Major Iqbal x !Prostitute Reader ~CHAPTER 4 Pt.1~
Synopsis: In Lyari, everyone knows Major Iqbal's name. They know the power he commands and the fear he instills. Men obey him while women admire him from afar. He's untouchable and unreachable. For a man who had no use for marriage, desire was still a debt the body demanded be paid. It is bought, used, forgotten, and left behind before dawn. Just another transaction, another closed door, another face he never intends to see twice after sunrise.
Until one transaction quietly becomes another. And another.
Night after night, he returns to the same kotha. To the same room. To the same bed.
The same girl…
Some stories begin with love.
This one begins with a sin.
Inspired by this edit by cutie @wtafananya [He looks like the type of person to like it raw]
Content Warnings: 18+, mature content!!! Toxic relationship, age gap. Not suitable for minors!
a/n: ahh its finally heree, this one is much more emotionlly charged. I decided to split ch4 in to 2 parts just bc it was getting wayy too long, but the 2nd part is pretty much done and will release it by the of the week <33. love u guysss im almost to 100 followerss bc of my ficc and just hv to say thank youuuu loviess
Chapter 4:
Karachi
2:30 PM
Under the dry, scorching sun of Karachi your world stopped.
It obliterated and shattered in the span of 10 seconds.
“...Y/N!”
The sound of your name cut clean through the bustle of the marketplace, reaching exactly to the pair of ears it intended to.
You froze, your limbs rigid as ice.
For a heartbeat, life around you stilled as if everything was all frozen in time.
The bargaining voices of merchants muted everywhere.The clatter of handcarts rolling over uneven stone faded into nothing. Even the mothers and children walking all stopped their movements… Until only you remained in the moment.
No.
It can't be.
Your breath stopped midway between your lungs and your throat.
You knew that voice.
Slowly, almost afraid of what you might find, you turned.
And there he was….
Major Iqbal.
He was standing a few feet away, almost blended amidst the people in the market, but he wasn't an average man. He stuck out, very outwardly, amongst the crowd. His uniform, an impeccable sight to see. However, it wasn’t his frame that took your breath away.
It was his eyes.
Those dark, piercing depths, covered with translucent aviators that had once seen every secret of your soul, were locked straight onto yours.
It's him.
Your heart lurched painfully against your ribs.
For a few seconds, you were bewildered to see him again, you never thought that the man who haunted your dreams would be standing in front of you this close again.
Your eyes were wide as they were locked deeply into his. Nothing remained in the moment except the presence of you and him.
Every carefully rebuilt piece of yourself, every hurt you’d stitched up together in his absence, came apart in an instant.
Panic immediately set in, it surged all through the edges of your body. Your fingers loosened without realizing it. The bundle of flowers slipped from your grasp, its petals scattering soundlessly across the stones.
You didn't stop to pick it up.
Instinct took over before reason ever had the chance, your feet started moving without thought. They began weaving quickly into the crowd, life around you resuming to its chaoticness. Your pulse was threatening to kill you, your heart pounding against your chest.
You didn't look back to see if he was following, you just ran. You scurried through the narrow gaps between carts, pedestrians and rickshaws, your breath becoming shallow gasps.
You couldn't look back, you shouldn't. If you looked back you'd stop, and if you stopped you didn't trust yourself not to do something foolish. So you did anything to put space between you and that man, running away from the atrocities he reminded you of, running away to find solace in a place where he didn't exist. You didn't even know where you were going but you kept moving through the market, to any open space, any exit distant to him. Your white chiffon suit blazed behind you, outlining your body as a blur of white against the brown and greys of the bazaar.
In your frenzied haste, a sudden gust of wind or perhaps just the downright speed of your flight pulled at your shoulder. The fold of your dupatta gave way. The light, airy cloth slid off your head, floating for a moment in the air like a dying swan before settling onto the dusty ground. Your curly hair flying loose around your face.
You didn't stop for that either, you couldn't afford to.
Behind you, Iqbal started to make his way towards your silhouette. He looked down at the scattered flowers fallen onto the ground. He crouched briefly and gathered the bouquet from the pavement with quick, careless hands. He started tracking your movement, after all he was a man who spent years training and you were easy to spot all clad in white. He wove through the same path you took, pushing past vendors to reach you. He caught sight of your dupatta all spread out on the ground and quickly picked it up with the same hand, the fabric was so soft and thin against his palm, the scent of you, embedded in the threads, plaguing his senses.
He didn't waste another second.
He was already moving after you, cutting through the crowd with the same purpose that had gotten him out of the SUV in the first place.
He didn't have to yell your name out again, he knew these streets well. And he knew where the alleys led….
You finally turned down a side street without thinking, the market noise now distant, replaced by the hush of a narrow, abandoned alley. Sunlight cut through overhead, illuminating your exposed body. But as you looked to the other side, you saw that there was no exit, it was a dead end with no way through.
Shit
The other side was a completely solid brick wall littered with broken crates. The risk was too great to switch places because you would be compromised in the open street if you left. So, you quickly glanced to the open side and for a heartbeat, the street was empty. You finally stopped, leaning against the rough wall, your chest heaving in pants, trying to catch your breath. A sigh of relief passed through you.
You thought you were safe…
Suddenly, a set of footsteps, slow and practised, rounded the corner. Your heart twisted.
A dark silhouette entered the alley, casting a long shadow on the ground blocking your view and…. your only exit.
Iqbal
He moved in slowly, your dupatta draped over his arm and the flowers held in his hand.
"Aur kitna bhago gi" he said softly.
Weeks of silence, weeks of aching and unanswered waiting, and here he was, standing in front of you in broad daylight. Never did you think that you would ever see him again, ever be in the presence of him like this. Your stomach dropped somewhere below your feet. You hated him, you hated the very essence of him.
He took a step closer, and something in his chest wringed tightly at the sight of you after so long, your eyes carrying a burning rage that concealed the flicker of hurt behind them.
For you, the memory of his betrayal came crashing through, so bitter and cruel. The breathing in your chest turning frantic, huffing and puffing all the air around you.
Your hand moved before your mind gave it permission.
CRACK
You slapped him, hard, across the face with every ounce of strength and hatred you possessed.
Landing harsh across his face, the sound of it sharp and sudden in the narrow alley. Your palm stung badly, scorching from the impact, your breath coming in short, furious gasps but you chose to ignore the pain. Iqbal's head turned slightly with the force of it. He didn't blink nor did he react. He… just stood there, taking the blow without flinching.
For a long time, Iqbal didn't move. His jaw was tight, a faint mark blooming across his cheek where your hand had struck, but he made no move to touch it, no move to step away from you. He stayed looking to the side, but his expression wasn't of anger, it was recognition, like a man finally accepting his sentence for a crime he committed.
"Yeh tumhara haq hai” he said quietly, his voice rough.
Your chest was still heaving, your hand still trembling at your side, the sting of the impact traveling up into your wrist. Your eyes had filled without your permission, hot and furious, and you hated that too, hated that after everything, after two weeks of forcing yourself to stop caring, one look at him had undone all of it in a matter of seconds.
“Haq?” you scoffed with a choked laugh. “Aap haq ki bare mein kya jante hai” the words coming out jaggedly.
Something about the calmness of him, the way he absorbed your slap without protest, frightened you somehow. You felt your composure crack down the middle, the anger still there, still burning, but underneath it something rawer clawing its way up your throat, threatening to reveal itself as something far more humiliating than rage.
You hadn't meant to be found here. Now all you wanted was to be hidden away from him once more.
“Aap ko yahan nahi ana chaiye tha” you let out a last time, your voice final.
You turned sharply, desperate suddenly to leave, to be anywhere else, to put a wall of space between yourself and his chest. But before you could take another step, his hand shot out. He didn't grab you, he didn't dare touch you, but he put his hand against the wall beside your head. His body became a cage but not an immovable one, it was a soft boundary that if you walked through you could escape and he would let you.
"Ruk jao" he said low, still not lifting his head. "Ek waqt ke liye."
"Ruk jaon?” You huffed with a mock laugh.”Main aapki baat kyun sunun?" you shot back. “Haatein mere raste se-” you looked beyond his arm, though you made no move to push against him.
Iqbal finally lifted his head, and what you saw in his face stopped whatever you'd been about to say next. There was no coldness there, no amusement, none of the antics you'd learned to expect from him. His eyes were the colour of midnight and they looked almost.. tired, highlighted by the sunlight cutting sideways through his aviators.
"Maine tumhein takleef di" he said, his voice rough, quieter than you'd ever heard it. “Maine bohut bara gunah kiya tumhare saath”.
Your heart cracked slightly at his words. You furrowed your eyebrows, illuminating the painful weeks you had to endure, the words came out of you through impulse.
"Aapko andaza bhi hai... yeh hafte kaise guzre hain mere liye?" Your voice was shaking now, the tears pooling in your lids, all the composure you'd built over days starting to collapse at once.
"Main har raat so nahi paayi. Har roz us kamre meh rothi rahi. Har awaaz par darwaze ki taraf dekhti thi, sochti thi shayad aap phir uss gunah kar ne ayien hai”
You paused slightly, shocked that you let all your most vulnerable moments out to him. But you forced yourself to not care, he needed to know what he did…So you continued on.
“Maine socha shayad main kaafi nahi thi…… Shayad main itni buri thi ke aapne mere saath ek jurm kar diya”. You let out quietly not meeting his gaze.
"y/n..." he let out so softly, completely taken back at what he was hearing.
"Nahi!" you objected. "Mat bulayein mujhe! Aapko koi haq nahi hai! Aapne socha ke aap aayenge, ek baar phir mujhse milenge, aur main aapke paas aa jaungi?" you let out a disbelieving laugh that was hollow and brittle.
“Mai-” he spoke.
"Nahin." Your voice cut across his.
"Nahin... aaj meri baari hai.”
You shook your head, taking a step back even though the wall was already behind you. You wanted to look straight dead in his gaze, your black kajal running down your face. “Us raat ke baad, meri har zingadi ki khoobsurat cheez kaali ho gaye thi, meri puri khushi, jitni bhi choti thi, mit gaiye”
“Jab bhi aap ke khayalat aaiye to phir khud ko yaad dilati thi ke... ke apke liye main kuch bhi nahi hoon. Ek raat ka adhura kissa. Hai na?"
That night flashed in your head as if you were back on the bed. It was a gruesome memory causing a tinge of nausea to spread in your gut. You closed your eyes to suppress it, instead using it as a fuel against him. You composed yourself internally, squeezing out any remaining tears from your eye lids, not caring if your undereyes were darkened from the kohl, you didn't want him to see the most fragile, vulnerable parts of you anymore.
You opened your eyes, and he immediately noticed the change in yourself. The rage in you now turned into an ice cold fury.
“Aap kyun aaye yaha?" your voice was stern, void of any emotion. The last bit of tears running down your red, irritated eyes. "Kyun? Kya baat baaki reh gaye humare beech mein? Sab kuch toh le gaye aap..."
Iqbal stayed there, his eyebrows furrowed together hearing the honesty of your pain that hit him like a thousand daggers, looking at you with absolute piety and pity.
"Main jaanta hoon... main ne tumhara dil toda. Main ne tumhe woh dard diya jo kisi insaan ko guzarna nahi chaiyhe." He paused, his eyes searching yours. "Meri koi umeed nahi hai ke tum mujhe kabhi maaf karo gi. Yeh thappad... kuch bhi nahi tha us zakham ke saamne”
"Lekin mujhe is gunah ka kaffara dena hai, jo tum saza doh hum haazir hain”
His surprisingly honest confession hit directly in the unguarded part of your chest. You couldn't believe that the most powerful man in the whole city was at your feet, ready for any punishment you deemed fit. It gave you a new sense of equality and power with him. But you didn't want to give him the satisfaction of accepting his words, so you stayed the way you were: stubborn to no limit and completely rejecting towards his request.
You grabbed the collar of his uniform in your palm and pulled at him, bringing him closer, looking straight up at him in anger and defiance.
“Main aapse behad nafrat karti hoon” you spitted out.
Iqbal wasn't fazed instead he liked that you were taking a stand for yourself. He leaned in closer as well, both your lips mere inches away.
"Woh bhi qabool hain” he let out.
Silence fell between you and him after that, thick and whole, swallowing every last trace of the bazaar’s noise until there was nothing left in the world except a random, abandoned alleyway and two souls standing in it.
You held his gaze. You weren't going to submit, no way in hell.
Your eyes burning with something hot and unrelenting, hatred and hurt so tangled together you could no longer tell where one ended and the other began. You wanted him to look away first. You wanted, more than anything, to be the one who won this, this silent, terrible standoff where the only weapon either of you had left was the refusal to blink.
But Iqbal didn't look away.
His eyes moved between your smudged kohl-rimmed ones, searching, the way someone searches for light across the sea’s horizon, tracking every small movement of your pupils, every shadow beneath your eyes that hadn't been there before, every hint of grief you couldn't quite bury under the anger. He looked at you like he was trying to memorize something he was terrified of losing again, as if your hatred was a language he deserved to be fluent in and was only now, painfully, starting to learn.
The oxygen between you was gone, the patience stretched thin as wire. The inches between you felt like a war, two people standing at the edge of a sword that neither of you was willing to be cut by. You were held together by nothing but the unbearable pressure of everything you weren't saying. And yet beneath the hatred in your eyes, beneath the grief, Iqbal saw that there was something else entirely, something that looked, if he hadn't dared to name it, exactly like longing.
He opened his mouth slightly, something breaking loose behind his eyes, a word forming-
"Sir!" His right hand man came to an abrupt stop a few feet away, breathless, glancing between the two of you standing so close. He promptly averted his gaze with poorly concealed alarm before catching himself. "Maafi chahta hoon... lekin abhi nikalna zaroori hai. Ek call aa gayi hai."
Iqbal's jaw clenched hard, irritation crossing his face. Despite the man’s haste, Iqbal did not move, his hand still out against the wall, like letting you go was going to cost him something.
"Abhi?" he said, not looking away from you.
"Ji sir. Foran."
A long ragged breath left him. Slowly, like he was forced to, he lowered his arm. He stepped back just enough to let you breathe, though his eyes never left your face. The sudden space between you almost intolerable after how tense it was a few seconds ago.
You didn't realize how close he had been standing to you this whole time….
He brought his hand up, and wordlessly pressed the bouquet of flowers gently into your hands, careful not to touch you.
Then he took the white chiffon dupatta resting in his hands and with a care that felt entirely at odds with the man the world knew him to be, he stepped forward and draped it back over your head with the kind of tenderness you felt when he first learned of your scar. He let one end fall softly over your shoulder and the other end, he meticulously wrapped it across your chest and let it rest over your back. A stray curl fell directly in front of your face, which he then carefully tucked it behind your ear beneath the dupatta, his fingers careful to not graze even an inch of your skin.
"Mujhe jaana hoga" he said, almost like the words themselves tasted bitter. "Lekin main wapas aaunga. Mera vaada hai."
He held your eyes one final second, before he finally turned and walked away, his aide falling into step beside him, already speaking urgently, already dragging him back into the world that kept taking him away from you.
He made it almost to the end of the alley before he looked back.
A single glance over his shoulder that found you still standing exactly where he'd left you. You averted his gaze quickly and looked away, acting completely uninterested towards this gesture.
But Major Iqbal was a man looking at the one thing in his life he hadn't figured out how to walk away from cleanly.
Then he was gone, swallowed by the crowd, by the passing cars, by the world waiting to take him back.
And you stood there after he'd left, your breath caught somewhere. The white fabric of the dupatta blowing against your face, tiny curls wisping around your eyes, the flower petals scattering with the wind as you gazed upon the direction he disappeared to. The hatred was still there, burning bright and wild in your chest. And you knew, it wouldn’t go away anytime soon. But deep inside, in the darkest, most abyss caverns of your heart, a flicker, so indistinct that it would be missed if not paid attention to, blossomed with a hint of mercy-
for him……..
You shook your head, trying to snap that thought right out. You wouldn't let him be forgiven this easily, he needed to do much more.
So you continued on, walking towards the bazaar once more, resuming your day like before, not giving any attention to the moment you had with him today. He will not ruin this too….
But unbeknownst to both of you, a small child had seen the entire moment play before his eyes from the corner of the street.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
A Few Hours Later
The afternoon had finally cooled down into a cloudy shade, offering some relief from the scorching sun.
You walked through the market with a new profound sense of purpose, your hands were aching carrying a bunch of shopping bags from various stores and tiny shops. But you weren't complaining.
You were spending the currency of a man who committed a sin.. It was the money he gave from the two nights you had spent with him. And the funny thing was, that you didn't feel the guilt of spending on yourself which you usually felt. You actually felt satisfaction, that If he wanted to pay for his transgressions, you would let him pay in full. Every item you bought a tax on his conscience.
You had actually had a surplus of money that he left for you, that even after donating generously to orphan shelters across Lyari, you still had many rupees remaining. It didn't take you much time to decide to spend the rest of it, after all you deserved it and second, you didn't want to keep any memory of him remaining in your life even if it was a bunch of cash.
Most people would've spent the money on temporary pleasures but you wanted to do something daring with it. Something different that no other woman had attempted before in the kotha.
You wanted to start a business.
It felt like a scary word to you because you hadn't had the luxury of a classroom. Being sold so early in your life meant that you weren't able to finish basic schooling. Only learning bits and pieces from the worn textbooks Madam Bi would buy you, in hopes that you may perhaps educate yourself. And boy were you determined. Every night, when you were little, you would turn on your flickering lamp, and learn to read and write in the quiet hours while the sounds of men and women’s laughter alike rang from the floors below. You tried your best to survive in the situation you were in.
You paused by a stall selling journals and ink, your fingers grazing the leather cover of a notebook. In order to start something, you needed to plan it out and a single notebook seemed like a good place to start.
But doubt creeped in.
What if I wasn't smart enough to do it? What if it fails?
Those thoughts gnawed in your head, but you knew that if you didn't do this, you would never be able to escape the life of a prostitute. And you wanted nothing more than to leave your current life behind. The need for independence outweighed the uncertainty for the future. You needed to become a role model for your siblings so that they too can escape poverty, no matter where they were.
You wondered what they were doing now, all these years later-
A loud horn of a car broke you out of your thoughts. The sky was starting to become dusky. Sp you quickly bought the leather notebook, thanking the sweet old uncle who had sold it to you and began walking the familiar path back to the kotha.
As the neon signs began to flicker to life, casting light reds and pinks over your skin, the dread of the house began to settle back into you.
When you stepped through the wooden doors, you saw that the other girls were beginning to dress, their voices rising in a cacophony of gossip and laughter.
Madam Bi was standing in the center of the room, scanning every woman who moved around, calculating their value by the glow of their skin or the slump of their shoulders.
And her gaze snapped towards you.
"Kahan thi tum itni dair tak?" her voice laced with worry. "Aur yeh itne saaray thailay? Market gayi thi?"
You felt a little prickle of sweat on your neck. You tried to shift the bags behind your back, trying to make it look as if you hadn't spent a bunch of money or that you had met a certain someone.
"Bas... zaroori saman lene gayi thi" you replied, avoiding her eyes. "Kuch cheezain chahiye thi."
Madam Bi narrowed her eyes to the way you were holding yourself, the nervousness spooling out of you.
"Saman lene gayi thi... ya kisi se milne?" Her voice dropped an octave. "Major sahab aaj aye thay kya?"
You froze. The mere mention of his name brought back the replay of your meeting earlier in the afternoon.
If she knew you had met him, if she knew he was still pursuing you, she would see you as a goldmine. She would push you back into those sheets. She would tell you that Major Iqbal was a man who gave girls like you “security” and that you were lucky to be his choice. But you knew that this “security” only dwindled down to more money for her pockets.
"Nahi" you said quickly, perhaps too quickly. "Nahi, main ne unhe nahi dekha. Main toh bas..."
Madam Bi stayed analyzing you. She looked at you for a long beat, sensing the hesitation. You thought she would demand the truth, that she would push for more, but she simply sighed and waved her hand dismissively.
"Theek hai, chalo, jao. Apna kam khatam karo" she muttered.
You didn't wait for a second invitation, you practically bolted up the stairs until you reached your room. You slammed the door shut and collapsed onto the bed, letting all the bags fall down. Taking a moment to let the exhaustion melt out of you. Then slowly you sprawled out on your stomach, a surge of excitement rushing through your veins like adrenaline. You wanted to start planning your so-called business.
You quickly grabbed your leather notebook from the bag and laid it open in front of you. You stared at the blank pages, the white paper mocking you with its emptiness. You had no ideas currently. But a word popped up in your head and you quickly jotted it down in the center of the page.
آزادی (Azadi - Freedom)
━ ◦ ❖ ◦━
Later That Night
You thought about the money Iqbal had left. It was a start, but a business, a real one, something that would let you walk away from this kotha forever, required more than just a few thousand rupees. You needed capital, a safety net.
A depressing thought dawned at you. To get that money, you couldn't rely on the same man because you didn't know if you'd ever let him back. But you needed a steady stream of income… which meant resorting back to a certain act.
Kya mujhe... phir se wahi karna hoga? you wondered, a shiver of disgust running down your spine.
The thought of another man’s touch, of the transactions that occurred in those rooms, made you want to scream. But the desperation was stronger. You wanted out, for a life where you weren't just bought by the hour.
You hated what you were about to do, but without thinking it through, you stood up. You didn't put on the heavy makeup or the silks the other girls wore. You just wrapped your dupatta tightly around you and walked downstairs. However, making sure you were hidden from everyone in the corner, your heart pounding. You quietly peaked in the common area, hoping to catch a client who might pay a premium for a "fresh" face.
It didn't take long.
A group of men, wealthy merchants and politicians, were lounging on the sofa and in the center was an older man with many gold rings glistening on his finger. He looked like he might pay generously for you. But hesitation was preventing you from taking those steps towards him. You needed to remind yourself what you were doing this for. So you took a deep breath and finally mustered enough courage to start walking to hi-
When suddenly, the old man’s loud laugh cut through the kotha.
The reality hit you fully.
What am I doing?
You were about to sell yourself. And even though you absolutely despised it, Major Iqbal’s words played in your head, making the idea of another man's touch feel repulsive to you.
No, I'm not putting myself through this again.
The rashness that had driven you downstairs vanished, instead sensibility rocked through you. You needed to find another way.
Without looking back, you turned and walked up the stairs again.
You didn't want to earn your money like that, especially not by selling yourself to other men. You wanted the money, but you couldn't stomach the price. As you locked your door, you collapsed against it, letting your head rest back, realizing that the path to freedom was paved with things you weren't sure you could survive.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
Day Later
The first delivery arrived the next morning.
You had planned to go downstairs to eat breakfast like usual, when you saw a small parcel sitting right outside your door.
It was a rectangular package, wrapped in plain brown paper. There was no name on the outside but there was a tiny card that was wrapped in the string, once you brought it closer to yourself you saw that it had your name written on it, in an elegant urdu script.
Who sen-?
You knew immediately who it was from, some part of you had known before you'd even untied the string.
Inside was a slim, secondhand book of Urdu poetry, its spine soft and cracked from other hands before yours.
Your first instinct was to throw it across the room.
You had promised yourself, walking home that day with your dupatta re-draped by his own hands, that you would not make this easy for him.
But when inspecting closer, you saw that it was actually a first edition copy of Ghalib. Your eyes widened, how did he get this. The original 19th century printings of his work was exceptionally rare, and there was quite literally no way to acquire them as an ordinary person…
Unless it was specifically requested by the most decorated officer in all of Pakistan.
You rolled your eyes. Of course.
When you opened the book, a note was tucked into the first page, the handwriting sharp and controlled, each letter pressed hard into the paper.
“Suna hai tumhein alfaaz se mohabbat hai”
You read it once, twice, then a third time, a feeling that felt too close to being moved ignited in your heart.
No-
You quickly told yourself it meant nothing, a book was just a book, putting it on the shelf without thought.
Hours later, you read it that same night anyway, by yourself, your lips moving soundlessly over the verses long after the light should have been switched off.
It was when you flipped a few pages, reading like the way you used to as a girl, when you noticed the handwriting.
Faint pencil markings lived in the margins of certain pages, an elegant, slanted Urdu script, pressed with the same hand that had written your note.
You slowly realized they were annotations.
Commentary. Small, private arguments he had with a dead poet, alone, in some dark hour you couldn't imagine him in.
Your breath caught. This was a book that, verse by verse, had the record of a man who had clearly sat with it for hours, turning each couplet over in his mind, refusing to accept any line at face value until he'd wrung some deeper meaning out of it for a certain girl who cherished poetry.
You turned the pages slower now reading all his little notes, until you reached a simple line of Ghalib's, one you recognized instantly, that every child in Lyari had heard someone recite at least once:
"Dil hi to hai, na sang-o-khisht, dard se bhar na aaye kyun"
(It's only a heart, not stone or brick, why shouldn't it fill with pain?)
Beneath it, in the margin, his script wrote:
"Dil ek kamzor cheez hai. Jitna zyada mehsoos karta hai, utna hi zyada tootne ke qareeb aata hai."
The heart is a fragile thing. The more it feels, the closer it moves to breaking.
You stared at the line for a long time, longer than you meant to. You understood exactly what he meant, why a man like him would read a line about a fragile, aching heart and see in it nothing but a liability waiting to be exploited.
But you didn't agree.
You found a pencil on your nightstand, and beneath his line, after crossing it through gently to mark it answered, you wrote something in your own smaller hand:
"Ya shayad, jitna zyada mehsoos karta hai, utna hi zyada zinda hota hai"
Or maybe, the more it feels, the more alive it becomes.
You didn't think much of it at the moment. It felt more than anything, like an argument you needed to win rather than a message you were sending.
But what you didn't realize was that in that small exchange, you had written yourself into a direct conversation with him. You had written the first real thing you'd ever said to the parts of him he kept locked furthest away, the parts nobody could ever have told you existed.
You were viewing the world through his lens, and you fought to show yours to him…
The second gift came the next morning: a beautiful watercolour set, the paints arranged in silver little pans, a handful of good brushes tied with string, and beside it, almost as an afterthought, a small set of acrylics too, as if he hadn't been entirely sure which you preferred. It was nothing like the dried, old set you were currently using. The note this time was longer.
"Dekhte hain tumhari zid kitni khoobsurat cheez bana sakti hai"
You stared at the paints for a long time, something uneasy turning over in your chest.
Why is he doing this?
The third gift came after. A wooden flower press, hand-carved, the joints fitted so precisely. You wondered whether his hands were the ones to create this before they reached yours. As usual, a small note was attached and you quickly flipped it over to read it.
"Us din bazaar mein tumhare haathon se phool gir gaye thay. Agli baar, jo bhi tumhare haath mein ho, wo hamesha ke liye tumhara rahe."
That day in the market, the flowers slipped from your hands. I want that whatever you hold next stays yours, forever.
You sat on the edge of your bed for a long time after reading that one, the wooden press balanced in your lap. The memory of how he'd knelt in the dirt of that alley to gather your scattered flowers without being asked suddenly replayed in your head. You let yourself feel the full unfairness of it: that a man capable of disappearing without a word was also capable of this. Of remembering a small, forgettable detail from one afternoon and turning it into something so specific, so achingly thoughtful, that it made your chest soft for a man you promised you wouldn't be for.
But one perplexing thought churned in your head.
All these items, all these things you love to do, you hadn't told him that.
You hadn't told him much of anything, not really, not in the nights you'd spent together, where words had mattered less than the acts that happened between you.
So how did he know?
The answer arrived on its own, when Madam Bi mentioned, completely without context, in the middle of discussing the price of onions, that a man had called the kotha a week ago asking polite questions about you. What you liked. What you used to do as a girl. What gives you joy.
Your spoon paused halfwsy to your mouuth.
"Kaunsa aadmi?" you asked, too casually.
Madam Bi just shrugged, unbothered. "Kisi General sahab ka aadmi tha, bola tha koi Farooq naam tha"
Your eyes slightly widened in recognition.
Major Iqbal’s right-hand man.
A scoff, fully unbidden, came out of you.
Of course he'd sent someone to dig on you, the same way he probably did for every operation in his professional life, gathering intelligence before making a move. It should have annoyed you so much more than it did yet it triggered a different feeling, a feeling you didn't have a clean name for….
He could have sent anything.
A man with his money, his position, could have buried you in gold bangles or maybe diamonds, the way other men in his position drowned their guilt in extravagance. He could have sent gifts that cost a fortune.
It would have been so easy for a man like him because it would have meant nothing at all. And you would have thrown every last piece of it back without second thought, and felt righteous doing it because it would've made forgiving him so much harder.
But he hadn't done that. He'd sent a poetry book full of his thoughts for you, a hand-carved press, tins of paint that a girl who grew up with nothing could actually hold without feeling like she was being bought all over again.
He'd learned you. Patiently, quietly, almost too well, well enough to know that the fastest way past your anger wasn't grandeur, it was thought. It was choosing, out of everything in the world he could give a woman, the exact small things that would make you feel seen rather than purchased.
He had known what would put you back together.
That thought horrified you.
Because throwing away a diamond was easy.
Throwing away a man who had clearly gone searching for the shape of you, piece by piece: that was going to take a great deal more than you currently had left in you.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
Madam Bi’s Kotha
A Few Days Later
Word travels strangely in a place like Lyari, it's like the way water finds every crack in a wall, until one day the whole structure is soaked through and nobody can say exactly when it started.
It began, as these things often do, with the child who had fatefully seen the both of you that afternoon.
He was running errands for his mother through the market that afternoon when he had frozen mid-step at the sight of Major Iqbal, a man mothers invoked to frighten children into behaving, standing close enough to a woman that their shoulders had nearly touched. Close enough that anyone watching would have understood, instantly, that whatever was happening between them was not suitable.
So it began, the rumours.
The boy harmlessly mentioned this to his mother, she then mentioned it to a neighbor while folding laundry, and the neighbor mentioned it to her husband, who repeated it to a friend over cards that night. Each version being tweaked slightly like the way people do when a story makes them feel like they know something worth knowing.
By the fourth telling, it was no longer the Major standing near a woman. It was him cornering you in an alley, refusing to let you leave.
By the seventh telling, you had a description: fair-skinned, kohl eyed, dressed in chiffon with a dupatta the color of cream. Someone recalled you'd been carrying flowers. Someone else recalled, with total confidence, that you were running away from him. Still your identity being concealed.
By the tenth telling, someone had located you..
Woh kotha wali ladki hai. Madam Bi ke ghar se.
That detail, once it entered the sea of gossip moved through Lyari like fire finding dry grass.
Major Iqbal: untouchable, unmarried, a man the entire city had never once seen him with a woman on his arm, not at a wedding, not at a function, was seen in broad daylight, in public, standing close enough to a prostitute that anyone with eyes could read exactly what it meant.
It was, by the standards of men who lived and died by reputation, a most outrageous scandal.
And scandals in Lyari, had a way of turning into opportunity.
Because if the Major Iqbal, a man who could have any woman in Karachi with a single phone call, had chosen you, specifically, then the men who heard the story didn't hear gossip, they heard an advertisement.
Kya khaas baat hai us ladki mein?
The question moved through the elite circles over cigars in private studies, in the back rooms of clubs where powerful men traded information and currency. Merchants who had never once considered visiting Madam Bi's kotha suddenly found themselves curious about it. Politicians who kept mistresses in secret already began asking casually over dinner, whether anyone knew which area you lived in, how you looked like, which girl you were at the kotha.
The unwanted attention you started to get without your knowledge was because of what you had become: a kind of prize. You were the woman good enough, rare enough, dangerous enough that even a man like Major Iqbal had apparently been unable to keep his hands off you in public. In a world built on status and reputation, that alone made you valuable. Men who wanted to prove something to themselves, that they too, could have what Major Iqbal wanted, began secretly making inquiries.
Madam Bi heard the rumors before you did, as usual, and immediately looked at you to ask what had happened that afternoon.
"Beti" she said, setting her teacup down with unusual care, "poora shehar tumhare baare mein baat kar raha hai."
Your stomach dropped.
You didn't yet know how far the rumor had traveled, or how many men were already asking after you by name of “Major Iqbal ki ladki”. Even across the city, in rooms you would never see, your face: one which nobody had actually seen clearly, was already becoming the victim of a hunger that had to do with what you represented now.
You only knew, sitting there under Madam Bi's disappointed gaze, that the peaceful, careful life you'd been trying to rebuild for yourself had just become considerably more dangerous because of one unguarded moment in a bazaar.
"Tumne mujhse jhoot bola" Madam Bi said final. "Maine poocha tha, Major sahab aaye thay kya. Tumne kaha nahi."
Your mouth went dry. "Madam Bi, main-"
"Chup." The word came sharp, more exhausted than angry. “Poora shehar jaanta hai ab. Aur jo log jaante hain, unme se kuch... kuch bohot khatarnak hain.
Fear soared through your heart.
Madam Bi really looked at you now "Ab har amir aadmi is shehar mein tumhara hissa lena shuru kar de ga, kyunki ek Major ne tumhein chuna tha"
"Main ye nahi chahti thi-” you said looking down, fully aware of the consequences now.
“Tumhe ab dehan rakhna hai” Madam Bi cut you off, her voice hardening…
ISI Headquarters
Major Iqbal sat behind his mahogany desk. He didn’t look at the man standing before him, his aide, Farooq who was currently sweating through his suit. Iqbal was focused on the flicker of his gold lighter in his palm. Click. Flick. Click. Flick
"Phir se bol" Iqbal commanded.
The officer cleared his throat, his voice trembling. "Sir... bazaar mein... jo hua tha, us din, log baat kar rahe hain, us larki ke bari mein”
Farooq kept his eyes somewhere just past Iqbal's shoulder, unwilling to meet his eyes directly. "Aur... khabar phail chuki hai ke woh Madam Bi ke kotha se hai, bade log bhi puchh rahe hain, kaun hai woh, kahan milegi-"
Iqbal’s thumb stopped moving.
He had heard the rumours circulating before anyone else did, after all his network was designed to catch whispers before they even became words. Yet each time he heard it, he couldn't believe that you were starting to get compromised.
He couldn't quite understand how the word had spread in the first place. The place had been abandoned, it shouldn't have been breached.
That moment in the bazaar, the flower petals scattering on the dirt, the way he had let his guard slip for a second, allowing himself to stand too close to breathe the scent of your skin, had all cost you something he didn't wish for.
His grip tightened on the lighter, a vein pulsing slightly in his temple. He didn't care about the gossip, he had burned cities to the ground without blinking, but the thought of you starting to become in danger, the vultures of Karachi circling you because he was seen with you in that alleyway, he hated the thought of it all.
He wanted to erase every rumour by making it clear that you didn't belong to the politicians, the wealthy merchants, or the men of Karachi or to the gossip.
You belonged to him.
Iqbal already started planning the next course of action.
Madam Bi’s Kotha
Men after men came by the kotha to ask for you, but of course nobody knew what you looked like. So Madam Bi, taking that to her advantage, always made excuses that you weren't here at the moment or maybe that you were unavailable with another client. She tried her best to keep you away from the lustful gazes of men who only wanted to taste you because Major Iqbal had.
But it was inevitable that the protection you were in wore off soon enough.
It was a night later, when the sound of a foreign, luxury car screeched right outside the kotha’s doors.
The man who stumbled in reeked of liquor, his kurta rumpled, a gold watch flashing loose on his wrist as he gestured wildly at the girls scattering out of his path. Madam Bi recognized him as the greedy politician of a small town, whose influence was as vast as his need for cruelty.
"Madam Bi!" he shouted, his voice slurring as he practically fell into the main hall, knocking over a vase with a careless sweep of his arm. "Kahan hai woh? Woh choti chidiya (bird) kahan hai jis ne Major ko deewana kardia hai?”
Madam Bi stepped forward, she wore the mask of professionalism despite the alarm in her eyes. "Sahab, aap bohot thakay hue lagte hain" her voice soothing, trying to guide him toward the plush seating area away from the stairs. "Aaiye, pehle aaram kijiye. Main aapke liye thanda paani mangwati hoon..."
"Paani nahi chahiye mujhe!" he spat, shoving himself away with a rough jerk. He began to pace the room, his eyes scanning the girls who had frozen in their tracks. "Kahan hai woh ladki?" he yelled, his words slurring into each other. "Mujhe Major ki ladki chaiye, abhi!”
He started pushing the furniture around him, causing ruckus around the kotha. Madam Bi tried her best to contain the mess of a situation they were in, but alas he wasn't stopping.
Upstairs, you had gone rigid at the sound of the commotion through the halls. You heard some of the girl’s voices, hushed and frightened, and the scrape of furniture as someone tried uselessly to block a door. Then Madam Bi's voice, tight with something you had never heard from her before, real fear.
Suddenly you heard the high pitch sound of a glass break. In a moment of naive concern, you rushed downstairs to see if Madam Bi was alright. Deep down you knew, walking down those stairs was a mistake, like a half-second of clarity that bestowed upon you.
As you descended the first few steps, the light of the chandelier caught the curves of your body, the softness of your eyes. The politician’s eyes immediately locked onto yours, and just as quickly his expression changed into an ugly hunger. He could tell you were the girl he was searching for by the way you were so protected.
"Toh yeh hai woh haseena... jisne poori Karachi ko pagal kar diya" he murmured. "Bilkul waisi jaisa bataya gaya tha." he said reverently, stepping toward you before you could retreat.
You recognized the type of man he was before you saw his face clearly. He was the kind of man that had never once been told no, dressed in expensive cloth and stinking of entitlement and arrogance.
"Sahab" Madam Bi tried again, her voice desperate now "woh abhi-"
He wasn't listening. Before you could react, he lunged. His hand, smelling of alcohol and old sweat, clamped around your bicep tightly. You gasped, your body jerking back, but he was too strong.
"Aao mere saath" he sneered, his breath a wall of stale liquor against your face. "Mujhe bhi woh jannat dikhao jo tum Major ko dikhati ho”
Terror took over all your senses. “Y- yeh aap kya karein hain, thora sa toh lehaas kar lein” you gasped, twisting against him, disgust clawing up your throat.
"Chup" he screamed, dragging you another step closer, his other hand coming up toward your face. "Major ne chakha hai toh mujhe bhi haq hai"
You began to thrash, your small frame shaking as you tried to wrench your arm free. "Madam Bi! Choriye!" you shouted.
Madam Bi rushed forward "Sahab, yeh ladki abhi tayyar nahi hai, usey choriye!"
"Hatt!" he yelled, shoving you violently against the couch to stay out of Madam Bi’s reach.
Around you, the girls had frozen all useless and terrified. Zoya's hand was pressed over her own mouth, another girl backing into the wall, all of them understanding that intervening meant risking a man wealthy enough to make you disappear if he wished to. This was not a man they could fight. This was a man whose money could bury complaints, silence police, erase consequences the way rich men in this city always had.
Madam Bi understood it too. And in the chaos, with your body still locked in a stranger's grip and no one in the room able to move against him, she did the only thing left.
She fled to the back office, hands shaking as she dialed the one number that could stop this.
When the line finally connected, her voice came out in a frantic rush. "Major Sahab... jaldi aaiye" she sobbed into the receiver "Y/N ko madat chaiye... ek mard aaya hai. Jaldi aaiye!"
….
At the other end of the line, the world stopped.
Iqbal didn't ask who. He didn't ask where. The mere mention of your name triggered a switch in him that bypassed all logic and went straight to violence.
Iqbal was already moving before Madam Bi finished the sentence, snatching his jacket off the back of his chair, his face turning into something Farooq had only seen a handful of times in his years of service. A look of fury. Iqbal decided with total clarity, that whatever else was on his mind no longer mattered until you were safe.
Iqbal quickly hung up the phone. He looked at Farooq, his eyes turning into two shards of obsidian.
"Gaari nikaalo" he commanded with a single finger.
The drive to the kotha was a blur of burning rubber. Iqbal’s jaw was locked, his mind running through every version of what he might walk into and hating all of them equally.
The kotha's doors swung open when he arrived.
The scene that met him stopped him dead in his tracks. The drunk man's hand was fisted in your hair, his mouth crushing against your chest as you twisted and fought against him, his other hand touching into your waist. You were sobbing, your eyes wide with tears. The girls were paralyzed around the edges of the room, Madam Bi's voice broken from shouting.
Your eyes found his over the man's shoulder.
Something in your face, the terror, the humiliation, a plea exuding out of you, undid the last thread of Major Iqbal’s control.
Instead of shouting or warning, he took a few steps forward. In a flash, his hand moved to his holster and with a sudden cock of his gun-
An explosion of light boomed.
The gunshot cracked through the room like the world splitting open. The bullet tore the politician right in the thigh.
The man screamed, releasing you instantly, crumpling sideways against the wall as blood bloomed dark through his kurta at the thigh, his hands scrabbling uselessly at the wound.
A flicker of blood had stained your kurti.
Every girl in the room shrieked in horror. You staggered back, gasping, your hands flying to your own mouth as tears broke loose all at once, your whole body shaking.
Iqbal crossed the room slowly, his boots thudding against the wood, and crouched beside the whimpering man without a shred of mercy, his eyes ice cold.
"Usko haath lagane ki himmat" he said low and even "acha faisla nahi tha."
The man sobbed something incomprehensible while clutching his thigh.
Iqbal stood up, not sparing him another glance, and turned to Farooq, who had already moved into position by the man. "Isay le ker jao" Iqbal gestured once with the gun still loose in his hand in absolute order. Farooq moved immediately, hauling the wounded man up by the collar and dragging him out through the doors.
Iqbal didn't acknowledge the man bleeding on the floor anymore. His eyes set on you.
But you didn't wait to see the rest.
The moment Iqbal’s gaze was on you, you quickly turned and fled for the stairs, your breath coming in torn, uneven sobs, your hands scrubbing furiously at your face as if you could wipe away everything that had just happened.
"Y/N…" Iqbal called out softly.
You didn't stop.
"Nahin" you gasped, not turning, your voice cracking apart. You reached your door upstairs and shoved through it, stumbling to the window, gripping the ledge like it was the only thing. Your shoulders were shaking with the force of everything you'd been holding since the market, since the alley, since the two weeks before that. And now this.
Major Iqbal went after you, taking the stairs two steps at a time and appeared in the doorway a moment later, breathing hard, his eyes finding your hunched body against the window light.
"Y/N.. Tum theek ho?"
You spun around so fast your dupatta slipped from your shoulder, your face streaked with hurt, grief and rage that had nowhere left to go except at him.
"Theek?" Your voice broke on the word. "Theek kaise hongi main? Apke wajah se!"
You grabbed the nearest thing your hand found, a book still on your nightstand and hurled it at him. But that didn't strike him and it fell open on the floor, the pressed flowers sliding loose from between its pages, drifting in the air like something moving in slow motion.
"Apne mujhe… apne mujhe poore shehar ke saamne beich diya!" Another object followed, a random bag, its contents scattering. "Har koi baat kar raha hai mere baare mein! Har amir aadmi sochta hai ke ab uska bhi haq hai"
"Y/N…."
"Nahin!" You grabbed a stack of books off the shelf, hurling them one after another, any object you found you threw but Iqbal let it happen, he knew you needed this. Your chest was heaving, tears streaming freely now. "Apko pata bhi hai kaisa lagta hai? Ke aapki wajah se main ab ek... ek cheez ban gayi hoon?" you screamed in rage.
“Jahan har koi mujhe chu sakta hai kyunki aapne mujhe chua tha!" Your voice cracked entirely on the last word, and you stood there, chest heaving, surrounded by the wreckage of everything you'd thrown.
"Main aapse nafrat karti hoon" you whispered, the fight suddenly draining out of you all at once, leaving only exhaustion in its place.
Iqbal stood perfectly still in the doorway, the gun long since holstered, his own chest tight with seeing what you had to go through.
"Humare beech ab kuch nahi raha" you screamed, the tears streaming down your face. "Kuch nahin…Ab bataiye mein kon hoon aapki?”
Iqbal took a few steps forward while closing the door behind him. “Tum meri humsafar ho”
He stood there in front of you and let you see, for the first time, what you meant to him. Why he came all this way for you. Why he would kill for you. Why he thought of you in the depths of his soul.
A part of you broke hearing that, humsafar meant a companion, a lifelong partner.
Does he really think that of me?
Your heart was protesting, an inner war churning inside you. One side of you wanted to forgive him, to forget about all this and walk into his arms again but another part of you wanted to hate him all your life, burn at the thought of him, to continue the everlasting flame in your soul.
Iqbal could sense the turmoil through your eyes, his eyebrows furrowed together seeing the fight you were battling with yourself.
"Mujhe maloom hai maine kya kiya" his voice a devastatingly low tone. "Main ek gunahgaar hoon. Tumhara dukh mehsoos kar sakta hoon. Mere haathon mein khoon hain magar mein kahbi tumhe khatra me nahi dalna chahta”
You shook your head slightly, the tears gliding down your cheeks. “Phir aap kyun nahi thay jab mujhe aapki zarurat thi” your voice cracking. “Itni nafrat kyun dal de mujh mein, Kyun!”
Iqbal took a step toward you. He stopped close enough that you could feel the heat coming off him, far enough that his hands stayed at his sides.
“Mein tumse door nahi reh sakta"
For a long moment he looked at you hard through his aviators, the way he had in the alley, when he was searching for something in your face.
Then, without a word he reached down, drew the gun from his holster, and held it out to you.
Your breath caught. "Yeh... yeh kya kar rahe hain?"
"Goli maar do" he said, his voice stripped "mere gunaah ho ke liye, meri maut tumhare haathon se mujhe pura kabool hai"
Your hands were shaking as he pressed the weapon into them, the metal cold and heavier than you expected. Your fingers closed around it. Your crying stalled for a second, breath stopped in your throat, your eyes red and wide, fixed on him like you couldn't understand what he was asking of you.
The gun was trembling in your hands.
He felt the hesitation from you, but he wanted you to decide.
He wrapped his hand around the barrel, and pushed the metal until it pressed flat against his forehead. His full height loomed over you, his dark eyes locked on yours without any fear in them as you looked up in them.
"Chala do" he said quietly.
Your breathing turned ragged, fast, your chest heaving with heartbreak. Your whole body trembling under the pressure of everything he'd cost you, everything he'd made you, everything you still, God help you, felt for him despite all of it.
He just held your gaze steady, waiting, the gun still digging into his forehead, giving you the choice he clearly believed you deserved to have over him, over everything he'd taken and given and taken again.
You didnt know what to do. The intensity of the moment was becoming too much for you. Your fingers had wrapped around the trigger, but it was impossible to decide whether you wanted to pull it or not. Your breathing was turning too heavy, too fast, your hand rocking like a leaf. Your brain churning a million thoughts all at once.
Immediately, you closed your eyes and shot….
You had wrenched the barrel sideways, away from him, and pulled, the bullet cracking into the wall behind him. You dropped the gun the instant it fired, your hands flying to your mouth, a sob tearing loose from deep in your chest.
Iqbal moved fast, catching the weapon and setting it aside without ever taking his eyes off you.
Then you were on him.
Your fists came up, hitting his chest, once, twice as hard as you could. Thrashing all your hands against him. All your raw, broken hurt pouring out through your hands because you didn't know where else to put it.
"Kaise chod sakte hein mujhe?" you sobbed, striking him again, your voice cracking apart with every word. "Kaise? Itna waqt laga diya!" You pounded your fists against him “Kyun? Kyun?"
He didn't flinch away from your hands. He let you hit him, let your grief land wherever it needed to, absorbing everything completely, without complaint.
And then his arms came around you, both of them, his full strength wrapping around your shoulders and pulling you flush against him, one hand splayed against your back, the other cradling the back of your head as your head nestled under his chin.
You broke completely then, sobbing and screaming into his chest, your fists uncurling to grip the front of his shirt, holding on like he was the only solid thing left standing in the wreckage of your life. You let everything out, all the pain and hurt. The scent of his neck overpowering you, his heat melting you in a puddle.
"Shhh" he whispered against your hair, letting you cry everything out into him that you'd been carrying alone. His hand caressing the back of your head.
He sighed softly before he spoke “Humari andheri zingadi main, tum hi ek sitara ho.”
Your breath caught at the word, sitara. He'd never called you that before. It went somewhere soft and unguarded in your chest, and you hated how badly you wanted to hear it again.
He held you like that for a long time, saying nothing else, his heartbeat slow and even beneath his uniform, the only proof either of you needed that, despite all of it, you both found each other again.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
Your face was pressed into his chest, letting his heartbeat slow your own, until, your sobbing eased into calm breaths.
His hand kept moving against the back of your head, slow like he had nowhere else in the world to be.
Slowly, you found yourself pulling back just enough to look up at him.
Your eyes were still glistening, all swollen and red, your lashes wet and clumped together, but there was something different in them now. A feeling that was waiting underneath the anger this whole time, so patient and afraid to be seen.
Iqbal looked down at you like something he couldn't quite believe was real, his hand coming up slowly to cradle the side of your face. His thumb brushed away a tear that had caught along your cheekbone.
"Maine bohot kuch khoya hai apni zindagi mein" he said quietly. "Log, waqt, cheezein jo khabi wapas nahi aatein. Lekin tumhein khona...yeh main kabhi hone nahi doonga."
Your chest started rising unevenly, touched by his words.
"Tum sirf ek raat nahi thi" he continued, his eyes never leaving yours, "na koi ek gism, na koi galti, tum meri sabse keemti (precious) cheez ban gaye ho”.
Something inside you simply gave way at that, a sudden pour of affection causing a small sob to choke you.
Seeing this, Iqbal leaned down slow, until his forehead came to rest against yours, his hand still cupping your face.
"Main tumhein nahi khona chahta" he whispered lightly "Kisi bhi hadd par."
You stood like that for a long time, foreheads pressed together, the whole room gone quiet except for your shared breaths. You could feel his heartbeat where your hand still rested against his chest, fast now, and you realized that he wasn't as unshakeable as the world believed, that you were the one thing capable of shaking him.
"Mujhe maaf kaar do" he whispered, caressing your face.
You should've still hated him, your mind should be scrambling for the anger that had felt so solid an hour ago.
But standing here, seeing the Major Iqbal at his most vulnerable, sharing an intimate moment with you in the dark. All the hatred, anger felt very far away. You couldn't believe that this man saw you as something precious, something he didn't want to lose ever. Your soul ached for this type of longing in the depths of your heart.
Your gaze burned into his, your eyesight at the tip of your eyebrows as you looked into the dark eyes of the most powerful man in the city who was at your whim.
You rose slowly onto your toes, your hand sliding up from his chest to curl against the back of his neck.
and kissed him.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
To be continued....
xx Nurya
btw i dont support relationships like these nor do i romanticize the real iqbal and his dynamics, pls stay away from men like that!
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