a slight to slide by her, and one mother's love for her son saved another mother's son from losing his family. I just had to post it. I will get to the asks, I swear, you guys. (this is also a scheduled post you guys, there are two more for next week and then I will be back.)

The train lurched into motion with a metallic groan that vibrated through the carriage, and only then did she become aware of the elderly man seated directly across from her. At first glance he appeared simply old, but the longer she looked the more she realised that age alone was not what drew her attention toward him. There was still strength lingering in the broad structure of his shoulders and something dignified in the way he sat upright despite the walking stick resting between his knees, yet time had carved deep lines into his face and hollowed him in ways that had nothing to do with physical decline. His beard was entirely white, his hands remained motionless upon the handle of his cane, and his gaze stayed fixed beyond the train window with such unwavering stillness that he seemed detached from everything happening around him.

What struck her most, however, was the sadness resting upon him with the familiarity of an old companion. Yalina found herself watching him longer than politeness probably allowed because there was something painfully lonely about the sight of him sitting there surrounded by people yet somehow appearing entirely alone.

The man did not acknowledge her attention, though she could not tell whether he genuinely failed to notice or simply lacked the energy to care. His eyes remained fixed outside while the scenery blurred past, and something about that distant expression tightened unexpectedly inside her chest. She had always possessed an unfortunate weakness for lonely elderly people, a weakness that frequently resulted in conversations with strangers and occasional lectures from Hamza about talking to everyone she met.

"Uncle?" she called gently after several moments.

The old man blinked as though surfacing from somewhere very far away, then slowly turned his head toward her. The instant his eyes landed upon her face something changed in his expression, and for several seconds he simply stared without speaking. It was not an uncomfortable stare nor a rude one, yet there was something strangely intense about it, as though he had encountered something entirely unexpected and needed a moment to understand what he was seeing.

Yalina offered an awkward smile and shifted slightly in her seat.

"Ji... uncle?"

The old man seemed to return abruptly to the present.

"Haan beta."

His voice emerged rough and worn, carrying the unmistakable texture of someone who spent long stretches of time without speaking.

"You looked uncomfortable," she said while holding out her water bottle. "Would you like some water?"

His gaze dropped to the bottle before returning to her face, and for a brief moment an unreadable emotion crossed his features so quickly that she could not identify it.

"Thank you."

His fingers trembled faintly as he accepted the bottle, and Yalina immediately felt vindicated in her assessment of the situation. The poor man looked exactly like someone who had not enjoyed a proper conversation in far too long, and she felt a surge of sympathy.

For several minutes silence settled comfortably between them while the train continued rattling along its route, but eventually the old man's attention drifted toward the phone resting in her hands. The lockscreen displayed a photograph of Zayan attempting to eat a crayon with complete confidence in his decision, and the corner of the old man's mouth twitched upward.

"Your son?"

That simple question was all the encouragement Yalina required because discussing Zayan ranked among her favourite activities and she rarely needed much invitation.

"Ji, my son," she replied immediately while turning the screen toward him. "His name is Zayan, and this photograph was taken last week. He is rather mischievous. Probably got it from his father, he certainly didn't get it from me! ."

The old man looked at the picture carefully rather than offering the brief polite glance most strangers gave when shown photographs of children. His gaze lingered upon the image while his fingers tightened subtly around the water bottle.

"He looks sweet, and very clever too."

The words emerged quietly, carrying a sincerity that made her smile widen instantly.

"I know. And he is far too clever for his own good. Or my husband's and mine!"

The old man laughed unexpectedly, and the sound seemed to surprise him almost as much as it surprised her. It was a genuine laugh, small but warm, and something about hearing it encouraged her further.

"Oh, wait until you see this one," she said while scrolling enthusiastically through her gallery. "This was three months ago when he discovered puddles and immediately decided that he must try and drink from every single one he sees. Aur majaal ho ki koi usse roke! I am the villain if I try to stop him from getting his way. Do you know why he cried day before yesterday? It was because I wouldn't let him put his finger in a socket! But he is sweet. My husband says he has the personality of a fungus. He grows on you and before you know it, you will lose the ability to say no to him"

The old man's eyes softened noticeably.

"Sounds familiar."

"You have children?"

The question escaped naturally before she considered whether it might be too personal. And honestly, it felt dumb too, someone this old would not just have children, but grandchildren too.

His smile faltered almost imperceptibly.

"Had."

The answer felt strange in a way she could not explain, and she felt that pang of strange devastation return to her chest. She knew that it was not her place to ask of his story, but she did not wish to end a conversation on such a sad note, so she ploughed on, hoping that her motherly babbling will pull the man out of his melancholy for some brief time.

"Will you see more pictures? He is in his teething phase, and honestly, uncle, Allah ki qasam, he nearly drives me insane. He bites absolutely everything within reach, including furniture, blankets, my hands, and his father too. And he cries ceaselessly, and with how difficult it is to calm him, I cry with him too, and so does Hamza, my husband."

The old man's eyes crinkled with amusement.

"Clove oil."

"Hain?"

"A little clove oil on the gums helps considerably."

The certainty with which he offered the advice made her blink before immediately opening her notes application.

"Why did nobody tell me this before?"

The old man chuckled softly, and this time the sound lingered longer.

"He'll grow out of it eventually."

"And isn't that the bittersweet constant of motherhood, every phase is a menace until they grow out of it. Did I tell you about how he peed on my mother the first time she held him? That was the day I knew I would be proud of my son no matter what he did— "

She continued scrolling through photographs while speaking almost continuously because restraint had never been one of her strengths whenever the topic involved her child. Every image carried a story attached to it, and every story seemed worth sharing.

"Abhi chalna seekha hai," she said while opening a video.

The screen filled with footage of Zayan wobbling determinedly across the living room in pursuit of Hamza.

"He follows his father everywhere," she explained fondly while watching the video herself. "If Hamza stands up then Zayan stands up immediately, and if Hamza leaves the room then he starts crying as though all hell has broken lose. Sometimes I genuinely wonder whether I am necessary at all."

The old man's attention fixed completely upon the screen. His expression changed subtly, and she noticed a suspicious brightness gathering within his eyes.

"Uncle?"

He blinked rapidly and cleared his throat.

"No, no. Continue."

So she did, because she assumed perhaps the video had simply reminded him of his own children.

"This one is my favourite."

She opened another photograph showing Zayan asleep across Hamza's chest while both father and son drooled with equal enthusiasm.

The old man's lips parted slightly before closing again.

For a brief moment he looked overwhelmed by something she could not identify.

"His father loves him very much."

The words sounded less like observation and more like a statement, but she understood his implication, for all her father's love, her father had been a rather uninvolved parent, watching Hamza hover over their son every moment he could had changed her perspective on fatherhood. Perhaps he came from the age where fatherhood had merely demanded money and a roof over the head.

"Of course he does," she replied with a proud smile. "Hamza spoils him completely."

The old man lowered his gaze, and something about his expression made her chest ache unexpectedly. It looked as though she had unknowingly brushed against an old wound hidden beneath years of silence. Yet whenever she continued speaking he listened with such focused attention that stopping felt impossible.

"He talks nonstop now."

"Oh?"

"Well, talks might be an exaggeration because most of it remains incomprehensible." She rolled her eyes dramatically. "He knows maybe ten actual words."

The old man smiled. "That's a start. Before you know it, these kids will be talking your ear off"

"Do you know his favourite word?"

The smile deepened slightly. "What?"

Yalina pointed accusingly toward a photograph.

"No."

The old man blinked before laughing loudly enough to startle both of them.

"Exactly," she said triumphantly. "Everything is no. Eat your food? No. Take a bath? No. Stop putting dirt into your mouth? No."

The old man laughed harder, and genuine tears appeared in his eyes.

For reasons she could not explain, the sight unsettled her slightly because the laughter seemed entirely real yet the tears seemed real as well. It was only then that she became aware of the unusual intensity with which he listened whenever she spoke about Zayan. He was not watching her so much as absorbing every story she told, treating each insignificant anecdote with a seriousness that made them feel strangely important. It was almost as though he were trying to memorise every detail she offered, storing away each description and each memory with desperate care.

The train continued its journey while station announcements echoed intermittently through the carriage and passengers gradually began collecting bags in preparation for upcoming stops. Neither of them paid much attention because Yalina had already reached photograph number eighty-seven and the old man had listened patiently to every single story attached to every single image.

Eventually the train slowed, and she glanced outside only to realise her station had arrived.

"Oh."

Reluctantly she began gathering her belongings while feeling oddly disappointed that the conversation was ending. Rarely did she find such attentive listeners to her cuteness aggression towards her own child. Her father's eyes would become glassy with faraway looks of 'no longer listening' and her mother would cut in about it being nothing special. Her friends had encouraging expressions but would whip out their own phones with their kids too, and she had to be polite and look at them while internally feeling like a judgmental aunty because she did not find any of them as cute as her Zayan. It was usually just Hamza humoring her. So the old man had felt strangely like a friend, during the course of the conversation

The old man nodded slowly. Almost sadly.

"It was nice meeting you, uncle."

"It was nice meeting you too."

She smiled before hesitating briefly.

"Your children must be very lucky."

The old man looked at her for a long moment, and the noise of the station seemed strangely distant during the silence that followed. Then he smiled, and the sadness contained within that smile was so profound that years later she would still remember it without understanding why.

"I hope they think so"

Something tightened unexpectedly inside her chest. Why did his grief feel so personal?

Before she could examine the feeling further the train had stopped completely and passengers were already moving toward the exits. She rose from her seat and stepped onto the platform while the old man followed behind her. For a brief moment they stood side by side amid the crowd, then a porter passed between them followed by a family carrying luggage and several other passengers moving in different directions.

Only a few seconds passed before she turned back intending to wave goodbye.

The old man was gone.

Not walking away through the crowd and not disappearing into the distance. Simply gone.

She remained standing there for several moments while scanning the platform in confusion because she could not understand how someone so noticeable had vanished so quickly. Strange, she thought. Very strange.

Her phone buzzed in her hand with an incoming message from Hamza.

Where are you, jaan? Zayan is throwing a tantrum and refuses to nap. If you love your dear husband's luscious locks, please come home fast, otherwise I will go bald with frustration.

A laugh escaped her immediately. She shook her head. Hamza was a dramatic ass.

The strange old man slipped to the back of her mind as quickly as he had appeared, and she hurried away through the station with a smile already forming at the thought of seeing her family again.

On a different platform, in a different station, an old man stood with tears in his eyes, but a faint smile on his face. For a few stolen hours he had not been mourning what he had lost.

He had simply been a father again. A husband too.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yalina had boarded the train with every intention of never looking back.

It sounded dramatic when phrased like that, and perhaps if someone had told her a month ago that she would one day sit alone in a train compartment with her son while contemplating leaving her husband, she would have laughed in their face and called them mad. Yet here she was, staring through the dusty window while the city blurred past outside, feeling as though someone had reached into her chest and rearranged everything she thought she knew about her life.

Her husband was a liar, and the thought returned with exhausting persistence no matter how fiercely she tried to push it away. She would focus on the passing buildings, on the vendors moving through the train, on Zayan's endless questions, and somehow her mind always circled back to the same terrible truth.

The worst part was not even the lie itself. The worst part was that despite everything she had learned, despite the anger burning inside her, a stubborn part of her still loved him.

That realization disgusted her almost as much as it hurt.

If she hated Hamza completely, then leaving would have been simple. She could have packed her bags, taken her son, and walked away carrying nothing except righteous anger. Instead she carried memories that refused to die, and every memory seemed determined to argue against her decision.

She remembered rainy evenings spent entangled in each other's arms. She remembered laughing so hard at one of his terrible jokes that she had snorted her badam doodh out of her nose. She remembered waking up in the middle of the night and finding him asleep with one arm wrapped protectively around Zayan after the child had crawled into their bed.

Those memories felt real. They were real. That was what made everything so unbearable.

Hatred would have given her certainty, but love poisoned by betrayal left her trapped between two versions of the same man. One version was the husband she knew, the father who adored their son and remembered exactly how she liked her tea. The other version was an Indian spy who had hidden his identity from her for years.

Both versions existed simultaneously, and she no longer knew which one was the truth.

Hamza was a liar. Hamza was not even truly Hamza.

Hamza was a spy.

Even now the words felt absurd inside her head. Whenever she repeated them silently, she expected reality to correct itself somehow. Instead the truth remained stubbornly unchanged, forcing her to question every chapter of their life together.

Every memory now carried an uncomfortable shadow. Every smile seemed suspicious. Every promise demanded reexamination. Every "jaan" carried uncertainty. Every "trust me" echoed with painful irony.

She lowered her gaze toward Zayan and felt her chest tighten again. Her son was not asleep as she had initially hoped he would be. He had spent the fifteen minutes they had spent waiting for the train alternating between asking questions about everything he saw and inventing elaborate stories about strangers on the platform.

At that moment he was kneeling on the seat beside her, his chin resting against the window frame while he watched the passing scenery with endless fascination.

How was she supposed to explain any of this to him when she barely understood it herself? How could she look into those trusting eyes and tell him that the father he adored had hidden an entire identity from them?

The questions twisted inside her stomach until she felt physically sick.

She pressed her lips together and forced herself to breathe slowly because panic would solve nothing. Right now she needed enough strength simply to survive the next hour without falling apart in front of her son.

The rhythmic clatter of the train wheels at the platform of the stationary train filled the compartment while passengers drifted in and out of conversations around her. For several minutes she sat silently, trapped between thinking too much and trying desperately not to think at all.

She failed at both.

Eventually she became aware that someone was speaking to Zayan, and what caught her attention was not the stranger's voice but the fact that her son was already deeply engaged in conversation. Zayan had inherited many qualities from her, and unfortunately his willingness to befriend complete strangers within minutes was one of them.

Yalina looked up.

A young man sat across from them, though calling him a man felt slightly inaccurate because he looked barely older than seventeen or eighteen. He was tall for his age, broad-shouldered, and carried himself with the effortless confidence that belonged only to teenagers who still believed the world was a little oyster they could conquer in a fortnight.

His hair was cropped short, almost in the style of the military, his expressions animated, and his eyes sparkled while he described some disaster involving a cricket match, a shattered window, and an enraged mathematics teacher.

There was an openness about him that immediately drew attention. He spoke with his hands, laughed easily, and seemed completely unconcerned with how loudly he occupied the space around him.

Zayan listened with complete fascination, his small body leaning forward so far that Yalina worried he might tumble right off the seat if the train jolted unexpectedly. The boy had somehow earned her son's trust within minutes, and watching them together stirred an unexpected ache inside her because it reminded her painfully of Hamza.

Hamza had always encouraged every ridiculous story Zayan invented. He too would come up with neigh improbable stories that held an always restless Zayan captive.

"Phir kya hua?" Zayan demanded eagerly, his eyes shining with the same curiosity that always appeared whenever someone told him a story.

The boy grinned with obvious satisfaction at having such an attentive audience.

"Phir kya hona tha? Mujhe punishment diya gaya."

"Kya punishment?"

"Poore 50 sit-ups karne pade, woh bhi assembly mein, sabke saamne!." Zayan gasped dramatically and clutched the edge of the seat.

"No!"

"Bilkul."

"Aap jhoot bol rahe ho. Koi itna bura kaise ho sakta hai? Sabke saamne sit ups karwaya?"

The boy pressed a hand against his chest as though deeply wounded by the accusation, though the amusement dancing in his eyes ruined the performance completely.

"Dekha? aap ko bhi yeh heavy punishment lagi na? Maine bhi apne papa se shikayat kar di, main bola, main ek fauji ka beta hoon, main kyun aise logon se maafi maangu, mere desh ki fauj ko bhala bura toh uss student ne bola tha!"

Zayan nodded with absolute seriousness, completely moved by the theatrical outrage.

"Aise bacchon ko dus ande khaane ki saza milni chahiye", he replied sagely, like a juror passing a verdict.

The boy laughed, and the sound struck Yalina like a physical blow she had not been prepared for.

Something inside her went completely still, while everything around her seemed to continue moving normally. The train rattled onward, passengers talked among themselves, vendors passed through the aisle, yet she felt trapped inside a single suspended moment.

She stared at him properly for the first time.

Until now she had only paid half attention to him because her mind had been drowning beneath anger, confusion, and exhaustion. Now she noticed details she wished she had never noticed at all.

The shape of his eyes caught her attention first, the colour hidden within them was that impossible blue-green shade she knew better than her own reflection, because she had spent countless evenings watching those eyes soften with affection, narrow with amusement, and occasionally darken with worries he never fully shared.

The curve of the boy's smile, even the way his eyebrows lifted whenever he laughed felt painfully familiar, as though someone had taken a younger version of her husband and placed him casually in front of her.

Her heartbeat stumbled painfully against her ribs as realization slowly settled over her.

Those blue-green eyes were not merely similar to Hamza's eyes, nor were they vaguely familiar in the way strangers sometimes resembled people from one's past. What if?

Then reason returned and she forced herself to breathe slowly, reminding herself that grief, anger, and confusion could make the mind see connections where none existed. Ever since discovering the truth about Hamza, she had begun doubting her own instincts almost as much as she doubted him. That loss of certainty hurt more than she liked admitting, because she had always trusted her ability to understand people. Now she looked back at years of marriage and wondered how many signs she had missed, how many questions she had never thought to ask, and whether love had made her blind or simply willing to believe what made her happy.

Hamza was thirty-two years old, while the teenager sitting across from her could not have been older than seventeen.

Yet the resemblance remained undeniable, and what disturbed her most was the strange certainty growing inside her that this encounter meant something. She hated that feeling because it sounded irrational, and she had always considered herself a practical woman who trusted facts more than intuition. Still, every instinct inside her refused to dismiss what she was seeing, and that stubborn feeling lingered like a hand resting lightly against her shoulder.

A memory surfaced suddenly. She remembered the old Sikh man she had met on the train, the one with the same attentive way of listening. She remembered how patiently he had listened while she talked about Zayan, as though every story mattered and every detail deserved to be treasured. He had blue-green eyes. Just like her husband. Just like this boy. Just like her son.

Her throat went dry as she watched the boy continue talking animatedly with Zayan, completely unaware of the storm gathering inside her mind. He laughed easily and gestured with his hands while telling another ridiculous story, and Yalina felt as though the ground beneath her understanding of reality had shifted slightly out of place.

Before she could stop herself, she spoke because she needed something concrete to hold onto.

"Which station are you going to?"

The question interrupted both of them, and the boy blinked before looking at her with mild surprise, as though only now realizing that Zayan's mother had been sitting there all along.

"Huh?"

"Which station?" she repeated, trying to keep her voice steady.

He frowned briefly, then shrugged with complete casualness.

"Chakkiwara."

Immediately he turned back toward Zayan.

"So phir maine usko bola—"

The rest disappeared into background noise because Yalina's mind had locked onto a single word.

Chakkiwara.

There was no railway station called Chakkiwara, not on this route atleast. This train went to her Nanihal, a place Hamza wouldn't even think to look, and she had travelled on this train every summer since she had been 10. She knew its route like the back of her hand.

A cold sensation travelled slowly down her spine as several disconnected memories suddenly began pressing against one another. The old man, the impossible disappearance, the blue-green eyes, the resemblance, and now this strange answer all seemed to belong to the same puzzle.

One by one the pieces aligned inside her mind until she felt almost dizzy from the effort of trying to make sense of them. Logic told her that none of this proved anything meaningful because coincidences happened every day and strangers often resembled one another. Unfortunately, logic had been losing arguments inside her head ever since she discovered that her husband had been living a double life.

The same slope of the nose. The same sharp cheekbones. The same shape of the jaw beneath youthful fat.

Even the way he smiled carried an infuriating familiarity that made her chest tighten painfully. Looking at him was like looking at a younger version of Hamza before adulthood had hardened the edges of his face and before the beard had hidden so much of it. For one disorienting moment she could almost imagine her husband sitting there seventeen years young, laughing with Zayan.

Her gaze lingered on the boy, and then her thoughts drifted unwillingly toward the old Sikh man she had met on the train.

The came the realisation. The train. The inexplicable feeling of familiarity. The strange comfort she had felt around him despite never having met him before.

The way he had disappeared.

A knot formed in her throat as a frightening possibility took shape inside her mind. What if she had not merely met two strangers who resembled one another. What if she had somehow met two versions of the same man. Looking at the teenager now, she found herself remembering the old man's face with startling clarity, and for the first time she could see the bridge connecting them.

The boy sitting before her. The old man from the train. And between them, her husband.

The thought should have sounded absurd, yet it settled inside her with an unsettling sense of certainty.

She remembered the old man's shoulders. How tired they had seemed. How they had slumped beneath an invisible weight that years had never allowed him to put down. She remembered the loneliness surrounding him like a second skin, the quiet sadness in his eyes whenever he spoke about his children, and the aching tenderness with which he had listened to her talk about Zayan.

Was that the future waiting for Hamza? Would he one day become a man who carried entire lifetimes of grief behind his eyes? Would he spend his old age haunted by memories and sacrifices nobody else could understand? Would he sit alone on trains listening to strangers talk about their families because it reminded him of his own?

The thought hurt far more than she wanted it to.

Because despite everything, despite the lies and the deception and the betrayal that still felt raw enough to bleed, she loved him.

The admission came reluctantly. She loved him.

That love had been wounded, shaken, and buried beneath layers of anger, yet it had not disappeared. She wished it had because life would have been infinitely simpler if she could hate him without reservation. Instead she found herself staring at a boy who looked like her husband and remembering an old man who might become him, and all she felt was sorrow.

For the first time since learning the truth, she tried to imagine things from Hamza's perspective.

Not as the man who had lied to her. Not as the spy.

Simply as Hamza.

How had life brought him here. She had fallen for his carefully crafted stories in the beginning, and she could admit that now without embarrassment. Yet she had never been blind. There had always been moments when something ancient and melancholic surfaced in him without warning. Certain days of the year transformed him into a quieter version of himself, and she would catch him staring into nothing with an expression of longing so profound that it unsettled her.

Whenever she asked, he always smiled and changed the subject. She had never pushed. Partly because she respected boundaries, and partly because she genuinely believed that people deserved the right to leave painful histories buried. She had chosen to love the man standing before her rather than interrogate the ghosts standing behind him.

Now she wondered what those ghosts looked like. How much loss had he already endured before entering her life? How many people had he buried? How many impossible choices had he been forced to make?

Her thoughts drifted to Aalam Chacha.

The memory made her stomach twist.

Hamza had killed him after he had been accused of being an Indian spy. Now she knew enough to understand the horrifying complexity hidden beneath that event. The affection Hamza held for the old juice shop owner had been real. She knew that with absolute certainty. She had seen it in countless small interactions that could not be faked.

How much had that decision hurt him? How much of himself had he sacrificed in that moment? How many other impossible decisions had he already made throughout his life? How many times had duty demanded something from him that his heart desperately wanted to refuse?

How many pieces of his soul had he surrendered one by one until only the man she knew remained?

The questions disturbed her because they transformed him from a villain into something far more simple being.

A human being. A flawed one. But still human.

She felt horrible for sympathising with him.

Part of her wanted to reject every compassionate thought the moment it appeared. He had lied to her face for years. He had manipulated her trust. He had built their marriage upon secrets she never would have accepted had she known the truth from the beginning.

She had every right to be angry. Every right to feel betrayed. Every right to walk away.

Yet none of those truths erased another truth she knew deep inside herself.

Hamza was a good man. Not a perfect man. Not an innocent man.

But a good man.

The certainty of that belief frustrated her more than anything else because it refused to disappear no matter how hard she tried. She had seen too much kindness from him to dismiss it as an act. She had watched him comfort strangers, protect friends, care for neighbours, and love their son with a devotion so genuine that it could never have been fabricated.

The lies were real. The betrayal was real. But so was the love.

And sitting there between the memory of an old man and the sight of a teenage boy who looked uncannily like her husband, Yalina found herself wondering what tragedy had brought him to Rehman Bhai's gang in the first place.

Perhaps the greater tragedy was everything that had happened to him long before he ever met her.

Meanwhile the boy and Zayan had moved on to counting train compartments. The debate made absolutely no sense, yet both participants defended their positions with remarkable conviction and complete seriousness.

Despite everything weighing on her mind, Yalina found herself watching them with reluctant fascination.

The boy listened carefully, encouraged every ridiculous theory, and treated each absurd statement as though it deserved thoughtful consideration. Most adults would have dismissed Zayan's nonsense within seconds, but this boy seemed genuinely entertained by it and genuinely interested in what he had to say.

It was exactly how Hamza spoke to their son. Some of her happiest memories involved watching those two together while pretending not to watch at all. She remembered evenings when she would stand in the kitchen doorway listening to their laughter and feeling quietly grateful for the life they had built together.

The old Sikh man had listened to stories about Zayan with that same attentiveness, as though every detail mattered and every memory was precious. A strange ache spread through her as she watched the boy laugh at something Zayan said.

Different ages, different faces, and different versions of what felt like the same person somehow stood before her memory. Yet she sensed the same constant thread running through all of them, and that thread felt impossible to ignore.

It was simply the deep human capacity to care about another person with complete sincerity. That quality had always been one of the reasons she loved Hamza, and realizing that made her look away for a moment because the admission hurt.

The train began slowing as the next station approached, and Yalina felt a decision forming inside her before she consciously understood it. Without fully realizing why, she stood because something inside her had already chosen a direction. She was just one station away from home. Yes, home. Where Hamza was, probably sitting alone in that palatial monstrosity of a mansion, alone to the ghost sounds of memories. Home.

The decision felt sudden, yet deep inside she knew it had been building ever since she heard that familiar laugh. She was not ready to forgive Hamza, and she was nowhere near ready to trust him again.

She was not prepared to hear explanations or excuses, and part of her still wanted to scream at him until her throat gave out. But she was no longer certain she wanted to run away either.

Not after seeing the old man, not after meeting this boy, and not after feeling as though life itself kept placing fragments of the same mystery before her like it was trying to tell her something.

"Come on, Zayan."

The child blinked in confusion.

"Huh?"

"We're getting off."

"But—"

"Now."

She gathered their belongings while Zayan reluctantly obeyed, shooting disappointed looks toward his new friend. The boy looked surprised for a moment before smiling warmly.

The expression was so much like Hamza's that it hurt in a way she could not adequately describe. It was the kind of smile that had once made her feel safe, and now it only reminded her how complicated love could become. She hated that her heart still reacted to traces of him even when her mind remained furious.

Yalina stepped onto the platform with Zayan following behind her, then immediately turned around because she refused to let the same thing happen twice. This time she would get answers, and this time she would not lose sight of him.

The compartment was full of strangers going about their ordinary lives without concern for the questions consuming her. Families sat together, students checked their phones, vendors moved through the aisle, and office workers stared out windows with tired expressions.

The boy was gone.

Her heart sank heavily as she searched every face, scanning desperately for blue-green eyes or a familiar smile. She found nothing.

The train whistle sounded while passengers brushed past her, and still she stood there trying to understand how someone could disappear so completely. Was it all a trick of her mind? A part of her wondered whether grief and exhaustion were finally affecting her judgment, because the alternative explanation seemed impossible. That her mind had deemed her current reality so bleak, her hopelessly in love heart was so desperate to find normalcy that it was making up scenarios to give Hamza a second chance.

Another part knew exactly what she had seen and refused to dismiss it. That stubborn certainty frightened her almost as much as the mystery itself. She felt caught between two realities, one demanding rational explanations and the other whispering that some experiences could not be measured by logic alone.

Her attention remained fixed on the train.

"AMMI!"

She jumped. "What?"

Zayan pointed proudly at himself with complete confidence.

"I'm going to join the Indian Army." What?

A nearby woman nearly choked, an elderly man stared openly, and several passengers turned around at once.

Completely oblivious to the reactions around him, Zayan continued enthusiastically. "And then I'll make my motherland proud, just like that bhaiyya on the train. Did you know, he is gonna join the NDA? I want to grow up and go there to! I will be a fauji too, just like bhaiyya!"

Yalina slapped a hand over his mouth so quickly that she nearly knocked him sideways. "Chup!"

The child blinked in confusion.

"But—" "No." "But Mama—" "No."

She glanced around nervously and discovered that the suspicious looks had only intensified.

Wonderful.

Exactly what she needed today when her emotions were already stretched beyond endurance.

Her husband was secretly an Indian spy, some weird phenomenon had his younger and older versions coming to her, and now her son had chosen a crowded railway platform to announce his future military ambitions in favour of a nation the Pakistanis considered as their mortal enemies. If someone had described this day to her a month ago, she would have assumed they were telling a badly written joke. The absurdity of it all was so overwhelming that she almost wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

With a groan she pulled out her phone and called Khaleel.

The call connected almost immediately.

"Khaleel bhai?"

"Yalina Bibi?"

"Please come pick us up. I will send you the location. I know Hamza sent you to follow us."

There was a brief pause.

"How do you— should I tell Hamz—"

"Just come pick us up." Another pause followed before understanding entered his voice.

"Ji."

The call ended.

Yalina looked down at her son and then back toward the departing train carrying questions she still could not answer. Somewhere between frustration, confusion, grief, and reluctant amusement, she suddenly realized something that made her laugh despite herself.

After everything she had witnessed and everything she desperately wanted to understand, she had forgotten to ask the boy the simplest question of all. An answer she had demanded from Hamza, but she had only received silence. She would have had better luck with his younger version, she reckons, but she had lost the chance.

She had never asked his name.

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Yalina's grandmother was sick.

The thought had lingered heavily at the back of her mind for weeks now, stubborn and impossible to ignore no matter how many distractions life threw at her. Her mother was occupied, as always, with her father's political ambitions, campaign appearances, charity galas, and the endless parade of people who seemed convinced that Jameel Jamali's attention was the solution to all of Pakistan's problems. Yalina had neither the patience nor the temperament for any of it, and when she heard that her nani's health had taken a turn for the worse, she had packed a small bag almost immediately and announced that she would be staying with her grandmother for a few days.

Her nani had always been a balm to her soul, a respite amidst all of the shine and spotlight of her father's showmanship, the one place in the world where nobody expected her to be anybody except Waheeda ji's poti. She had always loved her grandmother's house too. It was strangely tranquil, the sprawling estate of a wealthy woman possessing the peace and quiet of a hermit's abode, tucked away from the bustle and recognition of the city, where conversations happened slowly, afternoons stretched lazily, and nobody cared about headlines, appearances, or carefully maintained reputations.

Life had become a tiring mummer's play.

She pretended and pretended and pretended until she feared that one day she would begin believing her own lies.

She pretended with her parents that her marriage was just as happy and well-to-do as it had been in the beginning. She pretended with her son that everything was fine. She pretended with her husband's men that the name they served was not a mask. She pretended with her husband that living with him, his lies, and his growing mountain of facades did not feel like a burden threatening to break her.

And her greatest facade was the one she maintained for herself. The one that pretended she was not still just as desperately in love with a man who had lied about everything.

Some days she felt disgust for herself.

Have you no spine? A younger, simpler, less complicated version of herself, she thinks, would question her. And Yalina would answer honestly that perhaps she did not. Or perhaps she had enough spine to carry her secrets and her husband's too.

She simply did not possess the strength necessary to destroy the fragile thing they had built together, half by Hamza on his own and half with her help.

Because she still craved him in ways that made her feel weak, foolish, and painfully human whenever she tried to examine her own heart honestly. She still craved his presence beside her at night, his voice filling the quiet spaces of their home, his touch finding hers without thought, his affection in small moments that nobody else noticed, and his love in all the complicated forms it chose to take.

But his lies came bundled with everything else he was, and she had leant to embrace the thorns for the rose, because she no longer knew how to separate the man she loved from the secrets he carried.

Now everything felt like a ticking bomb hidden beneath the ordinary rhythm of their lives. Now that she knew the truth, every time he stepped outside the house she felt fear settle heavily inside her stomach and remain there until he returned. Before, she had worried about rival gangs, political enemies, police raids, and the countless dangers that naturally followed a man like Hamza, but those fears seemed almost simple compared to what she knew now.

Now she knew that every day he walked into a battlefield she could not even see, a battlefield that stretched far beyond Karachi, beyond Pakistan, beyond anything she had ever imagined. It was not merely petty gangsters that could hurt him or criminals seeking revenge for old grudges. It was the army too, intelligence agencies, borders, governments, and entire nations whose interests could crush ordinary people without hesitation. Once she had finally seen the truth, the threat hanging over his head became impossible to ignore, and every goodbye felt heavier than the one before it.

Some days she felt like a widow whose widowhood had not yet been acknowledged by the world. The feeling frightened her. How much time did she actually have left with the man she had sworn to spend a lifetime with, and was there any way of knowing before that time suddenly ran out?

Would that time end with him in the ground, buried beneath soil while she stood beside a grave trying to remember the sound of his laughter? Or would it end with him across a border she could never cross, alive but forever beyond her reach? Was there any reality where she got to grow old beside him instead of losing him to one cause or another?

Sometimes she would imagine his shoulders bowing beneath age instead of responsibility, and the image felt so precious that it almost hurt. She imagined her own hair becoming white like her Nani's, imagined evenings spent together in comfortable silence, her head resting against his shoulder while his hand remained settled upon her knee. They were such ordinary dreams, embarrassingly ordinary compared to the lives they actually lived, yet they felt more impossible than anything else.

Would she ever watch Hamza become an old man, or would she only ever know this guilty, broken, battered man? Would she ever see him become the old Sikh she had met all those years ago?

She had never spoken about them to Hamza or to anyone else, partly because she did not know how to explain them and partly because half the time she was not even certain they had truly happened. They felt real when she remembered them, yet impossible whenever she tried to examine them logically.

Zayan no longer remembered the stranger from the train, though even now he still insisted that one day he would join the army. Hamza usually looked stricken whenever their son said it, a strange expression crossing his face before disappearing almost immediately. Yet the one time Zayan had proudly declared that it was the Indian Army he wanted to join, her husband had not corrected him or laughed it away.

He had only looked at him, and there had been pride in his eyes.

Then she remembered something else. The train.

Both encounters had happened on trains, specifically on journeys to her nanihaal. The realization had lingered in the back of her mind for months now, never fully forming until this moment. The last few visits had been family affairs, her father's extravagance insisting upon a fully equipped RV instead of the much cheaper train ride, and perhaps because of that she had stopped thinking about it.

Until now.

Now curiosity stirred again despite herself. Would she see him again if she took the train? Would she meet another version of him? Would the world grant her another impossible glimpse of the man who owned her heart while guarding so many secrets within his own?

Her answer arrived sooner than expected.

The first thing she noticed was the uniform. Khaki, but not Pakistani police. Those uniforms were different in colour, cut, and insignia, and recognition came almost immediately once she looked closely.

Punjab Police.

Not exactly the same as what she had seen in photographs, yet close enough that she knew what she was looking at.

Three officers entered her compartment, and between them walked a young man.

For one brief moment her heart forgot how to beat.

This time she recognized him instantly. There was no confusion, no uncertainty, and no gradual realization creeping into place. She knew him the moment she saw him.

Though his demeanor had changed completely, his face remained unmistakable. The same sharp features, the same eyes, and the same impossible familiarity remained untouched by time. Yet everything else was different in ways that made her chest ache.

His eyes looked like flint instead of sunlight. His jaw remained clenched so tightly that she wondered if he was grinding his teeth. The expression reminded her painfully of Hamza whenever he was furious and trying not to show it. There was that familiar curl of contempt resting at the edge of his mouth and that same furrow between his brows she used to smooth away with her thumb while teasing him.

He could not have been much older than twenty or twenty-one, yet he looked infinitely older than the laughing teenager she had met before. Whatever life had done to him, it had carved itself deeply into his face.

The officers noticed her immediately, and one gave a polite nod before they pushed the young prisoner down into the seat opposite her.

Finally his eyes lifted and recognition struck.

His eyes widened with shock, recognition, and disbelief before something else followed close behind. Before she could even process it, shame swept across his face so visibly that it startled her. His gaze dropped immediately and refused to rise again.

Yalina stared at him.

Something inside her twisted painfully at the sight. She remembered the bright-eyed boy eager to become a soldier, the boy who laughed too loudly and happily entertained Zayan's nonsense without a trace of impatience. That boy had seemed so alive, so hopeful, and so certain of the future waiting for him.

And now here sat a prisoner.

Handcuffed, silent, and looking as though the weight of the world rested upon his shoulders. She had been certain that her husband had been an army officer undercover, that is all. But clearly, that was not the case. She knew enough of such things that the boy in this prisoner's uniform would never wear a soldier's garb even if he completed his sentence. He had worn the striped clothes of prison and forever lost the honour to don a soldier's uniform.

What had happened to him?

From eager teenager to a convict, from excited schoolboy to a young man escorted by armed police, the transformation felt too severe to comprehend. She found herself searching his face for answers and finding only exhaustion, anger, and something that looked suspiciously like grief.

The silence stretched between them because he clearly had no intention of speaking or even acknowledging her presence. Yet habits were difficult things to abandon, and Yalina was unfortunately accustomed to trying to soothe that familiar frown, that tension, and that stubborn silence whenever she encountered it.

So she asked quietly,

"Kya maine aapko pehle kahin dekha hai?"

The boy stiffened immediately. His shoulders tightened, and for a moment she thought he might actually answer. Yet he remained silent, and if anything he turned away from her even further while the shame settled heavier upon him.

One of the officers snorted.

"Haan, dekha dekha sa lagta hoga. Abhi kuch mahinon pehle Punjab ke har news mein iski photo thi. Baarah aadmiyon ko akele maar daala hai isne. Aur ek boond afsos nahi hai iss qaatil ko."

Something changed instantly. The boy was no longer turning away in shame. The shame did not disappear completely, but it retreated beneath something harder. In its place came defiance. His shoulders straightened. His jaw tightened further. His eyes lifted just enough to fix themselves upon the officer.

There was nothing fearful in that look and nothing apologetic either. There was only anger, mutiny, and a fury so controlled that it seemed to vibrate beneath his skin. Yet he remained silent, and somehow that silence felt louder than any argument he could have made.

Yalina felt another pang in her chest.

The earlier version would never have remained quiet. That boy had talked endlessly, argued enthusiastically, and laughed freely whenever the opportunity presented itself. But her husband had mastered silence over the years. He had learned to lock entire wars behind his eyes without speaking a word, and looking at this young prisoner she realized she was witnessing the beginning of that transformation.

The making of that silence.

She wanted to ask more because she wanted to understand. She wanted to know what could possibly drive someone so young toward twelve deaths and leave him looking like this afterward.

The contradiction disturbed her deeply because she could not reconcile the boy she remembered with the young man sitting before her.

Before she could ask another question, a tea vendor appeared beside her window. "Chai, baji?"

Distracted, she turned. "Haan, do dena."

The exchange took perhaps twenty seconds, thirty at most. She handed over the money, collected the cups, and turned back toward her seat.

The seat opposite her was empty. The officers were gone. The boy was gone. All of them had vanished as though they had never been there at all.

The second cup of tea suddenly felt ridiculous in her hands.

Yalina stared at the empty seat for several moments before letting out a slow sigh. Missed again. And somehow this encounter had left her with even more questions than answers.

The cooling tea became an anchor between her palms while her thoughts churned relentlessly. The twelve deaths did not frighten her because her husband had killed more, and Lyari itself had consumed more lives than she could count.

No.

What disturbed her was the journey.

How had the bright, excitable boy become this young man? What had happened between those versions of him? What pain, loss, betrayal, or sacrifice had carved away the softness she remembered?

And sitting there with a cup of cooling tea, Yalina found herself wondering whether every version of Hamza she encountered was simply showing her a different scar.

The old man had shown her loss. The teenager had shown her hope. This young prisoner had shown her rage.

And somehow all three felt heartbreakingly familiar because all three still felt like him. Like the universe was showing her every layer of the person her husband already was, giving her time to weigh and listen to every one of them because it found her lacking for not seeing the amalgamation of them all in the shadows that already haunted her husband.

The questions continued swirling through her head long after the train resumed moving. Eventually she stopped fighting them because she knew she would never find complete answers. She could not change anything, and she could not understand everything.

By now she had resigned herself to learning only whatever fragments these strange encounters chose to reveal. The rest would remain hidden, just like Hamza, just like the truth, and just like all the things she loved about him but would perhaps never fully understand.

She still did not think she would tell her husband about any of this. This felt like a secret between her and the man beneath the mask of Hamza. And she wanted it to stay that way.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By forty-five, Yalina had learned that grief was not the thing people promised it would be.

It did not stay sharp forever. It dulled. It settled. It became reaching for a second cup while making tea before remembering there was nobody to drink it. It became hearing a joke and thinking Hamza would have laughed before the thought disappeared as quickly as it arrived. The worst part was not the pain.

The worst part was discovering you could survive it.

Nearly ten years had passed since he left. Ten years of raising Zayan alone. Ten years of birthdays, report cards, football matches, university applications, broken bones, heartbreaks, and ordinary Tuesdays that arrived whether her heart was broken or not.

For a long time she had been angry.

She had rehearsed arguments while washing dishes. Imagined confrontations while lying awake at night. Built entire conversations inside her head where Hamza finally understood what he had done to her, where his guilt become something that soothed her hurts instead of a reminder that nothing would change.

But real life was never as cooperative as fantasy. Then life happened, as it always did.

Zayan grew up before she was ready for him to.

One day he was small enough to fit against her chest when he fell asleep, and the next he was taller than she was and speaking about a future that no longer required her permission. University applications appeared on the kitchen table. School matches needed attending. Broken bones needed worrying over. Teenage heartbreaks needed surviving.

And somewhere between all those ordinary milestones, between parent-teacher meetings and late-night conversations and watching her son become his own person, she realized that entire weeks had passed without thinking about Hamza. The realization should have felt like a victory, but instead it felt strangely sad. She had spent so many years carrying her anger that she no longer knew who she was without it. Yet life kept moving anyway, pulling her forward one day at a time until eventually she found herself standing in a future she had once been certain she would never have to be alone in.

Her father passed. It had nearly taken her down, his loss. In her youth, he had not been the best father. Watching Hamza with their son, for whatever amount of time he had with them, had taught her that. But he became her rock later. When Hamza left, her father had been the one to catch her when she fell. He insisted on hovering over her, dragging her out of bed, speaking to her even when she had no words to respond, embracing her more in a week than he had in a lifetime. Holding her hand, being her crutch until she could finally stand again, find the will to live again. He had been the only one who had known that Hamza was alive. He had pulled many connections to get him out, and then had kneeled at her feet and apologized that while he had saved him, he could not let her leave with him. It would be a death sentence for them, he had said, and she had accepted it, and her father had looked at her with such guilt, that he spent the next 8 years making up for it. And then he was lost to her too.

Her mother softened with age too, becoming gentler in ways Yalina had once believed were impossible. The sharp edges that had defined so much of her childhood seemed to wear down year by year, and there were moments when Yalina looked at her and wondered where this version of her mother had been all along. It felt unfair sometimes. She had spent decades wishing for this woman and received her only after she no longer needed her in quite the same way.

The world continued spinning whether she was ready for it or not, and every year seemed to pull her a little farther away from the woman she had been when Hamza left.

And somewhere along the way, her anger became exhausted.

That was why when she saw him sitting across from her, she did not feel rage.

She felt sadness.

The man could not have been older than thirty-five. Yet she knew immediately which version of him this was. This was after the truth. After the arguments. After the distance began creeping between them.

She remembered him from those months.

She remembered watching him move through their home as though he no longer knew where he belonged there. It had been painful to witness because the house had once fit him so naturally. He used to fill every room without effort, used to make even ordinary evenings feel warm and familiar. Then something changed, and suddenly he seemed uncertain inside his own life. He lingered in doorways as though he wasn't sure he was welcome. He hesitated before speaking, as though every sentence needed careful consideration. He looked at her when he thought she wasn't paying attention, and there had been something heartbreaking about those looks because they always felt like a goodbye he wasn't ready to say.

At the time, she had been too angry to fully understand what she was seeing. He had not seen him then, and now all she could do was see the things she had missed the last time. It was so apparent now. Her words spat in anger felt blind now. How could she accuse him of not loving her, when he sat here, looking like a man aged twenty years by the despondence of his circumstances? She could see it in the stubborn set of his jaw.

He was trying.

That was the tragedy.

He was trying, and she already knew it wouldn't be enough.

Ten years had passed since he left. Entire chapters of her life had unfolded without him. She had learned how to make decisions without asking what he thought. She had learned how to celebrate milestones without expecting him beside her. She had learned how to survive the absence he left behind, even when surviving it felt unfair. Yet some part of her still knew him instinctively. She knew the tension in his shoulders meant he was carrying too much. She knew the set of his jaw meant he was trying not to say something. She knew the sadness in his eyes because she had spent years loving the man who wore it.

An emotion bloomed in her chest, that she had not quite expected.

It wasn't anger, although she had carried enough of that for years to fill entire seasons of her life. It wasn't resentment either, despite all the nights she had spent replaying old conversations and imagining different endings. It wasn't even grief, because grief had long ago settled into something quieter and more familiar.

It was pity.

Not for herself.

For him.

The feeling surprised her because she had spent so many years believing that if she ever saw him again, she would want answers. She thought she would want explanations, apologies, some acknowledgment of everything that had been broken between them. Instead, sitting across from him now, all she could think was how young he looked. Not young in age, but young in certainty. Young in the way of hopefulness. His final days with them had had none of this hope. His very soul had seemed resigned to fate.

Age had given her something youth never could. Perspective.

Because she knew how the story ended and he didn't. She knew that one day he would leave. She knew that one day he would lose everything.

She knew that one day he would become an old man listening to stories about his son because stories were all he had left.

And she knew that the young man sitting across from her was still hoping love would save him. It wouldn't.

Looking at him now, she felt an ache she hadn't expected. There was something unbearably sad about watching someone stand at the beginning of a heartbreak you already knew by heart. He was still fighting for a future she knew would slip through his fingers. He was still carrying hope she knew would eventually exhaust itself. She wondered, if the old Sikh man had felt the same pity for her when he had seen the exuberance of her youth, or had he envied her carefree naivete. Well, nobody would accuse her husband of naivete, that was for sure. The tensing of his shoulders told her that she had been seen. She felt at ease with this version of her husband. She had loved this version of him, had given herself- mind, body and soul to this man. She knew him, perhaps even better than he knew himself.

"Hello", she decided to start the conversation, hoping her voice sounded steadier than it felt.

He looked stunned. Like he did not expect that she would look at him with kindness. Ah, then this was right after the reveal.

"She still loves you, you know. Your version of Yalina. I still love you, and I have had far more to hate you for than she does."

His face seemed to crumple. Like hearing her voice had been the thing that broke the last tether that held him. He hid his face in his hands and began to sob, like Zaayan did when he was younger. Even now, she couldn't help but marvel at how similar the two were. She had never thought she would hear that noise from her 'always tough as brass nails' husband. His shoulders shook, his hands trembling as he knelt at Yalina's feet. He joined his hands, as if in supplication, tears still streaming down his face. "I am sorry. I am so sorry, meri jaan. I have destroyed your life. I am sorry, I was selfish. I-I was a fool. Mujhe maaf kar do, Leena. Muhe maaf kardo."

How long had she imagined this? Him asking for forgiveness? And in all those fantasies, she would push him away in righteous anger. He would be left in the dust, feeling the same abandonment as she had. But now that her broken heart looked at this broken man, all she could do was raise her own trembling hand to cup his wet cheek. She knew that she was crying too, and she did not care much for it. She encouraged him to tilt his chin, his teary eyes meeting her own, teary too, no doubt. Before she could do much else, her husband, now ten years younger than her, laid his head upon her lap, sobbing like a heartbroken child, she could feel the hot,wet gasps that he tried to hide in the cloth of her suit, the desperation in the way he clutched at her hands, and she couldn't help superimpose Zayan, so much like his father, over this lost man.

Her hands rose automatically to gently run through his hair, like she had done that night after he had returned from killing Rehman bhai. Caressing and patting with one hand, as the other clutched at the shoulder of his thick coat like she was afraid to let go, pretending that he was the only one being comforted. It took them a few minutes, of this moment of vulnerability, before he calmed, and she felt a strange tranquility wash over her. She was a fool to think she could stop loving him. That just because the anger had faded, so too had the love. She had threatened to burn him if he betrayed her, but the truth was that she had always been too enthralled by him, she had burned for him long before being burned by him. He was, for better or worse, the flame of her soul.

"Do you want to know what Zayan is upto these days? He plays for football for his university now." They both knew the unspoken rule of this little gift from the powers that be. Nothing would change. Nothing could be changed. This rested on the unspoken understanding that the one from the future would divulge nothing to the one from the past, that could change the outcome of things. So chose neutral ground.

"Accha?", he murmured, muffled by her kameez.

"Hmm. And likes to keep his hair long, even though it has none of your hair's lusciousness and he looks a little homeless. But its alright. He likes it."

"Mmhm?"

"He also plays a bunch of instruments you know. But his favourite is the keyboard. He likes to remix old bollywood songs."

"Does he still make a fuss about eating meat and eggs"

"Hmm. These days there is this trend of eating only foods that don't come from animals. He claims he is following that, and is saving the animals. But we all know its because he doesn't like meat"

He snorted in laughter. "What else does he do?"

"Oh he draws now. That's his degree. You have to see his pieces, dear, they look like photographs! Its amazing."

"He wants to be an artist? It doesn't pay very well, does it?"

"Well, with the amount of inheritance he is set to get, woh toh kya, uske do pushte aaram se baith ke kha sakte hain. He too, is a burger baccha", she chuckled at that thought.

If someone had told her even half an hour ago, that the next time she came face to face with her husband, it would be the most cathartic thing, with the both of them talking about Zayan and nothing else, she would have laughed them out of the room. She had imagined that talking to Ham—no, Jaskirat—would be awkward. That there would be too much history between them. But talking to him felt as easy as it had been all those years ago. It had felt like coming home. But she had a feeling, that her time with her husband was nearly up.

"Ab mera station aa gya hai Hamza, mujhe utarna hoga. And you too, have some place to be, don't you?"

He raised his head from her lap, his eyes so despondent, that she almost gave in and pulled him back, perhaps, a little because of her own reluctance to let him go after she had him so close to her. But their lives were at different paths and this was just a stolen moment. He had a life to live and so did she. These few moments they had shared made it easy to forget what waited for them outside this compartment, that this version of her husband belonged to her younger self. But for just a moment, she could almost forget everything else.

When she met his gaze again, the vulnerability in his eyes almost brought her to a halt. For years she had imagined that when Hamza left, he chose something else over them. His duty, his mission. But sitting here now, looking at the devastation hidden behind his eyes, she finally understood that choosing one thing did not always mean wanting it more.

Sometimes it just meant losing. Losing one thing to keep another. Losing anyway. Her epiphany did not change a thing. It would not excuse his role in the droll tragedy her life had become. But he wasn't the villain in it anymore. Seeing his eyes reminded her of why she had never held him responsible of abandonment in the first few years before the exhaustion of lonely life had turned her bitter. He was just a man. A man who loved his wife and son. A man who would, one day, lose both. And for the first time in nearly ten years, Yalina found that she did not want to punish him for it anymore.

As she stood, meeting his gaze for the last time, she spoke," Agar mann kabhi bhar aye, toh apni biwi ko apna asli naam bata dijiye. Taaki jab uska mann bhar aye, toh woh aapko aapke asli naam se yaad kar sake, Jaskirat ji."

She did not wait to see his reaction. It did not matter.

She stepped onto the platform, knowing that if she turned back, the train would no longer be the one she had travelled in and that her co-passenger would be gone.

She did not blame him anymore. She just wished things had been different and she wouldn't be stuck telling anecdotes of a son to his father, when he should have been in those anecdotes all along.

She wished her husband had been given a chance to be a father to their son.

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By the time Yalina turned seventy, she no longer came to the railway station because she had somewhere to go.

The destination had stopped mattering years ago.

The station had become a habit first, then a ritual, and finally something far more intimate than either. It had become a place where possibility still existed, where the world occasionally loosened its grip on logic and allowed impossible things to happen. She had spent nearly twenty-five years returning to these platforms, sometimes hopeful, sometimes foolish, sometimes angry at herself for believing, and sometimes simply tired enough to sit on a bench and listen to the trains come and go while pretending she was waiting for nothing in particular.

Life had continued in the meantime.

Life always did.

Zayan had a life of his own now. He had married a Punjabi woman whose laughter reminded Yalina vaguely of springtime, and together they had given her two grandchildren, Jasleen and Jasmine, whose photographs occupied every available surface in her home. He lived in the United Kingdom now, a decision she understood even if she did not entirely like it. He called often, visited whenever he could, and carried his love for her with the same stubborn devotion he had inherited from both his parents, but his life was elsewhere now. His children spoke with strange accents. His worries belonged to another country. His future was no longer tied to Karachi.

Yalina did not begrudge him that. Children were supposed to leave. That was the entire point. But she was old enough now to admit that understanding something and liking it were two entirely different things.

Zayan had begged her to move. He had shown her photographs of houses, neighbourhoods, parks where his daughters played, hospitals with excellent facilities, and entire communities of people who would welcome her. He worried about her living alone. He worried about her age. He worried because he was a good son.

But Yalina always found an excuse.

The weather would not suit her. The food would be different. She was too old to start over. The truth was simpler than all of those reasons.

She was not sure she would find her husband at a railway station in the United Kingdom.

And if there remained even the smallest possibility that she might find him here, then she could not bring herself to leave.

So she stayed. She was a frequent visitor here.

Enough that the station staff recognized her face. Enough that the tea vendor stopped asking what she wanted and simply handed her the same cup every time. Enough that she could admit, at least to herself, that she was no longer waiting for a train.

She was waiting for him.

That morning she moved slower than she once had. Her knees protested every staircase. Her fingers ached when the weather changed. The age spots on her hands reminded her painfully of her advancing age, and every mirror she encountered seemed determined to introduce her to another unfamiliar wrinkle.

The last time she had truly seen Hamza had been nearly twenty-five years ago.

A part of her wondered whether he would recognize her at all, because the woman boarding this train bore little resemblance to any version of herself he had previously known. She no longer looked like the young bride he had married, nor the furious wife who had demanded explanations from a world determined to deny them both. She no longer resembled the grieving woman who had spent years waiting for a husband who never returned, measuring entire seasons through absence and unanswered longing. Age had settled upon her thoroughly now.

Still, she climbed aboard the train.

A ticket to her nanihaal—her estate now, a fact that remained faintly unreal despite years of ownership—rested between her fingers as she moved carefully through the compartment. She was not expecting anything, because expectation had long ago taught her the cost of demanding miracles from indifferent circumstances. That was the lesson she had learned through decades of returning here: the station offered nothing to those who arrived insisting upon answers.

Then she looked up.

And there he was.

For a moment she simply stood motionless in the aisle, after years of missed chances, unfinished conversations, and impossible reunions, she had finally received the one thing she had secretly wanted all along.

Her old man. Her Hamza. Her Jaskirat.

His beard had turned completely white beneath a neatly tied pink turban. Spectacles rested upon his nose, while time had settled visibly into the lines around his eyes and softened the sharp certainty of his younger features. He looked older, undeniably tired, and more profoundly real than any version she had encountered before.

Then his eyes lifted to meet hers.

Recognition appeared instantly within them, immediate and unquestionable, carrying the effortless certainty that only decades of loving the same person could produce. A smile touched his face, neither the reckless grin of the gangster she had met nor the guarded expression of the soldier she had mourned. It was not the devastated face of the man who had once been losing her in slow motion. It was simply a smile, quiet and certain, carrying the unmistakable feeling of home.

"You look dignified now," she said, like she was simply continuing a conversation rather than seeing her dearest wish brought to life, because after fifty years of loving him she could not imagine beginning any other way. "Those spectacles suit you."

His smile widened immediately.

"And your radiance grows each day, my dear."

The answer arrived so naturally that she laughed aloud, producing a sound she had not expected from herself, her husband had always been a shameless rake. It was what had made her fall head over heels for him in the first place. The sparkle in his eyes looked familiar . It felt like home. It felt as though no time had passed between them. It felt as though every lonely year had folded inward and quietly disappeared.

Yalina wasted no time.

She no longer trusted whatever strange force governed these encounters, because every previous meeting had taught her how quickly impossible gifts could vanish. Conversations ended abruptly. Entire lives slipped through her fingers before she fully understood what she had been shown.

So she crossed the compartment immediately.

She sat beside him and reached for him without hesitation, her fingers wrapping around his blazer-covered elbow with embarrassing desperation. The gesture carried the irrational fear that loosening her grip even slightly might cause him to vanish like every other impossible version before him.

He did not vanish.

Instead he reached for her free hand and enclosed it within his own. His grip felt firm, warm, and reassuringly certain. Then he settled her hand upon his knee and covered it gently, transforming an ordinary gesture into something that nearly overwhelmed her.

It was such a small thing. Such an ordinary thing. Yet tears burned unexpectedly behind her eyes because after nearly four decades she finally had somewhere to rest again.

Carefully, almost reverently, she lowered her head onto his shoulder.

The shoulder beneath her cheek felt exactly as she remembered despite the years that had passed between them. It was older perhaps, slightly narrower and more fragile than before, yet unmistakably his. It remained familiar enough that something deep inside her immediately relaxed.

They remained like that for a long time. Minutes perhaps. Hours perhaps. Time had always behaved strangely whenever he appeared.

Neither of them spoke because neither of them needed to. They had already spent lifetimes speaking, arguing, loving, and missing one another across distances that should have been impossible to survive. What remained to be said after all that?

Eventually her gaze drifted across the compartment.

A newlywed couple sat opposite them, the young woman resting her head upon her husband's shoulder while he absent-mindedly played with her fingers. The sight filled her chest with unexpected warmth because it felt strangely familiar.

She felt Jaskirat shift slightly beside her. Then his head came gently to rest against hers. The tenderness of the gesture nearly undid her.

Yalina closed her eyes.

She was tired, like someone who had not allowed herself to feel tired for years finally tasting the privilege of being allowed to feel tired. It was the kind of tiredness that transformed rest into a gift rather than an interruption.

A strange certainty settled over her. She did not think she would wake if she allowed herself to fall asleep.

If this was a dream, then it was an unusually kind one. If this was a wish turned memory, then it was a generous one. If this was magic, then it had finally chosen mercy after decades of cruelty. And if this was merely the wishful imagining of an old woman sitting alone upon a train, she discovered she did not particularly care.

His hand remained wrapped around hers. His shoulder remained beneath her cheek. For the first time in decades she no longer felt adrift.

The train continued moving steadily onward while stations arrived and disappeared beyond the windows. Announcements echoed faintly through the compartment, and somewhere nearby people laughed, talked, and planned ordinary futures for themselves. Yalina paid none of it any attention.

She simply remained where she was. Beside her husband. Finally.

Whether she was falling asleep, dreaming, remembering, or borrowing one final impossible moment from a universe that had taken so much from both of them, she found she no longer required an explanation. Peace, she realized at the very end, did not always arrive through certainty or understanding. Sometimes it arrived as a familiar shoulder beneath your cheek, a warm hand wrapped around your own, and the quiet knowledge that after a lifetime spent searching for home, you had finally found it again.

And so she rested. And the train carried them onward. To where, neither of them seemed particularly concerned with knowing.

======================xXx=========================

Masterlist

A/N: I hope you liked it, you guys, I have no idea what I was writing, this is a very new genre to me. I had a few more pitstops, but I felt this had gone on long enough, so here you go! This was an absolute joy to write and such a unique concept too! Anyway, have a great day you guys, this is a scheduled post and so will the next two posts be, I think.

Ulfat was sitting up against the headboard, propped up comfortably by a mountain of plush silk pillows. Nestled securely in her arms was their tiny, eight-month-old miracle, stirring gently against her warmth. Rehmat. The light of the Baloch household. The little girl was cradled perfectly against her mother’s chest, her small face flushed with the warmth of sleep. One of her tiny, dimpled hands was fisted against Ulfat's clothes, while her mouth worked in rhythmic, lazy suctions, nursing softly as she hovered in the liminal space between deep sleep and waking up. Ulfat looked down, her eyelids heavy but her gaze intensely tender, her arm draped protectively around Rehmat’s tiny back. Her hair, thick and dark with silver threads catching the morning light, fell softly over her shoulders.

On the other side of the bed, Rehman was propped up on his elbow, positioned close to them. He hadn’t slept for the last half an hour. He didn’t want to. Instead, he was content to just watch them. The fierce, untouchable Rehman Dakait, a man whose name made rivals think twice, was currently reduced to absolute, trembling mush by the sight of his wife sitting there, softly feeding their infant daughter. His dark eyes, softened by age and an overwhelming abundance of devotion, traced the delicate features of his daughter. Rehmat had Ulfat’s nose — that stubborn, slightly upturned curve, but she had inherited his own dark, expressive eyes.

Rehman’s hand, large and calloused, hovered over the baby’s head, his fingers barely brushing the fine, downy silk of her hair as she nursed. A profound sense of disbelief still washed over him whenever he looked at her. As he watched the gentle rise and fall of Rehmat’s tiny chest in Ulfat's embrace, his thoughts inevitably drifted backward.

The memory shifted, pulling Rehman away from the quiet bedroom and plunging him back into the sterile, stifling air of the doctor’s cabinet.He remembered the exact weight of that silence. They had been sitting side by side on two leather chairs, the steady hum of the clinic's air conditioner the only sound filling the room. On the desk between them lay the medical report, the word printed in bold black ink staring back at them like an impossibility: POSITIVE. Pregnant. For the third time. At the age of forty-eight.

Rehman’s mind had instantly flashed back to how this impossible twist of fate had even begun. It had happened on the day of Hamza’s walima. That night, they had both looked heavenly gorgeous. Ulfat had been radiant in a deep, heavily embroidered ensemble that made her look as breathtaking as the day he married her, and Rehman had been entirely captivated. Rehman, on the other hand, left her breathless, his beauty filling the space between them. He had also been slightly drunk, a looseness to his posture, his eyes dark with an intense, unyielding focus only on his wife.

When they had finally escaped the grand celebration and locked the door of their bedroom, all control had evaporated. They couldn't stop each other. The passion between them hadn't faded with age, if anything, it had grown deeper, more consuming. They had kept going, completely lost in one another, until the sun was high in the sky the next afternoon.

They were a fiercely passionate couple, and truth be told, this wasn't the first time they had completely lost control. It happened many times throughout their marriage, so much so that people in their social circle often wondered aloud how a couple so visibly infatuated with each other only had two children. Honestly, even Rehman and Ulfat didn't know the answer to that. For years, nature had simply taken its course.

They had never, not even in their wildest dreams, thought that this specific night to afternoon session would lead to a pregnancy. Not at this age. The factory was supposed to be closed. The chapter of diapers and midnight cries was supposed to be ancient history. But there they were, sitting in front of a grave-faced doctor, reality crashing down around them.

The doctor hadn't minced words. She began listing the overwhelming statistics, each word hitting Rehman like a physical blow. “At this maternal age, Rehman Sahab, the risks are exceptionally high”. The doctor took off her glasses, rubbing the bridge of her nose before looking at the couple with an expression that was entirely clinical, yet laced with urgency.

“Rehman Sahab, Ulfat Ji,” she began, tapping a finger against the thick file. “Because of irregular cycles at this age, you both realized this pregnancy quite late. We are already hitting the threshold. Whatever decision you want to take regarding continuing or terminating, you need to take it within a few days. We cannot delay this anymore. Every week we wait, the risks for Ulfat Ji increase tenfold.”

The word terminating echoed in the quiet cabinet like a gunshot. Rehman felt his chest tighten, his eyes darting to his wife. Ulfat sat perfectly still, her face a mask of calm, though her fingers tightly gripped the edge of her dupatta. They thanked the doctor, took the prescriptions, and walked out into the blinding afternoon sun. On their way back, Rehman pulled the car over near a secluded, lush public garden.

They walked to a shaded marble bench beneath a canopy of old banyan trees and just sat. For a long, agonizing time, neither of them said a single word. The silence between them was heavy with the weight of the unknown. Rehman stared blankly at a fountain in the distance, watching the water rise and fall. Beside him, Ulfat smoothed down the fabric of her kurti, her eyes fixed on a young couple pushing a stroller on the far side of the park.

“Rehman,” Ulfat finally broke the silence, her voice a soft murmur against the rustle of the leaves.

“Hmm?”

“Look at us,” she said with a faint, bittersweet smile, gesturing vaguely to the two of them and then to their surroundings. “We are sitting in a park discussing a positive pregnancy report at an age when people are looking at wedding venues for their children.”

Rehman let out a rough, breathless chuckle, rubbing his face with his hands. “Fifty and forty-eight, Ulfat. We are old. The world will think we’ve lost our minds. And Naieem... ya Allah, Naieem is twenty-three! He is a grown man, standing beside me in business deals. Faizal is sixteen, a moody teenager. How are we supposed to tell a twenty-three year old and a sixteen year old that their mother is expecting?”

“Naieem will probably look at you like you’ve committed a crime,” Ulfat teased softly, though her eyes remained serious. “And Faizal will die of embarrassment.”

Rehman turned to look at her, his expression instantly softening, the lines of worry deepening around his eyes. “But it’s not just about the boys or what people will say, jaan. You heard the doctor. Thyroid, blood pressure, blood sugar, the chromosomal risks. I am terrified, Ulfat. If anything happens to you, this entire world I built means absolutely nothing to me. I can’t risk your life.”

Ulfat turned her body fully toward him, reaching out to cover his large, calloused hands with both of her own. Her grip was steady, unyielding.

“Rehman, listen to me,” she said, her voice anchoring him instantly. “When have we ever done things the normal way? For years, everyone wondered why we only had two children when we... well, when we clearly couldn't keep our hands off each other. We didn't know why. But now, when it shouldn't even be medically less possible , this child has come. Don't you see? It's a sign.”

She took a deep breath, her eyes brimming with a sudden, emotional warmth. “Aapka ek maan tha na? You always wanted a daughter. A little girl to spoil, someone who would wear little frocks and call you Abba in that sweet voice. I want her too, Rehman. I want our daughter. I am willing to fight the risks. Let’s keep our baby.”

Rehman looked into her eyes, searching for any sign of hesitation, but found only the fierce, unbreakable spirit of the woman he had loved for over two decades. He leaned forward, forehead resting against hers, letting out a long, surrendered breath.

“If you are fighting, I am standing right beside you,” he whispered. “We keep her.”

They gathered everyone in the main living room that evening under the guise of a family meeting. Uzair and his wife Zoya, along with their sharp-witted six year old daughter, Ghazala. Sitting on the adjacent sofa were Naieem and Faizal. Standing guard near the doorway, looking formal but curious, were Donga, Siyahi, and Hamza (whose walima had been the catalyst for this entire situation).

Rehman cleared his throat, standing tall, though internally he was more nervous than he had ever been during a multi-million-dollar standoff.

“We called you all here because... there is an addition coming to this family,” Rehman stated directly, deciding bluntness was the best approach. “Ulfat is pregnant.”

For a solid ten seconds, the room was so quiet you could hear the grandfather clock ticking in the hallway.

Then, the reactions exploded.

Uzair burst into a loud, booming laugh, clapping his hands together. “Ya Allah! Mubarak ho, Bhai!” he cheered, completely unbothered by the gravity of the situation.

Hamza, standing by the door, started coughing violently into his fist, trying to hide a massive grin. “Mubarak ho, Rehman bhai . But honestly, it’s about time. We were all starting to doubt if Faizal would ever get to be an elder brother. The amount of bleach we’ve had to consume over the years hearing things through the walls... tauba, tauba!”

“Uzair! Hamza!” Zoya hissed, her face turning bright red as she smacked Uzair's arm. She quickly turned to Ulfat, her eyes wide with shock but filling with happiness. “Bhabhi, really? Oh my god, congratulations! But at this age ? Are you feeling okay? The health strain—”

Before Ulfat could answer Ghazala piped up, looking thoroughly confused. “Ammi, what is pregnant? Is Chachi getting a puppy?”

“No, beta, a baby,” Zoya whispered, trying to corral her daughter.

Meanwhile, on the other sofa, the two boys were handling the news in completely contrasting ways.

Faizal looked utterly astonished. His jaw was practically on the floor. As a teenager, the realization of how this happened immediately registered in his brain, and a bright crimson flush crept up his neck. “Wait….what?” he stammered, shifting uncomfortably. “Ammi? A baby? Like, like a crying, diaper-changing baby? Now? I’m sixteen! But I am still a baby. How can you do this to me !”

“Shut up, Faizal,” Naieem snapped, though his voice lacked its usual bite.

Unlike his brother Naieem wasn't feeling embarassed. He stood up, his jaw clenched, his dark eyes fixed entirely on his mother. He looked at her pale face, remembering her recent bouts of fatigue.

“Ammi,” Naieem said, his voice deep and laced with immense, heavy worry. He stepped past his father, completely ignoring the jokes from Uzair and Hamza, and knelt beside his mother’s chair. “Is this safe for you? You’ve been sick. The doctors….what do they say? I don’t care about a sibling, mumma, I care about you. Your health comes first.”

The room quieted down at Naieem's protective tone. Ulfat’s eyes softened beautifully as she reached out to ruffle her eldest son’s hair, her heart swelling with pride. “I am fine, mere jaan. The doctors will monitor me. Your baba is tracking my every breath. Don’t worry.”

At the back of the room, Donga and Siyahi stood like two massive blocks of stone, though their eyes held a distinct warmth. Donga cleared his throat, adjusting his collar. “Mubarak ho, Bhai, Bhabhi Ji. Gar ki rounak badhegi.”

Siyahi nodded fiercely in agreement. “Don’t worry about the outside work, Bhaj. We will handle everything. Bhabhi Ji just needs to rest.”

Inside the preparation room, the atmosphere was thick with tension. The obstetrician stepped out of the inner cubicle, her expression grave as she looked at Rehman, who was pacing the floor like a caged tiger, flanked by Naieem and Uzair.

“Rehman Sahab,” the doctor had said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “Ulfat's blood pressure is refusing to stabilize, and the baby’s heart rate is starting to fluctuate slightly. We cannot risk natural labor. We need to perform an emergency C-section right now.”

A bubble of fear and panic growing in his heart. He squeezed his eyes shut, nodding silently as the nurses wheeled Ulfat toward the heavy double doors of the operating theater. Before she disappeared, she caught his eye, giving him a faint, reassuring wink that somehow managed to be both terrifying and incredibly brave. The next two hours were a test of endurance. But then, the heavy red light above the theater doors flickered off. The doctor stepped out, a triumphant smile breaking across her face. “Mubarak ho, Rehman Sahab. Everything went incredibly smoothly. Both mother and your little princess are perfectly healthy.”

When the family was finally allowed into the recovery room, the atmosphere shifted from suffocating dread to anticipation. Ulfat was propped up on the pillows, weak but glowing .

The nurse turned around, holding a tiny, pristine white swaddle, and looked at the two tall boys standing awkwardly at the front of the crowd. “Who wants to hold her first? The big brothers?”

Naieem, usually so stoic and unyielding , froze completely. He looked at the tiny bundle, then at his mother, and then at his father. The doubts that had plagued his mind for nine months regarding the worry for his mother’s life, the lingering question of how a twenty-three year old was supposed to fit a newborn sister into his life seems to evaporate into thin air the exact second his eyes fell on her face. She had a tuft of jet-black hair and tiny, perfectly formed pink fingers.

“Go on, Naieem,” Ulfat whispered, her voice rough but warm. “Take your sister.”

With trembling hands, the massive, broad-shouldered young man stepped forward. When the nurse gently placed the baby into his arms, Naieem’s breath hitched. He cradled her with an agonizing amount of care, terrified that even his breathing might shatter her. As he looked down into her blinking, dark eyes, all the adult reservation melted away. He was completely, utterly whipped.

“Ammi..” Naieem choked out, his voice cracking entirely. A beautiful, emotional smile broke across his face, his eyes shining with instant, unconditional devotion.

Faizal was standing right beside him. For the past nine months, Faizal had lived in a state of perpetual teenage embarrassment, fiercely avoiding his friends' questions about his parents' sudden, late-stage fertility. He had felt confused.

But as he leaned over Naieem’s arm to look at the baby, the baby let out a tiny, soft yawn, her minuscule hand brushing against Faizal’s pinky finger.

Heavy tears began pricking through his eyes silently, spilling over his cheeks in rapid succession. A watery, breathless laugh escaped his lips as he quickly wiped his face with the back of his hand, utterly fascinated by her. “Look at her hands, Bhai... they are so tiny. Main isko cricket sikhunga.” (I will teach her cricket.)

“Bilkul nahi, blockhead, she will break her bones,” Naieem whispered back, though he pulled Faizal closer so they could both shield her.

Watching her two grown sons completely reduced to tears of joy, Ulfat couldn't hold back anymore. Happy, emotional tears streamed down her cheeks. She let out a soft laugh that was half-sob, looking at her family whole, safe, and wildly in love with the new addition.

Rehman stepped closer to the bed, sliding his arm around Ulfat’s shoulders, drawing her head to his chest. He looked at his sons holding his daughter, his own eyes brimming with hot tears. The sheer relief that his wife was safe, combined with seeing their boys turn into protective guardians, made his heart swell to the point of aching.

“Shukur hai Allah ka,” Rehman whispered into Ulfat’s hair, his voice trembling with an immense gratitude. “Hamari Rehmat.”

From the doorway, the rest of the members spilled in.

Uzair rushed forward, clapping Rehman on the back so hard it nearly knocked the wind out of him. “Mubarak ho, Bhai! Mubarak ho! Maine kaha tha na, Bhai ki beti hai, rounak toh double hogi!” (I told you, she is Rehman Sahab's daughter, the brightness will be double!)

Zoya holding little six-year-old Ghazala up on her tiptoes. “Look, Ghazala, your baby sister is here!”

Ghazala gasped, her big eyes wide with pure wonder. “Chachi! She is so pretty! Can I give her my pink teddy bear right now?”

“Give her a few months, beta,” Ulfat laughed through her tears, leaning her head back against Rehman’s solid chest.

Even Hamza, Donga and Siyahi were shuffling into the room, trying to maintain their tough, formidable expressions but failing miserably. Hamza was grinning from ear to ear, while Donga and Siyahi stood like two proud, emotional uncles at the foot of the bed, their eyes fixed on the tiny bundle in Naieem's arms.

“Bhabhi Ji, pure ilaqe mein mithai batwa di hai,” Donga announced proudly, clearing his throat to hide his watery voice. “No one will sleep hungry tonight.” (Bhabhi Ji, sweets have been distributed in the entire area.)

A heavy, emotional tear finally escaped Rehman’s eye in the present, tracking down his cheek as the vivid memory receded. He looked at Ulfat, who was still sitting gracefully against the headboard of their bedroom. In her arms, eight month old Rehmat had finally let go of her mother’s chest, a tiny trail of milk at the corner of her mouth, her eyes heavy with a deep, content sleep.

Ulfat, noticing the sudden silence from her husband, turned her head. Her soft, warm hand reached out, her fingers gently sliding into his hair, cradling the back of his head. She leaned forward, pressing a tender, lingering kiss right to the center of his forehead.

“Kya hua, jaan? Kahan kho gaye?” she murmured, her voice a low, melodious purr that instantly anchored him.

Rehman managed a soft, slightly sheepish smile, dismissing the lingering past with a shake of his head. He leaned up, kissing her palm affectionately. “Kuch nahi, Ulfat. Just thinking about that day in the hospital. Look at how far we’ve come.”

He carefully shifted, reaching out to take the sleeping Rehmat from her arms. “Lao, mujhe do.”

With practiced, incredibly gentle movements, Rehman lifted the baby princess against his broad chest, placing her head securely on his shoulder. He rubbed her tiny back in slow, rhythmic circles, waiting for the soft little burp to escape her lips. Once she let out a tiny, milky sigh, he cradled her close, rocking her gently until she drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep, before laying her down safely in the cradle.

He climbed back into bed, sliding beneath the heavy duvet, and Ulfat immediately shifted closer to him, resting her head against his chest. Rehman wrapped his arm around her, pulling her flush against his side.

Today was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. A silver milestone that belonged entirely to them, built on a quarter-century of shared secrets, fierce battles, and an unbreakable devotion.

After sometime:

The quiet rhythm of the house was already changing. The preparation for the evening’s gathering had been fully claimed by the boys. Naieem, now twenty-four and stepping heavily into his father’s shoes within the family business, was managing the logistics with a quiet, unyielding authority. He stood in the central courtyard, directing the trusted staff with low, precise commands.

"The seating near the fountain needs extra bolsters," Naieem told Siyahi, who was checking the guest list. "And make sure the lighting in the northern pavilion isn't too sharp. Ammi's eyes get strained when the glare is too bright."

Siyahi nodded, a rare, genuine respect softening his rugged features. "Consider it done. Donga is already supervising the perimeter with the boys. Only the close circle from the party and business will step foot inside today."

A few yards away, sevseventeen-year-old Faizal was a whirlwind of entirely different energy. Completely unbothered by his crisp morning clothes, he was sitting on the manicured grass with seven-year-old Ghazala leaning heavily against his shoulder. Between them sat little Rehmat, propped up by a mountain of soft cushions, her dark eyes wide with curiosity as she watched her older brother.

"Look, Rehmat," Faizal murmured, his voice dropping into that absurdly soft, high-pitched tone he reserved exclusively for his baby sister. He held up a bright yellow tennis ball, rolling it gently toward her tiny, dimpled hands. "This is a ball. Your Bhai gave it to you , can you say bhayia. Come on say it, before Naieem bhai comes over and tells us we’re ruining the lawn."

Ghazala giggled, her small hand reaching out to gently stroke Rehmat’s fine, dark hair. "Faizal bhaiya, she can't talk yet! She only knows how to pull my braids and chew on my doll's shoes."

"Hey, don't complain about the princess," Faizal laughed, pulling Ghazala into a brief, one-armed hug while ensuring Rehmat didn't tip over. "She can pull whatever she wants. She owns this house, right, Rehmat?"

The baby let out a tiny, bubbly squeal, her mouth stretching into a toothless grin as she grabbed Faizal’s thumb with her entire fist.

From the upper terrace, Rehman stood with his arm hooked securely around Ulfat’s waist, watching the scene below. They had both changed into comfortable morning casuals, but their eyes were fixed on the courtyard.

"Look at them," Ulfat whispered, leaning her head against his shoulder, her hand resting over his where it gripped her hip. "Our boys have taken over everything today. I haven't had to look into a single ledger of anything."

"They are grown, jaan," Rehman murmured, pressing a soft kiss to her temple, breathing in the familiar, comforting scent of her jasmine oil. "It's time they carried the weight. Today, you only have to look at me."

Ulfat turned her face upward, a beautiful, knowing smile touching her lips. "I’ve been looking at you for twenty-five years. Don't you think you're being a little greedy?"

"Never enough when it comes to you," he replied, his grip tightening just a fraction, pulling her flush against his side.

As evening approached, the mansion transformed into a haven of soft lights and deep colors. The theme for the silver anniversary had been chosen weeks in advance .

All the children were dressed in identical shades of deep, midnight blue. Naieem looked striking and incredibly mature in a tailored midnight-blue sherwani, his posture a mirror image of his father’s as he greeted the politicians and business allies at the entrance. Faizal wore a lighter, more flexible kurta in the same rich shade, allowing him to easily navigate the lounge. Little Ghazala was a miniature doll in a midnight-blue lehenga, her tiny dupatta pinned perfectly to her shoulder, while Rehmat was nestled in a soft, velvet frock of the exact same color, looking like a little blue button.

But the true center of gravity in the grand hall belonged entirely to the couple of the hour.

Rehman and Ulfat had chosen matching shades of slate gray and silver. Rehman stood tall and imposing in a dark gray, heavily textured bandhgala suit, the silver buttons catching the light of the crystal chandeliers.

And then there was Ulfat.

She had chosen a traditional saree, a heavy, slate-gray silk with intricate silver zari work running along the border. The pallu was draped elegantly over her shoulder, pinned with a vintage diamond brooch Rehman had gifted her years ago. The saree clung to her mature curves with an intimacy that made Rehman’s breath catch the moment their eyes met. There were fine lines around her eyes when she smiled, and her posture carried the deliberate grace of a queen who knew exactly who she was.

The moment she reached the bottom step, Rehman was there to claim her. He reached out, taking her hand, his thumb tracing the smooth, warm skin of her wrist.

"You look absolutely dangerous, Ulfat," Rehman whispered, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly register meant for her ears alone.

A soft, beautiful blush crept up her neck, contrasting sharply with the silver of her saree. "Rehman, behave yourself. Look at the guests."

"Who cares ," Rehman murmured, his dark eyes heavy, intense, and completely fixed on her lips. "I govern this house. And you govern me. "

Throughout the evening, the celebration proceeded with a smooth, luxurious rhythm. Naieem and Uzair handled the business guests, moving through the small crowd with seasoned ease, ensuring that Rehman wasn't bothered with mundane pleasantries. Faizal stayed near the family lounge, keeping Ghazala and Rehmat entertained, though the baby spent most of her time being passed from one doting family member to another.

Yet, no matter where Rehman stood in the hall, whether he was nodding along to a political ally or discussing a new real estate venture, his eyes never truly left Ulfat. Every time she laughed, her hand rising to touch her throat, he noticed. Every time the silk pallu of her saree slipped slightly from her shoulder, revealing the soft skin of her collarbone, his jaw would tighten. He would find excuses to cross the room, his hand brushing against the small of her back as he passed, his fingers lingering on the silk fabric just long enough to let her know he was there.

Ulfat wasn't immune to it either. Whenever their eyes met across the crowded room, a silent, electric understanding would pass between them. She would offer him a small, knowing smile, her fingers subtly adjusting the diamond brooch at her shoulder, her gaze holding his until someone interrupted them. It was a silent game of courtship, played out in the open, hidden in plain sight from the few dozen people surrounding them.

By midnight, the formal guests had departed, leaving only the family members . The heavy chandeliers in the main hall were turned off, and the gathering moved out to the private garden courtyard.

The air was cool, carrying the scent of damp earth and night-blooming jasmine. A large silver samovar of hot, cardamom-infused chai had been set up on a low wooden table. They sat on the traditional low bolsters and cane chairs. Uzair, Zoya, Naieem, Faizal, and Hamza with Donga,Siyahi and his other men standing a respectful distance away near the pillars .

"Twenty-five years," Uzair said, taking a loud, appreciative sip of his chai, leaning back against the bolster. "Bhai, honestly, when you two got married, the amount of fires you both had to fight, but look at this family now. Safe, established, and growing."

"It’s because Bhabhi never let bhai lose his anchor," Hamza chimed , a grin splitting his face. "We all remember the ups and downs, the times when the business was under threat, the political rivalries that almost brought walls down. But through everything, they stood beside each other like a fortress. If someone threw a stone at this family, it had to break through Rehman Bhai first and if someone tried to touch Bhai , they had to face Bhabhi."

A round of soft, affectionate agreement echoed through the courtyard. Zoya smiled, "It's true. They protected us, and now the boys are protecting them."

Naieem smiled, Faizal was currently rocking a semi-asleep Rehmat in his lap. Little Ghazala was already curled up against Zoya’s side, snoring softly.

Rehman listened to his family talk but his attention wasn't on the stories of the past.He had noticed the subtle change in Ulfat's expression over the last twenty minutes. She was sitting a little too straight, her fingers gripping the edge of her saree's pallu with a slight tightness. Her breathing was shallow, and every few seconds, she would subtly shift her weight, trying to relieve the pressure on her lower back. The heavy silk saree, the hours of standing on her feet greeting guests, and the lingering fatigue from her late-stage pregnancy last year had taken their toll. Her body was stiff, aching under the formal constraints.

Rehman looked across the courtyard. Rehmat was perfectly content, her thumb in her mouth, her small head resting against Faizal’s midnight-blue kurta while Naieem gently stroked her back. Ghazala was safe, the perimeter was secure. His daughter was absolutely safe here, surrounded by her brothers.

He didn't need to stay here any longer. His wife needed him.

Rehman stood up, breaking the flow of Uzair's latest anecdote. He reached down, taking Ulfat’s hand and gently pulling her up with him.

"It's late," Rehman announced, his voice carrying that quiet, absolute authority that no one questioned. "Ulfat needs to take her nightly medications, and she’s been on her feet for too long. We are taking our leave."

Uzair looked up, a distinctly wicked, knowing grin spreading across his face. Hamza coughed into his hand, turning his head away to hide his smirk, while even Faizal let out a small, muffled snort. They all knew Rehman’s medication excuse was simply his way of reclaiming his wife.

Naieem, ever the responsible eldest, simply nodded, his expression respectful and grounded. "Don't worry about downstairs, Abba. I'll lock up and ensure Rehmat is brought up when she’s fully asleep. You both rest."

Rehman saw the wicked smiles on Uzair and Hamza’s faces. Wicked people, he thought, a faint, amused line touching his lips. But he didn't care. Let them laugh. Let them think whatever they wanted. There was only one person in this entire world that mattered to him, and she was currently leaning slightly against his side, her body heavy with exhaustion.

The moment the heavy, solid mahogany door of their master bedroom clicked shut behind them, the outside world ceased to exist.

The room was dimly lit, only the small yellow lamps on the nightstands casting a warm, amber glow across the expansive bed. Ulfat let out a long, trembling breath, her shoulders instantly dropping as she leaned her back against the closed door, her eyes closing in pure relief.

"Ya Allah," she whispered, her voice rough, a little breathless. "My back feels like it's made of lead. That saree weighs a ton."

Rehman didn't speak. He walked over to the side table, poured a glass of cool water from the silver carafe, and brought it back to her. He held it to her lips, watching her swallow the liquid, his eyes steady and unblinking. When she was done, he took the glass away, setting it on a nearby console, and turned back to her.

She was still standing against the door, the slate-gray saree looking slightly rumpled now, her silver jewelry catching the dim lamplight. Her stiffness was evident in the way she held her neck.

"Sit down on the bed, Ulfat," he commanded softly, his hands moving up to unbutton his dark gray bandhgala jacket. He shed the heavy formal wear, throwing it carelessly over a chair, leaving him in his soft white undershirt and trousers.

Ulfat walked over to the bed with slow, stiff steps. Instead of sitting, she climbed onto the mattress, lying flat on her stomach, her face buried in the silk pillows. The position was the only one that brought some relief to her aching lower spine.

Rehman climbed onto the bed behind her, kneeling beside her hips. His large, broad hands, calloused from years of a hard life but incredibly gentle whenever they touched her skin, settled onto her shoulders. He began to work the muscles, his palms pressing down with a firm, deliberate pressure, kneading the tension out of her upper back.

A soft, low moan escaped Ulfat’s lips into the pillow. "Right there, ahh Rehman, the shoulders are completely knotted."

"I know," he murmured, his thumbs moving down her spine, tracing the line of her back through the heavy silk of her blouse. "You stood for too long. I told you to sit down during the speeches, but you never listen."

"It would look bad if the host sat down while the elders were standing," she mumbled, her voice growing thick and drowsy under the soothing, powerful rhythm of his hands.

But the domestic rhythm of the massage began to shift, the air in the room thickening with a familiar, heavy heat. Rehman’s movements slowed down. His palms were no longer just kneading muscle, they were sliding over the fabric, his touch turning lighter, more lingering, tracing the curve of her waist where the saree met the skin.

He leaned down, his chest pressing against her back, his breath warm against the exposed skin of her nape where her hair had been flowing on one side.

"Rehman" she whispered, her voice losing its drowsiness, a sudden, sharp tremor running through her as his lips brushed the sensitive skin just below her ear.

"Let me," he hushed her, his voice a low, gravelly vibration against her skin.

With slow, practiced movements, his fingers moved to the hooks of her blouse at the back. One by one, the metal clasps gave way under his touch. He slid the fabric apart, exposing the expanse of her smooth, warm back. He didn't stop there. He reached down, unpinning the silver pallu from her shoulder, pulling the heavy silk saree away from her body entirely, making her shift, move, and toss on the mattress as he unraveled the yards of fabric.

Ulfat turned over onto her back, her breathing hitching as the remaining layers were stripped away. She lay completely naked beneath him, her skin glowing like amber in the dim yellow light of the lamps.

Rehman paused, his breath catching in his throat as he looked down at her. Her body carried the indelible, permanent map of their life together. Her breasts, once high and firm in her twenties, were now slightly shaggy, heavier, their skin marked by pale, veiny tracks that spoke of the milk that had sustained three children, including little Rehmat just months ago. Her stomach, soft and rounded, was lined with silver stretch marks.

To her, these were the markers of age, the fading of youth. But to Rehman, as he looked down at her, a wave of pure, borderline obsessive devotion crashed over his chest. He didn't just love her despite these marks, he loved her because of them. Every single line on her skin was a battle scar she had earned while building his family. This body belonged to him, marked by him, shaped by the depth of their passion.

"You are so beautiful, Ulfat," he growled, his voice thick with a raw, undeniable hunger as he lowered his body over hers. "So beautiful it hurts."

Rehman’s mouth moved down her throat, his tongue trailing over her collarbone, before his attention settled entirely on her breasts.

His hands cupped the heavy weight, his thumbs brushing over the dark, sensitive aureoles. When he lowered his head, taking one full breast into his mouth, his suction was deep and slow. Because she had been nursing Rehmat earlier in the day, a faint, sweet drop of milk mixed with the heat of his saliva. The taste drove him completely over the edge. He sucked hard, drawing the milk out, his tongue swirling around the nipple, making Ulfat let out a sharp, breathless cry as she arched her back violently off the mattress, her fingers locking tightly into the thick hair at the back of his head.

"Rehman... ah, Rehman, please," she gasped, her hips moving instinctively against the mattress, her body completely alive, burning under the onslaught of his touch.

He moved down her body, his kisses leaving a trail of fire over her soft, stretch-marked stomach. He pushed her legs apart, kneeling between her thighs, his eyes fixed on her dark, wet heat. He didn't hesitate. He lowered his head, eating her pussy with a fierce, deliberate, slow rhythm, his tongue finding her core, driving her to the point of absolute distraction. Ulfat thrashed against the silk sheets, her head tossing from side to side, her voice breaking into soft, breathless murmurs as she called his name over and over again.

When she was entirely undone, her body trembling and slick with sweat,

Rehman raised himself up. He looked down into her dark, hooded eyes, seeing his own reflection in her gaze. He removed his own clothes, freeing his throbbing member.

He guided his thick member to her entrance, and with one smooth, heavy thrust, he pushed himself completely inside her. She pulled him deeper, locking him into her warmth as her body adjusted to the heavy, familiar fullness of him. Rehman leaned down immediately, capturing her lips in a deep, bruising kiss to muffle the raw moans rising from her throat. He began to move, his thrusts driving deep and rhythmic, filling the quiet sanctuary of their room with the soft friction of skin against skin and the rustle of the tangled sheets.

Ulfat’s hands flew to his shoulders, her fingers digging fiercely into his broad back. Her nails dragged down his skin in a desperate attempt to anchor herself against the overwhelming wave of pleasure, leaving faint red marks that would undoubtedly sting by morning.

Rehman broke the kiss, his mouth sliding down her jawline and throat, tracing the erratic pulse beating there before burying his face against her chest again. His mouth taking the sensitive peak into his mouth. He sucked deeply, swirling his tongue around the dark aureole, drawing out the faint, sweet trace of milk . The taste sent a jolt of raw adrenaline straight to his core. His pace grew faster, harder, his hips driving against hers with a sudden, relentless passion that made Ulfat’s head toss back into the silk pillows, her eyes rolling back in sheer ecstasy.

"Rehman…ya Allah, Rehman," she gasped out, her voice a fractured whisper.

Sensing her climax, his free hand slid down between their heat, his fingers finding her oversensitive clit and rubbing in a fast, circular motion. The dual stimulation was too much. Ulfat’s internal walls clamped down around his length, tightening into a vice-like grip that nearly unraveled his control entirely.

“Ahh Rehman, I am about to come,” she moaned, her hips tilting up desperately to meet every heavy stroke.

“Spill it, jaan, spill it for me,” he growled against her neck, his voice low and fiercely possessive. He redoubled his pace, his thrusts becoming powerful and unyielding.

With a final, breathless cry, Ulfat convulsed beneath him as her walls spasmed wildly around his length, flooding him with her release. The intense friction of her climax was the breaking point. With two more violent, deep thrusts, Rehman let out a low, guttural roar, burying himself as deep as possible as he came, filling her completely with his own hot release.

An hour later, the room was entirely still again.

The heavy duvet had been pulled up to their waists. They lay tangled together in the center of the massive bed. Ulfat’s head was resting securely on Rehman’s bare chest, her fingers tracing the dark hair around his sternum. Rehman’s arm was wrapped securely around her bare shoulders, his chin resting against the crown of her head, his fingers tracing the soft skin of her upper arm.

They were exhausted, their bodies aching with a good, thoroughly satisfied fatigue.

"Twenty-five years," Ulfat whispered into the dark, her voice a low, contented murmur against his skin.

"And twenty-five more after this," his chest rising and falling beneath her cheek. He tightened his grip, pulling the duvet a little higher over her shoulders to keep the chill away.

=====================xXx=====================

Yalina stared at the big purple suitcase half her size that she was somehow supposed to fit her entire life into. The tickets and passports sat right next to the open suitcase like a glaring reminder of everything that had transpired only a few hours ago, and every time her eyes drifted toward them, a strange heaviness settled deeper into her chest.

Hamza—

No.

Even in her own thoughts, it suddenly felt wrong to call him that now, as though the name itself had become another mask she had accidentally peeled away with trembling fingers and tearful accusations. Her husband, then. That was the one truth she was still certain of amidst the ruins of everything else, and so her husband he shall remain, no matter what names he had worn before her.

Her husband had sat her down the previous night, and for the first time in years, she had seen that harsh decisiveness return to him. The hesitant guilt and awkward apology that had clung to him ever since ... Aalam Chacha’s death had melted away, revealing the same man she had married, the man with burning eyes who had proclaimed that he would be the King of Karachi. His words had been firm, clipped, leaving very little room for argument, but his eyes had betrayed him entirely. Worry. Fear. Desperation. A kind of frantic hopefulness that almost frightened her more than panic would have.

Vancouver.

They would leave Pakistan. Start over. Build a new life from scratch, away from the lies, away from Lyari, away from the ghosts trailing behind them like bloodstained shadows. No more carefully maintained facades, no more pretending that their marriage had not been born from deceit and sharpened into something painfully real afterward.

But Yalina did not know how much of that promise was truly possible and how much of it was simply something her husband desperately wanted to believe.

How did people simply start over?

What happened to the years already lived? The memories already built? The walls of the house they had chosen together, the marks of Zayan’s height on the corridor wall, the gardens she had bullied Hamza into planting despite him insisting they would attract insects, the dinners, the birthdays, the fights, the reconciliations, the ordinary little moments that had slowly become the shape of her life? She did not understand how they could have a new beginning when they already carried so much history between them, so many wounds, so many lies, so much love twisted painfully around betrayal.

And what of her parents?

If she left Pakistan today, there was a very real possibility she would never see her Ammi or Abbu again. They fought often, yes, and her mother could carve wounds into her with words sharper than knives, but they were still her parents. She loved them despite everything. She had always prepared herself for the eventuality of outliving them because her Abbu had already been old when she was born, but she had never imagined a future where he still breathed somewhere under the same sky while she could never again touch his hand or sit beside him over tea.

Her thoughts wandered, as they often did these days, back to that night in Rehman Bhai’s complex.

The night her husband had given her an out.

At the time, blinded by love and anger and hurt pride, she had mistaken it for a challenge. She had not understood the enormity of what he had been offering her. In hindsight, she understood it now for what it truly was—the last sliver of protection the man beneath Hamza’s mask had tried to secure for her before all chances to back out vanished.

On some days she regretted her choice.

But that regret never lasted long.

Not even when she had been forced to learn how to move amongst the polished, prissy wives of politicians who simultaneously looked down upon her for being a gangster’s wife, feared her for the exact same reason, and tried to cozy up to her because of her husband’s influence. Not even when she had learned how to maintain composure while one of Hamza’s rivals tried to intimidate her during public gatherings, or when another had attempted to attack her in broad daylight simply to send a message.

Her husband had always reached her before real harm could be done.

And those men had always paid for it afterward.

Still, fear had lodged itself somewhere deep inside her after those incidents, becoming a permanent part of her life. But over time, that fear had transformed too. It stopped being merely a weakness and became something sharper, harder, almost weapon-like.

She had not regretted her choice even when her husband had begun insisting that she learn how to use a gun with the precision of a soldier. She had learned without complaint, learned how to hold it steady, how to aim, how to fire without flinching, and in the process had earned the quiet admiration of her husband’s men.

When the truth had finally come out, her regret had never truly been about the path he had walked. It had only ever been about the lies.

She had grown up watching her father and his associates treat ordinary Pakistani citizens with the same careless disregard her teachers once described when speaking of Marie Antoinette and the French monarchy. Her patriotism had never belonged to the wolves who sat in powerful offices wrapped in the flag of the nation while feeding on its people. It had only ever belonged to the land itself. To the ordinary people who suffered beneath those men.

If he had told her himself, if she had not discovered the truth in the worst possible way, her clothes stained with the blood of guests she had invited into her home while the SP’s threats rang in her ears and every single lie she had trusted came crashing down at once, she would not have begrudged him at all.

And she would never betray the man she had given space in her heart, especially not when his actions were ultimately meant to protect people from monsters wearing uniforms and titles. The same people who would call her a traitor if they ever learned the truth were people she had seen abandoned repeatedly by those claiming to protect them.

She knew the difference between patriotism and sadism.

The men hailed as the greatest patriots of her country often had eyes gleaming with cruelty. Their righteousness had always felt hungry. Violent. Hollow.

Her husband’s eyes had not looked like that when he had knelt before her begging forgiveness for deceiving her while simultaneously confessing that everything he had done had been for his motherland, there had been sincerity in him. Pain too. Shame. Love.

So she had accepted her lot in life. Accepted him too.

Her eyes drifted absently across the room as she tried to locate Zayan’s favorite shirts amongst the mess around her.

The reveal had changed many things, she mused. She had assumed that now that he no longer needed to maintain a facade with her, they would eventually become strangers behind closed doors. She had thought he would begin detaching himself from the life they had built together.

Instead, somehow, he had done the opposite.

After that brief awkward period where he seemed uncertain whether she would expose him, he had become even more involved in their lives. A better father. A more attentive husband. He spent increasing amounts of time with Zayan, reading him stories, helping prepare him for school, taking him out for picnics, teaching him little things with patient seriousness, playing with him whenever he found the time.

Sometimes it almost felt as though he was trying desperately to give their son enough memories to survive an entire lifetime.

And with her too, he remained unchanged in all the ways that mattered. He still insisted she did not need to mingle with the shark-like harpies that were the other politician's wives. He pushed her to finish her studies. Encouraged her to open her own businesses. Taught her how to manage finances herself. Quietly ensured that she had her own loyal guards among his men, men who answered to her first before anyone else.

It felt like preparation. Like he was preparing her for a future where he would no longer be there to protect her.

That realization hurt her in ways she could never fully explain. For some reason, even after the truth had come out, Yalina had never truly imagined a life without him.

A few months ago, after his relentless insistence that she memorize routes, names, accounts, safehouses, and his gang’s operational details finally snapped the last thread of her patience, she had dragged him into their room and screamed at him for behaving like a dead man walking.

He had only smiled at her then. A small, sad smile filled with such resignation that it had terrified her more than anger ever could have.

And afterward, with his head resting against her shoulder, he had finally told her fragments of the truth. Not his real name. Not where he came from. Nothing concrete enough to unravel the entire lie. But enough.

Enough for her to understand that he had once had two sisters, and that only one lived. And she had lived only because he had stained his hands in the blood of her abusers instead of waiting for justice. Enough for her to understand that he had paid for that choice with his own life long before he ever became Hamza. Enough to understand that the state which abandoned him, later returned demanding loyalty anyway, and he had given it despite everything.

That conversation had changed something fundamental in her perspective of him.

Because suddenly she no longer saw him as merely a deceiver who had manipulated her people and her country. Instead, he looked like a man who had been punished repeatedly for trying to do the right thing and still somehow choose goodness afterward. A brave man. A wounded man. A good man trapped inside impossible circumstances.

She had chosen the right man.

Perhaps at the wrong time, in the wrong circumstances, in the wrong life entirely, but still the right man.

For one brief moment that night, doubt had crept into her heart again. What if even this story was another lie? Another carefully crafted cover?

But the wetness soaking into her kurta while he refused to lift his face from her shoulder had answered that fear better than any words could.

And she knew.

She had never truly known Hamza or any of his masks. But she knew her husband. And that was enough for her.

That night, as they lay in their bed, both to keyed up to truly sleep, she had begged her husband to come back to her, to try to live for her even if his motherland had asked for his life. She had held his folded hands, looked into his glassy eyes that shone even in the dark, and had asked in her most brave voice, that she wanted to raise their son together, and that she wanted to cash in his promise that she had rights over him for all his life, that if Hamza Ali Mazari had to die for India, she would not complain, but she wanted her husband to return to her, safe and sound. He had merely nodded once and said nothing. But his preparations had taken on a different light, and he had kept his promise to try, with the proof of his sincerity sitting innocuously next to her suitcase.

As she stared at the things she had absentmindedly gathered while lost in thought, her eyes drifted toward the deep red suit folded carefully at the back of the cupboard.

The color had always been her favorite. But she had never worn that suit again after that day.

Slowly, she reached for it.

Women in her husband’s country wore sindoor, she remembered him once saying casually, in the many midnight talks they had taken to having, after that night where she had demanded he live. Something of a similar shade, red like devotion and passion, worn for the long life of one’s husband.

Before she fully understood what she was doing, she had already unfolded the suit and changed into it. She stood there silently afterward, fingers brushing over the familiar fabric. She did not know why she had done it.

Was this prayer too?

For a husband who had pushed passports into her trembling hands with promises that he would return to her, while holding her so tightly it had felt less like comfort and more like a man trying to memorize the shape of the person he loved before walking toward something terrible?

She did not know.

All she knew was that, that was what she was wearing when Laila hurried in, her eyes panicked, her breath heaving with urgency. It was Omar.

Omar, the fucking SP who had begun sniffing around Hamza after Aalam’s death.

Something cold and ugly twisted inside Yalina’s belly.

Laila kept speaking in frightened bursts, explaining how he had arrived at dusk with uniformed officers, how Hamza’s men had stepped away for dinner while only the ornamental security her father insisted upon remained near the gates, how Omar had forced the guards down at gunpoint and entered without warrant like some stray dog emboldened by an open door.

And then she uttered the words that undid whatever calmness Yalina had been pretending to have.

“He has Zayan baba.” Her vision tunneled.

Her son. Her little boy.

The shameless rogue was holding her son hostage. Anger licked at her mind, but if being the wife of a gangster with many enemies had taught her anything, it was to stay level headed in such situations. Omar must have thought that her husband's bloodthirsty men, who had hung up the officers of Lyari Task force when Rehman bhai had still been alive, and had made a joke out of SP Aslam, would go back home for dinner.

Omar had made one mistake already.

He thought Hamza’s men would truly leave the estate unguarded simply because dinner was being served. The fool did not understand how these men lived. This was not merely their boss’s house. It was their home too. They ate here. Slept here. Guarded the walls like family property. Even when scattered, they remained close enough to return at a moment’s notice.

And so Yalina called them.

Her fingers shook only slightly as she dialed Lassan first, then Taheer, her voice frighteningly calm as she informed them that Omar was inside the house and had her son. They were across the estate grounds and would need ten minutes at most.

Ten minutes. They felt too long.

Then Jahana rushed in next, this time openly crying.

“Memsahab…” she whispered shakily, “woh Zayan baba pe bandook taane baithe hain…keh rahe hain agar aap abhi neeche nahi aayi toh—”

On gunpoint? Her little Zayan? He dared to threaten her son in his own home? Demanded from her and threatened his life?

Worry and rage warred within her. She had tried to protect Zayan from his father's line of work as much as possible, he didn't even know that Hamza was a gangster, he thought his Abbu ran a business. His little mind had never known fear, he would not recognise the danger.

But her son was in danger! Her feet carried her even before she knew where she was going.

“Zayan!” she shouted while hurrying down the hallway, her voice echoing sharply through the corridors. “Zayan, beta!”

No answer came.

Her heart slammed painfully against her ribs as she moved faster, cursing the sheer length of the hallway between her room and the formal sitting area downstairs. But fear sharpened the senses in strange ways, and even amidst the panic she immediately noticed details Hamza himself would have noticed.

Every uniformed guard had been forced outside. They knelt near the porch while policemen stood over them with rifles drawn. Not one officer remained inside the house.

All of them are out, he left no one standing here, Yalina. You have a chance to not be the weak, unarmed side, her husband's voice whispered in her mind.

Her gaze darted immediately toward the drawer near the staircase. Gun.

Hamza kept one there.

She retrieved it silently and checked the safety with fingers that somehow still obeyed her. She had never understood Hamza’s strange habit of keeping mirrors angled near room entrances so someone outside could partially observe interiors without being seen. She had once mocked him for it.

Now she silently thanked God for his paranoia.

From the reflection she could see the sitting room clearly enough. Omar sat there with one thick hand gripping Zayan’s shoulder so tightly the child looked uncomfortable already. The gun barrel pressed carelessly near her son’s face.

She pushed Laila gently toward the doorway, hoping the maid understood what she wanted.

“Memsahab aa rahi hain, sir,” Laila said shakily from the entrance. “Woh keh rahi hain tab tak aap baithiye aur Zayan baba ko daraaiye mat…Baba, idhar aaiye…”

Through the reflection, Yalina watched her son attempt to move.

Then she watched him wince in pain as Omar’s thick fingers dug brutally into his tiny shoulder. The barrel of the gun pressed into her child’s cheek. Then shifted towards his neck.

“Tell Yalina,” Omar snarled, “that if she wants to see her son alive, she better hurry. Warna aaj woh apna shohar bhi khoyegi aur beta bhi.”

Yalina saw red.

He would murder a child?

Her child? Her baby?

The red haze that had briefly receded came roaring back so fast that it almost blinded her. Laila carefully stepped aside from the doorway but refused to flee entirely. Brave girl. Loyal girl.

The SP would die today.

If someone later asked Yalina exactly what happened after that moment, she would never fully know how to explain it. One second she was still in the hallway trying to keep her breathing controlled as she raised the gun properly, and the next she was already inside the room, her arm steady despite the hurricane inside her chest.

wo bullets struck Omar in the chest before anyone fully processed what had happened. The third entered his throat.

She fired that one deliberately.

The sound exploded through the room. Omar collapsed instantly, his grip loosening from both the gun and her son simultaneously as blood spread rapidly beneath him.

A scream of “Ammi!” through the haze, her arms extending towards her son by habit, and Zayan crashed into her arms so hard she nearly lost balance.

Yalina dropped the gun immediately and held him with terrifying desperation, pressing frantic kisses into his hair while checking his face, his neck, his shoulders, searching wildly for injury. She could feel his frightened little breaths against her throat and only then did the hysteria truly begin to recede enough for her knees to stop shaking.

Her son was alive. Her son was alive.

After checking him twice more, she pushed him gently toward Laila. “Isko upar le jao,” she ordered hoarsely. “Abhi.”

Zayan resisted instantly, frightened tears gathering in his eyes, but she hardened herself and sent him away. Only after he disappeared did she finally look back at Omar.

The dying man still watched the direction her son had gone with those hateful little eyes.

She wanted to gouge those eyes out herself. Rip his throat apart with her bare hands for daring to terrorize her son inside his own home.

She stepped closer until she could see tears gathering in his eyes from the agony of the bullets lodged inside him. His lips moved weakly.

Yalina crouched down to hear the aborted sounds beneath his wheezing breaths.

“Hamza…” he rasped wetly. “Spy…yes?”

And strangely enough, Yalina felt regret then. Not for shooting him. Never that.

But regret that perhaps Pakistan’s first honest police officer had died on the floor of her home and she had been the one to kill him.

If only he had not threatened her son.

“My…men…” he struggled. “Outside…you…not…escape…”

She felt bad for his naivete. He really was an honest man.

“I am the daughter of the Education Minister of Pakistan,” Yalina told him quietly. “The wife of the most feared gangster of Karachi. Main tumhe aur tumhare aadmiyon ko yahin marwa sakti hoon aur mujhe kuch nahi hoga.”

As if summoned by her words, sounds of violence erupted outside.

Gunshots. Screaming. Then Lassan’s profane mouth saying things she would have scolded him for, on a normal day. Taheer yelling murder.

“Sun rahe ho, SP?” she asked softly. “Those my husband’s men.”

Omar’s eyes remained fixed on her face. He was a persistent man.

“You know,” she continued, voice growing steadier, “my husband, who walks amongst people like Iqbal Ahmed, head of ISI’s Indian wing. Mir Iqbal. General Shamshad Hassan himself. But you are a dying man. You will not leave this room alive. Let me tell you the information you threatened to kill my son for". He had the gall to look offended.

"He is a child Omar! You threatened a child to get information, you are no better than the criminals you claim to protect our people from!" His eyes were back to looking beseechingly at her, and so she spoke again. "You were right. Hamza is a spy." His eyes gleamed in triumph and she felt the sudden urge to wipe it away. He did not deserve the feeling after his actions.

“But he was killing terrorists,” she continued. “Tell me honestly, SP sahib…did you take your oath to protect terrorists? Or innocent civilians?” The triumph in his expression faltered.

Good.

Because this pursuit had never truly been about justice. It had been about pride. Hamza had stopped gang wars, built factories, given work to desperate people, dragged Lyari toward something almost resembling stability, and still Omar had hunted him not because innocents were suffering, but because he could not tolerate being outplayed.

“My husband will succeed,” she said quietly. “And you have failed. Both in catching him and protecting the people you swore to serve.”

She stood slowly then and moved away from him, only now noticing the blood staining the red fabric pooled around her legs. Red. Like blood. She had never killed anyone before. She was a murderer now. Her hands began trembling.

Her gaze drifted toward the family portrait hanging nearby. Her husband stood there with one arm around her while Zayan sat laughing on his shoulders.

She stared at that photograph for a very long time.

It had to be worth it.

Her son was safe. Her husband would come home safe. She had to believe it.

It had to be enough.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later, when Jameel Jamali rushed into his daughter’s house, alerted by Nafeesa, the cook he had personally sent with Yalina after her marriage. There had been no call from his daughter herself.

The drive there had felt endless despite the short distance, every horrifying possibility clawing through his mind one after another. Nafeesa had been crying so hard on the phone that half her words had dissolved into incomprehensible sobs, but he had still understood enough. Gunshots. Police. Zayan. Blood.

His daughter.

Ya Allah, his daughter.

For all his political experience, all his years navigating dangerous men and dangerous situations, nothing had prepared him for the helpless terror of imagining his only child trapped somewhere frightened and alone. By the time he reached the estate, his own heartbeat was pounding loudly enough to make him feel sick.

What he found instead was silence.

Not true silence, because outside there were still murmurs, hurried footsteps, Hamza’s men dragging bodies and barking orders at each other, but inside the house itself there was a strange stillness, heavy and stunned, as though the walls themselves had not yet processed what had happened within them.

And there, in the middle of the sitting room, stock still like a frozen statue, sat his daughter staring at the family photograph mounted upon the wall like she had forgotten where she was. And a corpse beside her. The SP's corpse. A vague thought entered his mind that his daughter's family had a penchant for killing SPs.

Then she saw him.

“Abbu…”

The word broke apart halfway through as she stumbled toward him, and suddenly she was no longer Yalina Mazari, wife of the most feared man in Lyari, no longer the poised politician’s daughter who knew exactly how to speak and smile and manipulate a room to her liking. She was simply his little girl again, crying so hard against his shoulder that her breath kept catching painfully in her chest as she pointed weakly toward the corpse lying several feet away and tried desperately to explain herself between hiccups and gasping breaths.

His child.

His only child.

His pride. His baby.

She had not hugged him like this since she was nine years old and had burnt her hand trying to iron her own clothes because she had decided, after watching a maid work, that she too should “learn responsibility and be a big girl.” He still remembered how inconsolably she had cried that day, less because of the pain and more because she thought he would scold her for touching the iron and ruining the clothes like how he did with the help.

Now she clung to him with that same frightened desperation, her fingers knotted tightly into the fabric of his kurta as though he alone was holding the world together for her.

“He…he pointed the gun at Zayan, Abbu,” she cried brokenly. “Usne Zayan pe bandook taani thi…main darr gayi…maine bas…”

Her words dissolved into another sob.

“I shot him…aur..aur woh…”

Jameel closed his eyes briefly and tightened his hold around her.

Her tears soaked through his shoulder as she kept speaking in frantic bursts, telling him how Omar had threatened her son, how she had panicked, how she was terrified they would take her away now, how she would never see Hamza again, how she would never see Zayan again, how she was scared she would never see him again either.

Only the last confession sounded sincere.

And despite everything, despite the corpse cooling only feet away from them, despite the political disaster already forming in the back of his mind, Jameel almost smiled through the ache in his chest because his daughter had always been sly in moments of crisis. Yalina had inherited his instincts too well. Even as a child she had known how to weaponize tears with frightening precision when she wanted protection or forgiveness.

But she was still a good girl.

And more importantly, right now, she was terrified. Truly terrified. She needed her father and she needed Jameel, the politician too.

Jameel knew enough about Hamza’s operations to understand there had already been contingency plans in place for extraction a day later. Three people. Hamza. Yalina. Zayan. He had never asked too many questions because plausible deniability had kept him alive in this God-forsaken country, but he had not been blind either.

So he did what he had always done best whenever disaster struck.

He handled it.

He pulled his daughter closer and stroked her hair the same way he used to when she was little and frightened by darkness, murmuring softly, steadily, “Bas, bas, meri bachi…Abbu hai na. Main dekh lunga sab. Kuch nahi hoga tumhe. Kisi ki himmat nahi hai meri beti ko haath lagane ki.”

She cried harder at that.

He let her. Let her mourn, later, he would too. After whatever pretense of a call she made in goodbye. After he received a call about her convenient demise around the same time her husband perished. But for now, he would be strong. Strong for the daughter he will never see again, in three days' time.

Then, after pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he gently guided her upstairs toward her room, pretending not to notice the half-open suitcase lying upon the bed or the passports carelessly visible beneath scattered clothes. Pretending not to understand exactly what those things implied.

“Kapde badlo, beta” he told her quietly once they reached the room. “ These clothes must be sticky, change into something comfortable.”

The blood upon her dress had dried in places already.

Yalina looked down at herself almost blankly, as though only now realizing what she was wearing, then nodded weakly and disappeared into the washroom.

Jameel stood there for several long seconds after the door closed. He took a quick glance at the passports. Leena Thapar and Rayan Shergill. Sanyal sahab and his firm belief that Hamza was a lion in disguise. He shook his head.

Then he exhaled heavily and went back downstairs, where Zayan sat curled miserably upon the sofa looking far too small for the enormous room around him. The moment the child saw him, he climbed immediately into his grandfather’s lap without a word, still shaken enough that he did not even attempt his usual chatter.

Jameel held his grandson close with one arm while reaching for his phone with the other.

Outside, men were already cleaning blood from marble floors. Somewhere deeper in the estate, someone was shouting instructions. Another body was being dragged away.

Inside the sitting room, however, there was only the quiet sound of Zayan breathing against his chest while Jameel made call after call in a calm, measured voice, arranging protection for his family with the same efficiency other men reserved for business meetings.

Being a parent was a strange thing.

You would go to impossible lengths to protect your children. You would cross lines and limits you once swore you would never even approach. You would stain your hands, your reputation, perhaps even your soul itself, if it meant keeping your child safe.

He was a parent.

And tonight, he realized with a strange ache in his chest, so was his daughter.

======================xXx======================

Masterlist

A/N: Haan, haan, I know, I had promised you guys the next part of the Ulfat series, I am sorry, I was thinking of how this scene could have gone differently and I kept returning to the saying that a woman might be weak, but a mother never is. In one world, a scared Yalina capitulated to the SP. In another, her motherhood did not allow for such a slight to slide by her, and one mother's love for her son saved another mother's son from losing his family. I just had to post it. I will get to the asks, I swear, you guys. (this is also a scheduled post you guys, there are two more for next week and then I will be back.)