#hamza

[grendel-menz]

I’m making this post on the behalf of Hamza Al-Khalili, who is currently trying to raise money to help his family in Gaza.

I’ve been fundraising with the Al-Khalilis for almost a year now, and they’re very special people to me and a great family to support. His fundraiser is over half way there, which is fantastic!! I’d forever appreciate any help that goes their way.

FUNDRAISER.

[gehra-hua]

VAARI JAAVAN

pairing: hamza ali mazari x oc summary: based on this request word count: 4.5k+ words warnings: none except smut, mdni!!! a/n: this whole thing just feels half cooked to me lmao, maybe cuz it's mostly unedited, plus the last part feels so rushed. also help… i kept writing hamza as hazma😭😭😭 kahi galat ho toh bata dena please (hopefully no galtis)

disclaimer: this story is based on the actors' portrayal of the characters in the movie Dhurandhar, written and directed by Aditya Dhar. this isn't related to the actions of their real-life counterparts.

A sharp gust of chill wind accompanied the thudding of a pair of boots, slicing across the thick ambience of the room where Mahnoor was. The war had subsided into an eerie silence of the night now, broken only by a very distant, low hum of the factory generators. Mahnoor turned around, to face her accomplice, Hamza. Her gaze swept over him in quick assessment, he looked different now in the all black attire he had donned.

Mahnoor stood just next to the ornate, high-backed throne chair that once belonged to her bhai. The air around them still felt charged with the faint, lingering smell of cordite and gunpowder, clinging to the room like a ghost. Her eyes followed Hamza’s movements as he shrugged off his leather jacket onto a stack of guns kept in a corner in the room.

“Rehman is gone now. Aur Uzair bhi ab raaste mein nahi aane wala.” Mahnoor spoke out about her supposed brothers, trying to diffuse the suddenly growing thick tension in the room. Her hands crossed over her chest and her eyes darkened with resolve as she continued to speak. “Ab jaake mission start hua hai humara.”  

Hamza hummed in agreement from across the room, the low, grave sound making an involuntary shiver run down her spine. “Ab Lyari aur fir Karachi ki hukumat ka waqt aa gaya hai.” Hamza rasped, and then, with an almost deliberate slowness, he started to unbutton his shirt, then dropped it to the ground, letting the fabric pool around his feet. The fabric’s rustling sound vibrated loud in the otherwise silent room. Mahnoor’s gaze betrayed her for a moment and she overtly stared at his half naked body, the expanse of his bronzed skin, the map of silver scars stretching over those corded muscles and the dark, prominent trail of hair that travelled somewhere down to— “Chaho toh kareeb aa kar chuu sakti ho” Hamza said with a smirk plastered on his face, as he strolled towards her in slow strides, like a predator cornering its prey. “Bilkul bhi nahi!” She snapped. Her response was too quick, too frantic, like she was afraid he’d see through the walls she had built in between them to avoid having those filthy, amorous thoughts about him. “Aur ek minute… kapde utaarne ki kya zaroorat thi tumhe?” Mahnoor said, her tone grimacing, as she turned around to prevent herself from visibly swooning over his firm build.

Barely moments later, she felt the heat of his bare skin through the thin fabric of her kurti. His chest was a solid wall of heat against her back, as he snaked his arms around her waist, pulling her body flush against his. “Kab tak bahane maarogi, biwi?” he whispered in her ear, his breath a steady, hot flame against her face and neck. She shivered at the rasp in his voice and his hands tightened just a trifle on her waist.

Yes, they were married, it was a masterpiece of accidental irony, something that was nowhere in the plan of their mission and yet, it had happened all because their hushed whispers laden with venom were mistaken for love confessions. 

Mahnoor had infiltrated this foreign land when she was just twenty-two, posing as an orphaned, eighteen year old in Balochistan, where she had weaponized her fake passion for medicine to befriend Shirani’s grandson. She was the only girl among the other Baloch kids who were being sent to Karachi for that medical coaching under Rehman’s guidance. 

A perfectly well curated lie about getting harassed one night had been the final hook, as it forced Ulfat to demand Rehman to bring her home. It was only easier for her then onwards, as she didn’t just blend in into the family with her inescapable charm, she literally became akin to blood for them. A younger sister in Rehman’s eyes and a confidante for Ulfat, even the constant bickering with Faizal, Uzair and Naieem had stitched her deep into the family. And by the time she attained her medical degree, she had even become the gang’s personal doctor, patching up the men at the most random hours. 

But then came Hamza, into the gang as a result of the fallout in the wedding reception of Naieem’s friend, and her life became ten times more miserable due to the constant clash of ideas between them. What were arguments under gritted teeth and narrowed eyes between the two spies, seemed like murmurs of two lovers in Uzair’s eyes from a distance. And he relayed this information to Rehman, who thought binding his beloved sister to the most loyal Baloch lieutenant from his own gang in the bond of marriage was a masterstroke. 

Four months of being trapped in his kabootarkhana and sharing food and a bed with him, had definitely aroused unprecedented feelings in both of them, the accidental touches and lingering eye contacts sending sparks of electricity through them that were strong enough to blur the lines of professionalism in their minds, which seemed completely vanished today.  

“Dekha hai maine tumhari aankhon mein wahi sab kuch, jo mujhe tumhare liye mehsoos hota hai.” He murmured. His voice was a low vibration, dripping with smugness of having figured her out. Then, he pressed a deliberate kiss where her jaw and neck met. “K-kya bakwas kar rahe ho tum?” She fumbled with her words in the wake of his actions, her mind being thumped by the heavy, rhythmic bass of her own heartbeat. She was feeling absolutely caged in this situation and still made no attempts to break free from his grasp. The feeling of his big, warm hands squeezing her waist was rapidly clouding every rational thought of her mind. 

He turned her around in one swift movement, and her palms landed flat against the hard planes of his chest on instinct. She could feel his heartbeat beneath her fingertips, mirroring her own in intensity. He leaned over hers till their breaths mingled and their lips only a whisper apart, gazing into her eyes with an intensity that was piercing her soul. “Push me away…” His voice had dropped to a soft murmur now, almost like he was pleading her to not push him away. “Aur main vaada karta dubara kabhi itne paas nahi aaunga.” He knew the dangerous ground he was treading in doing this, but it was as if something was physically holding him back to not do this, which is why he offered her a final chance of exit, putting the responsibility of being professional onto her.

“You don’t have to do thi—” 

His voice was cut off in an instant when she reached up to crash her lips onto his in a rushed attempt to shut him up. Her fingers tangled violently in his tresses as his hands tightened on her waist, not wanting to let go of this moment. There was not even a sliver of gentleness in the kiss, it was just months of buried tension exploding onto them. They clashed teeth to teeth, tongues fighting for dominance in a hungry struggle, neither wanting to yield an inch of ground to the other. 

When they finally parted from the kiss, both of them gasping to inhale air, she shoved him in a sudden movement—a solid, hard force against his chest that sent him stumbling back onto the black chair behind him. At that moment, Hamza was sure that she did this out of spite, as a final rejection to his advances—or maybe she did it in ruefulness of the kiss they had shared, which was initiated by her—but then she did the unexpected.

She dropped down to her knees, occupying the space between his spread legs. Hamza’s breath hitched, his fingers digging into the leather armrests of the chair at the sight in front of his eyes. “Don’t you think this is a night to celebrate?” She asked with a mischievous glint sparkling in her eyes, replacing the nervousness from moments ago. Her hands were already reaching for the waistband of his pants. His eyes widened at her audacious actions but a surge of raw elation at the turn of events followed close behind. 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Hamza tried to confirm, his deep voice filling the space between them. Instead of answering him with words, she pulled the fabric down his beefy thighs, leaving him exposed in nothing but his boxers. The air between them grew thick in that moment, charged with the tension of their forbidden desires. “Very sure, Hamza.” Her voice was a low, honeyed drawl in his ears as she dragged a single fingernail along the covered taut muscles of his inner thigh, making him shiver in anticipation. Hamza threw his head back against the chair when she palmed his cock through the thin fabric in slow, teasing strokes.

Her lips curled upwards seeing his breathless state, before she peeled away the last piece of clothing from his body too, freeing his veined length from its confines. He was already glistening with arousal when she wrapped her fingers around his base, stroking him and then smearing the pre cum around his tip with her thumb, before she leaned forward to press a kiss there. Hamza’s restraint snapped at her actions and his hands fisted in her hair, gathering her wild curls in a makeshift ponytail. His grip was rather tight as he guided her face forward and her lips parted to take him, almost on instinct. 

He was entranced by the sight of her plump lips stretching around his girth as he pushed her head deeper onto him. He nudged her hands away from his cock, and they came to rest on his thigh, her nails sinking deep into his skin as he pushed in till he felt his tip touching the back of her throat and a muffled, gagging sound escaped her lips at that. He held her like that, unmoving, for a few moments, letting her feel the heavy weight of him against her tongue. She pressed her thighs together, heat pooling in her core, at the feeling of the fullness in her mouth.

She hollowed her cheeks in an attempt to suck him when Hamza started bobbing her head on his length, saliva pooling in her mouth. Her scalp burned under his harsh grip as he set a steady rhythm, pushing her down till his tip touched the end of her throat, holding her there for a hot moment before pulling her back. One of her hands moved on to fondle with his balls, squeezing and kneading them together, forcing out a guttural groan from his chest.

Mahnoor swirled her tongue around his tip, and licked the underside of his cock, feeling the veins and ridges on it. His hips bucked slightly at her maddening actions, and he pushed deeper into her mouth. She moaned at that movement, the sound reverberating through his whole being. She was now incessantly rubbing her thighs, desperately trying to find some relief from the ache through the friction between her skin and the fabric. 

Hamza pushed her deeper, till her nose brushed against his navel—and her hands moved to dig her nails in his thigh again, her eyes tearing up at the pressure in her throat. She looked at him, her eyes glassy and pleading, as drool ran down the corners of her lips. The room was heavy with the sounds of his jagged breathing and her choking gags around him each time he pushed himself all the way in her mouth. She tried to breathe through her nose but it was getting difficult with his ever increasing rough movements, his balls now slapping against her chin every other moment. 

She worked him up sloppily, spit glistening on her chin as he moved her head in faster movements, he was now fucking her face with deep, frantic thrusts. Lewd, wet sounds filled the quiet throne room with every downward push as she lapped him up with borderline sincerity. Her throat fluttered desperately around him when he pushed in really deep and then kept her unmoving for long moments and she barely had any time to catch her breath when he finally let her up, before he repeated the same thing, umpteen times.

He finally pulled away completely when he felt his cock twitch in her mouth, he didn’t want to release just yet, strings of saliva dangling in the space he just created between them.  A small whine escaped her throat, her jaw hung slack when he deprived her of the fullness he was so relentlessly pushing in mere moments ago. He took in her condition—eyes brimming with unshed tears, lips red and swollen, tears coating her cheeks, and chin covered in her own spit and his leaking pre-cum—she looked absolutely ruined and he loved seeing her like this. 

His fingers wrapped around her arms and he hauled her up with him, her chest slamming against his, and before she could do anything, his mouth was on hers. The kiss was a collision, the acrid taste of his last cigarette mixing with the lingering salty taste on her lips. He tilted her head back, his thumb bruising her jawline to keep her in place throughout the kiss. It was a sloppy, wet kiss as he strived to absolutely devour her mouth, drawing out the very air from her lungs.

It was all a blurry motion as he broke the kiss and then shoved her down onto the chair, his knee wedging her legs apart in the very next moment. Her eyes widened and she let out a shocked gasp when he clutched the fabric of her salwar and tore it off to shreds with a savage jerk as if it was parched paper, exposing her limbs to the dim light in the room, before he did the same with her kurti, only to find no bra underneath it. She moaned when he tugged hard on her nipples, delivering a slap to each of them before he shifted his focus. Hamza ran a finger along her damp, clothed core, making her shudder in anticipation before he hooked his fingers into the waistband of her last layer and snapped the elastic, baring her fully to his expectant gaze.

He kneeled in front of her, his face now level with her glistening heat. His eyes burned with a feral hunger as he did not waste even a single second to dive his face in, lapping her up as if her slick was the elixir of life itself. His tongue was a torture device for her as he alternated between giving a slow kiss to her clit and circling her entrance in deliberate, teasing motions, only to watch her unravel in desperation, as she tried to push his face deeper using her grip in his hair. When she tried to guide him into doing that for the third time, despite his resistance to her wishes, he wrenched himself away all together. A cocky smile embellished his face, when he looked at her—sprawled out for him, eyes pleading at him, her lower lip jutting out in an adorable pout and cheeks flushed with the heat surrounding them—he felt like he could have an orgasm just at the sight of that.

Without wasting any more time, he buried two of his long fingers knuckle deep inside her core. The striking contrast of the cold metal of his rings against her warmth made her keen out. He pumped his fingers fast and rough, his rings dragging along her slick walls too. He curled his fingers, stroking that spongy spot inside her that made her mind spin. Mahnoor held onto Hamza’s wrist that was moving against her, trying to drown in the pleasure he was rewarding her with. She was gushing around his thick fingers with every curl and thrust, her arousal dripping down his fingers and onto his palm now. 

He couldn’t hold himself back from latching onto her pearl, sucking it with filthy, noisy pulls that were filling the room. His tongue swiped against her folds to collect her leaking juices, and he groaned against her at the heady taste of it. The vibration against her core made her hips jerk violently, but his calloused hand pinned her down firmly, pressing her lower abdomen gently to keep her in place. The feeling of his fingers moving inside her, his beard scratching her thighs, the cool of his rings and the warmth of his mouth—it was all driving her crazy and she could feel that she was right on the periphery of her inevitable release. 

Mahnoor moaned his name out loud when he added another finger, and now she could truly feel the biting, hard edges of his rings rubbing against the burning heat of her core. His pumps gained speed as his tongue got busy in lapping up the fresh wetness in between her folds and flicking her bundle of nerves. Pleasure coiled deep in her core at his actions, her walls fluttering around his digits and she finally shattered, a sharp cry tearing from her throat in the moment as her thighs quivered with the intensity.

His eyes locked onto hers as he pulled out his fingers and licked them clean, releasing each with a wet pop. She was still reeling from the after effects of her violent release when he dived in again. His coarse beard was chafing at her delicate skin and his nose bumped against her swollen bud repeatedly, as his tongue tried to gather the remnants of her release in his mouth. Mahnoor’s hand flew to his hair, her fingers tangling desperately in his dark strands, tugging it hard, unsure whether she was trying to pull him closer or push him away from the overwhelming sensation. 

Her hips were grinding helplessly against his mouth as he devoured her. His beard was now coated in slick as she dripped down onto the leather beneath her. She was close, again. Her release was creeping up to her, she could feel the tingling sensation in her very bones. He brought his free hand to her core and pinched her clit, squeezing it between his thumb and index. That was all it needed for her body to convulse in pleasure once again, screaming as the sensations wrecked through her. Her thighs squeezed around his head almost involuntarily as he drew out her orgasm, licking off every last drop before he finally detached himself. 

She could only peek a glance at him—lips shiny and beard glistening with drops of her cum, eyes dark as the night at this moment, lips curled in a satisfied smile as he watched her struggle to catch her breath—before he flipped her over such that her upper body was now draped on the top part of the chair. The cool leather bit into the feverish heat of her skin as she let out a gasp at the sudden movement, her mind still hazed from her previous highs. The raw strength, the effortless way in which he tossed her around sent a fresh rush of heat through her body. 

One of his hands pinned her head down against the leather, his fingers tangled in her silken locks. Her breasts were smushed against the throne, nipples pebbling at the cold texture rubbing there, her hands holding onto its edge as her ass was canted high in the air, exposed to him. Hamza’s free hand found her waist, holding onto it as he lined up the thick head of his cock against her dripping entrance, dragging it across her weeping folds in an attempt to tease, and her patience was already fraying to a breaking point at the blatant goad in his actions. 

“Muhurat nikalwau tumhare liye?” Mahnoor’s voice an agitated rasp, making her husband tsk in the dark lilt of his voice, before he drove home in one brutal thrust. The air left her lungs in a sharp cry as her walls clenched at the sudden, stretching invasion that burned her with a stifling intensity. In a heartbeat, he withdrew until he was nearly all out, only to slam back in, setting a punishing and relentless rhythm that turned all her protests into heavy gasps.

The ancient frame of the throne creaked loudly under the force of Hamza’s resolute pace, when he yanked her back onto his cock with every savage, forward snap. Mahnoor could feel the weight of his possession in every fibre of her being as the position had left her utterly helpless, upper body pinned and ass up, taking every inch of him as he fucked her like he was claiming his throne and his queen at the same time. 

The room was filled with Mahnoor’s loud, uncontrolled moans each time skin slapped against skin, shooting sparks of pleasure in both their bodies. She let out a startled yelp when Hamza’s palm cracked on her rear, his rings leaving behind a scorching sensation, her muscles tensing instinctively as she clenched harder around his cock at that action, her fingers scrambling against the cool leather for purchase. 

“Fuckkk, you are so tight…” Hamza growled low, lost in the sensations of her warmth as he leaned over her back, crushing her beneath his heaviness and pushing her deeper into the leather, teeth grazing the curve of her shoulder before he bit down hard enough to leave indents on her skin. He picked up his pace, fucking her harder and faster, her moans now turning into desperate, broken sounds as she neared her third release of the night. 

Hamza’s grip on her tightened as he straightened up again, using the leverage to pound into her relentlessly, his balls slapping against her clit with every deep stroke. The cool air of the night did nothing to ease the burning heat between their bodies. She was absolutely lost in the feeling of his harsh thrusts wrecking through her whole body, when Hamza withdrew from her warmth completely. 

Mahnoor’s hazed mind barely registered the sudden emptiness before she was already being moved around with a raw strength. He lifted her up from her position and took his seat on the throne, immediately pulling her straight onto his lap to straddle him, her hands flew to his shoulders to hold them to regain any semblance of balance as her knees sank into the leather on either side of his thick thighs, her dripping core hovering just an inch above his throbbing cock.

His large hands came to grip her ass, fingers digging hard into her soft flesh and then he slammed her down onto his cock in an animalistic move. A sharp cry of his name tore from her throat as her nails dug deep into his skin, hard enough to draw blood. Hamza groaned at her wildness, and at the new angle he had found—he could feel how much more deeper he was this way, pressing right against her cervix.

He didn’t waste much time before he started bouncing her on his lap with unrelenting force, using his grip on her ass to lift and drop her onto his thick length over and over again. Her breasts bounced, nipples brushing against the firm planes of his chest, as her head fell backwards, slipping out broken moans with every downward thrust. He fucked her from below with absolute control over the pace.

Soon enough, he could feel the trembling of her body, and how her moans had turned louder and more frantic. “Hamza, I think—I think I am about to—” Mahnoor had gasped out between heavy breaths, her vision whitening around the sides as she teetered on the edge.

Hamza growled in disapproval. “Not yet!” He rasped in her ear, his one hand slid up to grip her jaw, forcing her glassy eyes to meet his, “Hold it in for me, Noor…”. He slowed down his movements manifold, now just dragging his cock in and out of her warmth in lazy, torturous strokes, making her feel every thick inch of him. She whimpered, her entire body squirming with the effort of holding back her release, as her head fell down onto his shoulder. Hamza was lost in the pleasure of her fluttering walls, pressing wet kisses on the curve of her clavicle, biting the skin there occasionally as his own orgasm inched up to him with every fleeting breath, his thrusts losing rhythm as a result of it.

“Hamza, please—” She sobbed, her hips pushing back against his thrusts, desperate to be reduced to nothing but a set of excited nerves, wanting to reach the other side of this tempting edge. Her fingers tangled in the dark threads of his mane, pulling at them with an unrestrained intensity that made him wince. His hips snapped up too, to meet every drop of her body, picking up the vigor with which skin slapped against skin. 

“Cum with me, baby.” Those four words rasped by her husband was enough to fade out the world beneath her eyelids. Her walls convulsed around him in a frantic, vice-like grip as her third orgasm of the night crashed through her in violent waves, her mouth wide open in a silent cry of pleasure, and he felt that it was the perfect moment to capture her lips in an ardent kiss. 

A low, feral growl left his throat and into her mouth as he pushed into her one final time, spilling hot pulses of his release inside her, filling her up as her walls clamped around him in an attempt to milk him completely, his vision blurring at the sensation, their bodies still absorbing the aftermath of their violent release.  

He released her lips with a soft pop, their foreheads still resting against each other, breaths mingling in this moment of hazy warmth. His fingers released her waist from the harsh grip and instead, came to wrap around her, holding her in a tender embrace, as her body limped against him like dead weight. 

Moments passed and they stayed like that, till Mahnoor decided to press a lingering peck on Hamza’s lips, a small and tired giggle escaping her lips right after. Hamza’s own lips curved upon hearing that soft sound, his chest rumbling with a chuckle as he pressed a deliberate kiss on her forehead. “Kaisa lag raha hai?” Hamza asked her, looking into her eyes almost lovingly.

A very sated yet mischievous smile graced her serene face. “I feel like we are four months too late.” She closed her eyes and pressed another kiss, to the tip of his nose this time.

taglist: @cloudmast @geometric-circle @cherryyelixir @tanipartner @rehmandakaitswife @ninnimouse @budugu @celestecelina @goldenharrysworld @goodnightkatherine @scentedwolfdragon @shadylovedhurandhar @avasif @mainyahaankyunhoon @pleasetagmejaaneman @obsessedwidskincare @roses-and-iron @royallysassysworld @poetry-beauty-love-writez @kitty-minnieee @veilofvalor @dumbassdictionarysds @mrgrungusthefrog @harrystyleskiwi9 @viapapaayaya @ai-manre @itstiaofficial @tere-naal-nachna @aaglagibastimainhumapnemastimain @desi-brownie @myvarya @sincerelyemmekay @gulaabjamun08 @legendmoonstone @chocolate-and-trouble @fictional2person @alelapulema @mandy4life

one more a/n: the og dialogue by hamza was "aap zara kentrol karein" and not "hold it in for me".... bahut mann tha mera and i had even written it, but fir mujhe laga ki smut ke beech zyada komedi karne ki zaroorat nahi hai😔✋🏻 hope y'all enjoyed this!!! like aur comment krow plij🤧🙏🏻

[afortoru]

Ik for sure hamza got them war flashbacks

[hamzaalimazari]

Insta video Edit Credit to 👉👉👉👉@pinkeeeponie (Insta I'd)

Found Family Core @sher-e-baloch bhaiyaaaaa 🫂🙇‍♂️🥺Thank you for loving me so much 🫶and for keeping me close to 🫵youuuuu🩵💙💜💚💛🤧🤧🤧🤧🤧🤧🤧

[hamzakamehroomkurta]

bengaliau Hamza headcannons♡

a/n: tried my best at the translations xx

tw: voyeurism, smut, dom! hamza, nsfw mdni <3

♤Is very protective of you, he never wants to lose sight of you, and always makes sure he has your location when you're out alone late,on his phone

♤biggest phuchka paglu☝️ downs phuchka r jol like its amrito(elixir)

♤takes you out to parar mela where there are beautiful colorful stalls, lined with pretty artsy jewellery, made of conch shells. He buys you your fav conch shell earrings. As your eyes glimmer on boho knick-knacks, he understands and keeps on tagging along,no matter if you decide on the very first one of the several thirty items you had selected.

♤has a thing for adventure, think hiking, or paddleboating, or even archery. Has a gun license, just for shits and giggles.(It's not for shits n giggles)

♤is into voyeurism, loves to bend you over when no one's looking as he thrusts into you, pulling out before coming, with his hair a pretty mess, while the beads of sweat paint his forehead.

♤loves wearing itr, as you once complimented his scent, musky and woody, yet so compelling, that he makes sure he has secured many bottles of it. He rubs it on his nape before fucking you, so that even Uzair knows as he reluctantly hands the gift Hamza had bought you,for his scent mingled with your jasmine and citrus one.

♤buys you alta, loves seeing your pretty red hands while you pump him in and out, as he groans back, with his hand into your scalp, yanking you.

♤prefers missionary, beacuse he wants to see your face as he fucks into you raw, whilst Kishore Kumar's Bheegi Bheegi Raaton Mein plays in the background.

♤Has a thing for belts on you, and buys you shona(gold) kamarbandhs, from P.C gold n Diamonds

♤"aaj raat e ektu haengla hote dao, shona" (tonight, let me be a bit greedy, my love) is what he tells you whenever you wear a saree, his hand never leaving the back of your blouse, his fingertips twitching to pull you closer to him, undoing said blouse r dori(strings of the blouse)

♤as you both chase climax, the nupur that he gifted you, reverberates loudly. You ask him to take it off the next day, when he says "keno, tomaye je ador korchi, sheta shunte pele ki paap hobe, pori?" (Why, if I make love to you, and people can hear if, is it really such a crime, my pretty fairy?)

♤very into politics, knows pretty much everything

♤Loves when you sink down on him slowly, taking every inch until your ass meets his thighs. The wet, filthy squelch of his cock sliding through the mess of four previous loads is fucking obscene. He loves to hold you by the gold of your kamarbandh, guiding you, as you straddle him, lazily. The bed creaks, the room reverberates with the risqué sounds of your lovemaking, and that precisely, gives Uzair time to check out the brand new noise cancelling headphones.

♤is not politically neutral, but prefers to stay so to avoid messing w Rehman borda

♤has an insane breeding kink, and therefore refuses to pull out, for he needs you to be painted in strings of his white cum, as you shudder from your own climax.

♤has several nicknames for you, but mostly uses "pori", which means fairy.

Tagsss:

@rosesandpeoniesthings @yearnerray @nevereversaygoodbye @gheekhatamhaibhai @gloriouspurpose01 @prahelika-fics @goldenharrysworld @miraclejin1204 @gehra-hua @catharsis-9 @thandicoffee @debsreads21 @inkaarnakarein @indigo-pdf @sparksfromhell @mainyahaankyunhoon @pleasetagmejaaneman @poetry-beauty-love-writez @whyishekinda @opheliasreblog

lmk if u wanna be tagged/untagged

[desigurlie]

Aitbaar | Betrayed

Tags : @hum-suffer @natures-marvel @geometric-circle @multifandom-boss-bitch @akshi-the-nirmata @helios1960 @ramayantika @tehmam @daydreams9 @sebbymybaby21 @mainyahaankyunhoon @dc-reign @charmie-pie @i-am-yourmom @1949sttropez @swang1rlll @rhysaka @rehmandakaitswife @nessa41890 @avatar-of-procrastination @harrystyleskiwi9 @berry-berry-starryberry @tojisloft @nooriyat @nerdreader @chaotickittydreamer @meavlin-io8 @sparksfromhell @prahelika @tere-naal-nachna @kidofmisfortune @doresthings @shotsyfeather @strawbxx-blog @tessa-bl @ulfatsrehman

A/N: It is an AU where Hamza is not an Indian spy and Rehman wasn't involved with the ISI and any terror attack. Okay, as evident from the word count this chapter is a beast. I am sorry I severely lack self control. You might wanna get three snacks, a water bottle and a blanket for this. Also if you did enjoy it please leave a comment. Literally anything would do, even an emoji. Ig asking for a few words are justified I'm writing a few thousand? Pretty please? Okay, go read now.

Word Count : 14.4k

Masterlist

| Part Three |

Disclaimer : This is based on Akshaye Khanna's portrayal of Rehman Dakait specifically in the movie, Dhurandhar and has nothing to do with the real Rehman Dakait who was a terrorist shitstain responsible for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. If there is an afterlife I sincerely hope he is being roasted on a grill.

The second shot had deafened Hamza.

The bullet had grazed past his own ear before hitting its target in front. One millimeter to the right and it would have taken half of the shell of his left ear along with it. 

He should have known Aslam wouldn’t follow the plan. 

He should have anticipated the level of hatred that had embittered the reassigned police chief would finally spill over and do irrevocable damage. 

He should have—

He should have told Rehman everything. 

But it was too late. 

The first gunshot might have been absorbed, the second one had been just too hard, too powerful. It didn’t have the hesitation of a man being torn in half by an unsolvable dilemma. It had the vile certainty of a sadistic creature who had built a major chunk of his life around revenge.

Or maybe the first bullet had sapped all of Rehman’s strength. 

The weight of the treachery had been so staggering that his spine had snapped in half. 

Hamza had felt the second shot inside his own chest. 

Had sensed the recoil which had made his br— his former boss crack back with a sickening force and drop to the ground with the projectile - like a marionette whose strings had been pulled taught before snapping mercilessly. 

A clean elastic break.

And the pain following the jerk had sucked in all the air inside his lungs. A near tornadic panic surging inside had drowned everything else. 

Hamza had heard about phantom pain - the mind conjuring up a physical ache for a wound that had long healed, or a missing limb that shouldn’t leave any sensation behind, or a sympathetic agony for a person you care for projecting into your own body. 

Technically some of it could be explained by his ribs cracking against the steering wheel of the car that he had rammed into the water pump just a few minutes before. 

But that had spread along his floating ribs, above his abdomen. He was well versed in that pain, having been winded enough times to gauge the pattern. 

This was different. 

A gut wrenching blood curdling agony which had speared his sternum in half as if his body had instinctually understood exactly where the second bullet had hit Rehman. 

Hamza ran towards him. 

His mind screaming, his chest constricted like a python had crushed him around the ribs and his vision almost turning white in muted terror. 

Rehman’s expression was petrifying in its unnerving glazed shock. 

The color of his face, a nauseating alabaster. His lips parted and bloody. 

Hamza opened his mouth but no words could materialize except what sounded suspiciously like a whimper. 

Rehman’s eyes wide and cloudy staring at seemingly nothing had focussed on his face next - a split second of that familiar sharp gaze but this time brimming with such a heartbreaking confused anguish that it made Hamza want to curl into a ball and cry. 

“Why…?”

One word. A monosyllable wracked with whispery ache. It hit Hamza like a fucking bullet to the chest. Like a fully loaded truck to the gut. 

Rehman Dakait was never supposed to sound like that…

The notorious gangster king of Lyari, who could terrorize a fucking monster from Hell if need be and now unravelled on the dirt, the insides of his chest spread all around them like a freaking pool of a clotted bloodied mess. 

It was an undeserved humiliation. If not a fucking tragedy. No one had the right to see this. And certainly not the man who has betrayed him. 

Hamza only sobbed in reply. The words had coagulated into a rock inside his throat. He wanted to tear them out. Wanted to explain. To justify. To beg and scream. But a clawed hand had encircled his nape and the pressure was immense. 

Hamza couldn’t speak. 

And then it happened. 

Rehman’s gaze stilled. 

His overbright eyes dried up like water on hot sand. The trembling shuddering raspy breaths stopped and his chest froze. The shift was immediate and brutal. Like a shroud being ripped from over a grave with force.

Hamza felt it deep inside his bones. Taking root like a venomous reality even as his mind fractured in denial. 

“No..”, his hands pushed down harder on Rehman’s chest but to no avail, “No! No no no…”, he almost jammed his fingers into the other man’s neck but there was no fluttering pulse, “No… please… no..”, he pressed down on his wounded chest like a madman and heard the rest of Rehman’s ribs shattering like dried hollow branches under his punishing strength. 

His skin, once always awash in an unnatural heat, almost like magma constantly boiling underneath that toughened scarred canvas, was now stretched barren and cooling rapidly. His hawk-like gaze was voided. Those unnerving obsidian orbs - almost a translucent muted steel. 

Death didn’t make Rehman Dakait look any less striking than life ever had. 

He was a macabre painting you couldn’t look away from. All that pulsating almost savage power running through his veins had grown into vines anchoring him to the ground. Like they would pull him under if disturbed even slightly. 

The crickets had stopped chirping, the birds usually orchestrating a cacophony in this time of the evening had also fallen silent. The leaves didn’t rustle. It felt like the breeze itself held its breath. 

The world had been rendered quiet, almost as if out of respect for the passing of a titan. 

“No no no no…”, it was a constant mantra on Hamza’s lips. But no amount of denial could change the truth. 

Rehman was dead. 

His… his brother… the one man who had made him feel the warmth of a hearth after what had felt like centuries of an icy blizzard… 

The long scarred fingers through his hair, comforting, present and weighted…

The playful cuffs to the back of his head, the tight grip on his shoulders, steadying him as he faltered, the gentle rubs on his back, the soft ruffling over his hair…

That muscled back - physically shorter than him yet felt like an impregnable towering wall in front, protecting him silently yet ferociously…

The dried press of those lips on his forehead that one balmy night years ago. 

An apology and a promise and a blessing. 

Gone into smoke. 

Vanished into the greedy blood soaked dust of the streets of Lyari. 

Leaving the shell behind. A physical evidence of the sword which had managed to defeat the invincible Rehman Dakait, finally. 

He has killed his father. 

Chaudhary Aslam’s laugh of pure relief amalgamated with a dark glee rang like ominous bells behind him. The silent forest floor reverberated with it. 

But Hamza couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.

Rehman would never know—

He died thinking Hamza had never, that he had always— 

An animalistic sound broke through, his throat almost shredding with the force of it, years of silent agony and the final blow which smashed his insides into smithereens. 

Hamza screamed. 

“Hamza! Wake up! Wake up please, honey. It’s a dream.. It’s just a dream…”

Yalina’s shouts broke Hamza from the vice grip of the nightmare which had him shuddering and crying out, tangled and sweaty on the sheets. 

He saw his wife looking at him fearfully through a curtain of misty tears which refused to fall or crawl back inside. 

“It was a nightmare..”, Yalina consoled again and stroked his back gently, “here, have some water.”

A glass tumbler appeared in his hands and Hamza finished it in three gulps. His throat had parched completely. The vestiges of the horror his fatigued brain had conjured up still lingered at the edges of his vision like shadows. 

The stale taste of grief had made a permanent place on his palette. 

“You were..crying in your sleep”, Yalina whispered gently, her tone soothing like she was trying to calm a spooked horse. 

Hamza blinked once and twice, adjusted his vision in the dark and felt his tears meander down the sticky trails left behind by previous ones. 

“Was it the same dream?”, his wife asked again. Infinitely soft, this time. As if the mere mention of it will set her husband off again. 

“Yes.”

He said finally. He could have lied. But he knew it would only make the situation worse. Yalina deserved the truth. Even if he still hadn’t explained anything to her. 

The woman was made of freaking iron. A pint sized girl and she had held herself with remarkable grace even as they had stumbled outside the hospital and then had gone straight to the Jamali residence. 

“The gang wouldn’t attack you here…”, she had said, tone arid yet eyes bright with tears. 

Wouldn’t. 

Not couldn’t. 

Hamza knew that Yalina knew well enough that the only reason he was still breathing was because Rehman had decreed so. If he changed his mind, it would only be a matter of hours. 

Jameel Jamali had first been terrified on seeing Hamza and Yalina on his foyer, immediately knowing that his game was up and then shocked into a shamed silence when his daughter had ripped him a new one. 

“You will give me an explanation when you will be able to tell me the whole truth. And I will not beg for it”, she had told Hamza, eyes harder than any twenty two year old’s should have to be. 

It had not been an ultimatum. It had been a mercy. 

Hamza had never been more in love with his wife than at that moment. Or more remorseful about his initial judgement of her being nothing more than a fanciful child. Yalina Mazari would not be fooled anymore. 

And not for long. 

Hamza was tired. 

Tired of the constant battles raging inside him. 

Tired of the incessant night terrors gripping his mind like a ruthless master.   

And the worst part was, he knew he deserved every bit of it. 

He would never be able to forget the look on Ulfat’s face that day. The way Uzair’s hands had shaken in wrath. The way Meher’s expression had crumbled. 

How could he?

The way Rehman had looked at him, pale and weak and standing like a king still, mutilated but not broken yet. Hanging by a single thread - his lips trembling once before straightening. His voice devoid of any inflection except that quiet authority. 

Hamza wished Rehman had ordered his execution then. 

As selfish as it was, he didn’t think he could survive this ache anymore. Live with the guilt and the secrets and the separation from the people who had kept him tethered to the ground for so long he has forgotten how to exist without it. 

It has been a month. 

And he was no closer to achieving his goal. 

He wanted to sleep peacefully again. Longed for that comfort which had slowly taken root as a habit before he could realise it. 

“He was going to give you everything anyway… you didn't have to break his heart too” 

Ulfat's words haunted him like a naked blade through his ribs. Invisible yet ever present and so excruciating it made breathing feel impossible. 

Hamza yearned for Rehman to look at him with that suppressed yet unmistakable affection again so desperately, wanted to be in his orbit so damned much, that it almost left him paralyzed with longing. 

But that was a fool’s dream. 

He had destroyed any chance of that from ever happening. 

All he could do now was suffer and try to rectify at least one of his many mistakes. 

Then he would lay it all out to his wife and pray that she still finds it within herself to forgive him. 

____________

The haveli was quiet.

Unnervingly so. 

The men stationed in and around changed positions and patterns frequently and with a scary precision yet their steps were inaudible. It was like the air itself had decided to maintain the sanctity of the sheer level of tragedy that had fallen on the people inhabiting it. 

They hadn’t been able to keep Rehman Dakait in the hospital for more than a week. 

“If I am not released this instant, I will throw myself from that window”, Rehman had declared, gritted teeth and with an expression so deadpanned that no one could have deciphered whether he was jesting or would actually follow through with his threat. 

Uzair Baloch, having lived most of his childhood and his entire adulthood with his older cousin knew him well enough to realise that despite his body needing rest, his brother’s soul was already hankering to get down to business. 

You cannot cage a predator for too long. The wild called to him like a siren song. And it must be answered or else he will turn mad. 

Rehman Dakait wasn’t built to lie still. Restlessness stewed in his blood even if he did possess the eerie skill of standing like a statue, devoid of even a split movement or a hint of an expression for as long as he wanted. 

That has terrified his enemies more than his uncontrollable rage ever has.

Ulfat had protested, obviously. 

“I need to work—”, Rehman had countered strongly. 

“You need to let your body heal before you start to abuse it again”, his wife had snapped. 

“I need to… go home”, Rehman had finally whispered, eyes glued to the ceiling so that he didn't have to see Ulfat’s face crumble in understanding or Uzair’s expression fall in realisation.

“For the record, I am signing this off AMA, and under a lot of duress”, their doctor had grumbled but had finally acquiesced to his cranky patient’s demands when his family had raised their hands in surrender. 

Home. 

The mansion had always been Rehman’s safe space. 

An oasis in the middle of a never ending desert ripped by sandstorms and bitter cold. 

It was built over a renovated hold haveli and was a patchwork of the lives of the people Rehman Baloch loved the most. 

The walls housed their pictures. The corners of the hallways lingered with laughter and warm teasing. The gardens, an eclectic mix of flora and groves. The rooms layered with personal belongings in a cheerful mix of modern and traditional styles. 

The wealth not displayed ostentatiously like one would assume. The quality bespoke of the rich and the elite but the visual was that of a loud slightly strange collection of people who had been bound together by the threads of belongingness and affection.  

A mosaic of a family brought together by blood and grief and choice and a will so strong that even destiny had to bow before them. 

Yet now, the same haveli stood like a gaping empty void to Rehman. 

A mausoleum of all his desires and dreams. 

A mockery of what he had carefully threaded and stitched with his own flesh and blood and tears and sweat. A punishment for his greed perhaps. A kick to his torn chest and reality slamming on his face with a jaw breaking force. 

‘What had you even thought, you delusional fool?’

His mind had whispered as he had hobbled down the silent corridors, leaning on the cane given to him, as he had adamantly refused a wheelchair, the scent of mogra and jasmines blowing from the gardens feeling stale and dank to him. 

But he didn’t have enough time to wallow in misery and self pity. 

Lyari had to be satiated. 

His enemies were plenty and waiting like vultures at the corners ready to strip off the skin of his carcass. His own men had started questioning his authority and more than that - maybe his sanity. 

The news of Hamza’s betrayal and Rehman Dakait’s uncharacteristic mercy had spread like wildfire in the bloodlusty streets of the town. 

There had been rumours of a dissent brewing in the air. 

Arshad Pappu had been waiting for his time to shine and even a hint of weakness would bring Rehman’s meticulously built empire down to dust. 

Uzair had managed to crush the internal dissent quite efficiently, if only in a way so brutal that it had chilled the streets for some weeks at least. The lieutenant of the Dakait gang and known as the Fist of the Balochs, Rehman’s little cousin had seemingly poured all his simmering wrath into the unfortunate heads of the emerging traitors and the dissenters. 

Lyari would talk about the very public very barbaric executions for a long time. 

But Uzair wasn’t their leader. Uzair wasn’t the man whose name made the heavyweights of Karachi’s underground nexus sit up straight. Uzair wasn’t the person whose mere reputation had made the ISI itself back off from their playground. 

Uzair can kill a hundred people in a hundred different ways, one more inhumanly savage than the other, he could play football with Arshad Pappu’s severed head all day long, but his presence alone wouldn’t make the jackals back off. 

They needed to see the face of the Devil again. 

They needed to realise that the Lion was wounded, not dead. 

And a wounded lion was far more dangerous than an unharmed one. 

So Rehman stood in front of Lyari again. 

Straight backed and wrapped in his preferred armour of a pitch black Balochi silk. His silver topped cane looked more like a weapon of mass destruction being casually wielded in one hand rather than being leaned on like a pillar of support. 

Almost like it was merely a fashion choice or more so a sceptre of unimaginable power. 

“Do not mistake a single moment of grace as weakness. The hand which has stayed can tear through your spine, rip out your intestines and strangle you with it.”

His words had rung ominous and deceptively cool in the quiet. 

His expression had been a mask of lethal calm, the canvas of healing yellow, green and purple bruises on his nearly cadaverous face and the dark shadows under his eyes had done nothing to curb the presence of the unmistakable strength still flowing through his broken body. 

Rehman Dakait was still fucking alive and could crush these puny insects under his boot if he so wished. 

Jameel Jamali had been another chip, Rehman had neatly buried in the dirt - with precise care which dotted every i and cut every t and with a vengeance so vicious that it would go down in the history books of Pakistan as the most maliciously petty thing that has ever been done in the name of revenge.  

It had taken a lot of favors and a lot of pulled strings and more than a few old blackmail files conjuring out of his enviously guarded coffers but the politician had been burnt effectively. 

Now he was just a figurehead. An empty puppet with no power, only the shine of his bucks left in a vault that could be snatched away with hilarious ease. 

Rehman didn’t get mad. 

He got mad and even. 

And Jameel Jamali’s political career was over. 

SP Chaudhary Aslam was a wild card and a man far more dangerous than a slimy politician. And at the moment, he had gone so deep underground that it was taking his boys a lot of time and effort to get a single news about the LTF and its leader. 

But Rehman could be infinitely patient when he was hunting. 

And he had nothing but time and a burning need to distract himself from the mammoth sized elephant in every room of his damned mind and his equally damned heart. 

Hamza…

His face was a ghost haunting Rehman every second of every day. He couldn’t stop his mind from replaying every single second of the time he had first seen that boy, soaked in Naieem’s blood all those years ago in that darkened corridor of the Lyari General Hospital. 

He couldn’t stop himself from dissecting every conversation, every expression, every single moment spent in the younger man’s vicinity. 

Where had he gone so wrong? What had he missed? 

Had he been so busy trying to weave clouds in the air that he had mistaken determination for devotion? Had he been so blinded by his older son’s grief, that he had mistaken reproach for regret? Had he been so consumed by the need for protecting another boy from making the same sins he had, that he had mistaken calculation for care?

A man of his experience didn’t make such a rookie mistake. 

Rehman had spent his entire life being surrounded by traitors and treacherous men masked as well wishers. He could sniff out betrayal better than a hunting hound can a rabbit in the grass or a snake in the water. 

He hadn’t climbed up the bleeding ladder of rags to riches by being a sentimental egotistical idiot needing his vanity to be fawned upon. 

Then where had he gone wrong?

Rehman Dakait didn’t make mistakes. 

Because if he did, then the impact of it would be of such great devastation that it would sink an entire syndicate alongside him. 

Did the weight of responsibility and the strangling grip of guilt and grief mess up his mind so much that he had completely missed the obvious signs?

Rehman was sitting at the steps of the foyer, looking at Donga and Hamza wrestling like a pair of playful bears while Uzair desperately tried to control his laughter long enough to referee the match somewhat.

His hands were busy carving the piece of wood into a delicate chariot he had seen in the marketplace this morning but he looked up frequently to track the match with steady eyes.

Faizal would like another piece to his slowly building wooden army.  

Donga yelled and threw his entire bodyweight into Hamza’s stomach, elbowing him on the ground in triumph. The younger man yelped but turned immediately and rolled up over the much bigger Donga and tried pushing him down on the chest. 

“Abbe behenchod, uss mote ko aise haraega?”, Uzair gasped through barking laughter as Donga kicked Hamza off his chest with hilarious ease. 

“Abbe haramkhor chup reh! Ek toh help nhi karta ulta gyan pel raha hain”, Hamza spat back, struggling to defend himself from Donga’s relentless attacks. 

Uzair just laughed harder and took a long drag from his cigarette. 

Rehman looked up for a second, slicing off an astonishingly miniature design on the wheel of the half done chariot and observed the roughhousing for exactly one minute. 

“Hamza, kick out his left leg from the knee, block the punch, use your body to pivot and use the angle to choke slam him. He will be disoriented enough for you to knee him in the gut and turn him over immediately and bend his arms to the back.”

Before Donga could say anything or Uzair could protest, Hamza had already started his assault. It took him five seconds to follow through Rehman’s instructions to perfection and Donga was rolling underneath Hamza on the ground, gasping for breath. 

“Bhai!”, Donga whined as he was released. 

Rehman raised an eyebrow. 

“You always do this! Take Hamza’s side. Every time!”, Donga grumbled while the man in question chuckled, throwing his mass of hair back almost mockingly. 

“Stop being childish Donga bhai. Rehman bhai always chooses the winning side!”

Hamza countered wickedly, his eyes glinting in delight as Rehman’s lips curled into a tiny smirk even as his focus was back on the wooden toy in his hands.

“Baccha hain Donga. Sikhne de…”, Rehman answered teasingly. 

“Baccha nhi gorilla hain che foot ka!”

Donga snarked and Hamza jumped upon him and both the men started rolling on the ground yet again. Rehman rolled his eyes and looked up for a moment as if begging the heavens for strength when he spotted Uzair looking at him thoughtfully. 

“What?”, he asked. 

Uzair dropped his cigarette and came and lounged on a step beneath his brother and leaned slightly towards him. 

“Waise galat nhi bola Donga ne. Aap hamesha Hamza ki hi side lete ho? Should I be jealous?”

Uzair’s words were playful but Rehman could detect just a faint almost negligible hint of insecurity in his voice. He felt a pang go through his heart. He kept the wooden chariot carefully on his lap and caught Uzair’s nape in one hand.

He squeezed it once and saw his cousin tilt further into his touch almost instinctively. 

Sometimes Rehman forgot Uzair was still his little brother who once used to hang from his back like a particularly clingy monkey and follow him around like a determined duckling. 

His fingers caught the slight curls of Uzair’s hair at the ends and wondered about the fragility of time and the strange bond between siblings and blood. And the sudden intrusion of strangers into fortified hearts that shouldn’t have been possible. 

But it had only been for a minute. 

He pulled Uzair back into him and pressed his nose on top of his head, fond exasperation running through his frame at the younger man’s startled yelp. 

Rehman was so busy reminiscing about the past that he hadn’t noticed when Hamza had appeared in front of him. He didn’t say anything but looked at him like a puppy waiting to be petted. 

Goddamn those eyes should come with a warning label of their own. 

Rehman sighed and moved his leg to give Hamza space and the latter immediately dropped down in front, elbowing Uzair who had almost fallen in a doze, his demeanor almost playful. 

“Hmpff! Move your ass, thickhead”, Uzair growled elbowing Hamza back. 

“You are taking too much space you giraffe!”, Hamza replied bitingly. 

Rehman shook his head and grabbed both their napes like they were particularly unruly cubs and squeezed slightly. They fell quiet and leaned back into him almost immediately. His hands seemingly having gotten a life of their own wandered through their hair absentmindedly. 

The evening sun was almost at the horizon. 

Donga had fallen asleep on the foyer like the unbelievable giant idiot that he was. 

“You remind me of Naieem and Faizal. Behaving like five year olds, the both of you—”

He had wanted to sound annoyed, maybe a little exasperated too, but his tone came out too soft, too damnably honest. 

Ulfat’s laughter rang like an angel’s call from behind him, coming from somewhere in the depths of the house. She had invited one of her friends for something, Rehman couldn’t remember what. 

Uzair and Hamza were quiet. 

Maybe they had realised that some truths are better left unchallenged. 

Rehman leaned against the cane heavily, suddenly feeling every year of his age. Maybe that had been a sign he had missed. Or rather, conveniently ignored. 

When had the young stranger from Kharodabad mapped his route directly into the core of his foundation?

When had he started thinking about the young baloch in the same lines as Naieem and Faizal and Uzair? 

Hamza had somehow bullied his way into his heart. Such a precise manipulation that it had been near invisible to Rehman till it had been too fucking late. 

The haveli laid painfully silent even as evening melted into night and the lights were switched on one by one. 

Rehman wished he could sleep for some time. 

His fucking chest hurt. 

Fucking SP and his fucking perfect aim. 

______________

Ulfat moved around the house like a spectre. 

Sometimes she thought she had invariably left some of her soul back in the places where her heart had been hammered into pieces. 

Buried under the ground with her older son, left in the hospital bed her husband had fought for his life viciously for hours, lingering in the empty hallway where she had lost yet another son - this time to betrayal. 

She still hadn’t been able to reconcile the fact that Hamza had joined hands with Aslam of all people. That brute who would murder any man or woman or child if they turn out to be Baloch. Such a virulent hatred that it made her sick. 

She still found herself looking for Hamza while laying out the dishes. Still almost called out his name when she thought about inviting Yalina. Still had half a thought about taking him when she would go to one of their orphanages, as the kids loved playing with him.

A few seconds of confusion and then reality would hit her with the force of a rifle shot to the sternum. 

It made her want to hit her own chest with a fist to dislodge the rock growing inside. 

Ulfat wanted to know, wanted so desperately to understand. Wanted this disaster to give her any kind of meaning, favourable or not. 

She had been ready to almost storm to Jamali’s mansion one night, her mind exhausted with the same circling thoughts. 

But then she had passed by her bedroom and had stopped. 

Rehman had been curled at one side, over the pillows she had laid out for him in the evening, face lax in sleep but fists curled into tension. His body was almost coiled into a defensive position like he was trying to protect his vulnerable torso even in his sleep. 

But the most heart breaking sight had to be the way one of his hands had been holding their son’s kurta in a grip. Faizal, somehow unnaturally aware of both his parents’ condition since the assasination attempt had let them smother him without protest. 

He was sitting on the bed, tucked against his father’s body, peacefully reading a schoolbook, unbothered about the way Rehman was holding onto him even in his sleep. 

As if even subconsciously, her husband’s body was terrified of letting their son go. 

What if he never returns? 

Ulfat had swallowed down a sob, curled her hand like a fist over her chest and rammed the burning yearning for the truth down with a ruthless force. 

She would have forgiven Hamza for breaking her heart. 

But she will never forgive him for breaking Rehman like this. 

The strongest man she has ever known, who had practically carried Lyari and her staggering violence and insatiable bloodlust for more than three decades with such a breezy aplomb, the man who had shielded her and their children and their family from innumerable dangers unfathomable - completely shattered into a phantom of a shell by one treacherous act. 

Ulfat had watched Rehman weather storms that would have finished lesser men. Had watched him lead and bleed for his men. Had watched him shape and nurture and protect that orphaned Baloch boy with such heartbreaking ferocity. 

Only for the man to turn back and rip off the hand that had fed him. 

Rehman was still that undefeated Bastard King for the world outside but inside their home, he was a man lingering like a shadow held together with duct tape and cheap glue. 

The sudden terror for Faizal had materialized like a hurricane inside him. He could barely let him out of sight for too long. He stared at walls and ceilings and through them with such a vacant gaze at times that it terrified her. 

One afternoon she had found him shaking slightly, seated on the armchair facing the garden. The sunshine fell on him gently, bringing the blooming scars on his face and neck in sharp painful contrast, Ulfat’s shawl wrapped around his bony shoulders. 

“Kya hua Rehman? You are shaking..”, she had touched his forehead with the back of her palm, concerned about a fever borne out of tiredness or worse - infection. 

Rehman had leaned into her touch weakly, and had closed his eyes. 

“I don’t know… I am feeling cold.”

She had wrapped her body gently around his trembling one and had sat through the entire afternoon, helplessly holding and watching her brilliant husband suffer with an indignity that should have never touched him. 

Rehman’s body had been slowly healing but his mind seemed far beyond reach. 

Somedays Ulfat wanted to shake him. 

“Please we need you! I need you! Wake up! Please!”, she wanted to yell at him till the light returned back into those obsidian pits. 

But she couldn’t be so selfish. 

Grief was not a linear line. 

Neither time nor wrath could temper it. 

She had to let it run its course and hold his pieces together meanwhile. 

Ulfat only hoped the man left standing after the tornado would still possess some semblance of the man she had loved so ardently for so long that it had almost become a part of her very being. 

No, Ulfat Baloch, the wife of Rehman Dakait, might never forgive Hamza Ali Mazari. 

But Ulfat, the mother, the woman who had pulled herself together after the death of a child, still cried silently for that poor lost boy who had looked at her with such a genuine grateful yearning that night when she had cooked him a simple meal out of love. 

“Kya kiya Hamza tumne.. Kyun kiya..”

If only someone would give her the answers to the questions she didn’t even know whether she truly wanted. 

________________________

“Maa, wake up! Please!”

Hamza snatched his sister off the ground and pressed a hand over her mouth tightly. The poor girl’s screams were muffled against his palm as the eleven year old ran out of the burning house, leaving the body of his dead mother behind. 

Straight into a hailstorm of bullets. 

He screamed and took cover behind an abandoned cart. 

“Please Rooh, keep quiet, they’ll hear you—”, Hamza begged his crying sister. 

But the child was too traumatized to even think about her own survival. There were men running helter skelter, rifles showering overhead in deafening roars, burning houses and screeching tires. 

“Pakad saale ko! Chodna nhi hain kisiko! Sabko maardo.. Haramzaade!”

Someone roared from behind him startling Hamza into dropping his hold over his sister and the girl took to her heels, desperate to get back to her dead mother. 

“Rooh nhi!”, he shouted but in vain. 

By the time he had reached her, her small body lay in a pool of blood, shredded through with rounds. Hamza tried to scream but his voice was lost. He opened his mouth, convulsed and kneeled beside his sister’s corpse.

No one seemed interested in him. 

Men were still firing relentlessly at each other. Not bothered about who got caught in the crossfire. Their faces grimy with soot and drenched in blood, eyes gleaming manically in sadistic glee and grins macabre in bloodlust. 

One meaty looking man came in front, a Kalashnikov held leisurely in one hand and spat on the corpse of a man lying a few feet away from Hamza. 

“Rehman Dakait sends his regards, asshole! Jahanumm ke chakkar kaat tu ab!”

Hamza’s eyes flashed. 

Rehman Dakait. 

He didn’t know who the man was. He didn’t even know if he had heard correctly. The men were still shooting like mad creatures. Destruction still rained unperturbed like hellfire above. 

But Hamza Mazari could just hear one name ringing in his ears like a continuous bell - 

Rehman Dakait.

“Where are you lost? Thinking about that night?”

Chaudhary Aslam’s hoarse voice broke Hamza’s trance with a jerk. He curled his fist tighter around the phone. Yalina was sleeping and Jameel and his wife had gone to some relative’s party. 

The house was empty. 

And so was Hamza. 

“You lied to me”, Hamza said evenly. There was laughter coming through the line. Anger simmered in his veins like a slowly broiling broth.

“The plan was to dismantle him, not kill him!”, he snarled. 

“That was your plan. Not mine. Not his”, Aslam spat back. 

“You have lost the plot, kid. You have come under that infamous Dakait spell. You let him get under your fucking skin”, the words rang with a truth so utterly repulsive that Hamza almost gagged on them. 

The former SP continued unhindered and on a roll now. 

“Did you forget how your mother and sister were killed? Honestly, I thought you of all people will be able to withstand the temptation. Did that whore open his legs for you t—”

Hamza’s mind snapped and he jumped off his chair in a single fluid move so inherently powerful that the seat upturned with an ear splitting crash. He didn’t know what came over him at the moment. Rage so virulent that he could almost sense his blood thundering up his brain. 

His vision had turned crimson. 

“Shut your fucking mouth or else I’ll tear your thrice damned tongue out you worthless piece of shit!”, he was gripping the mobile so hard that it felt like the shape would get permanently imprinted on his palm. 

He didn’t let Aslam continue. 

“Don’t ever call me again. We are fucking done”, he hissed and cut the call before a reply could come from the line. 

He threw the mobile on the sofa and clutched his head with both his hands. 

Wrath was a buzzing song still ringing in his ears. He could practically feel the smoke come out of his ears. 

He didn’t know whether he was doing the right thing anymore. He didn’t know what to think anymore. He just knew he couldn’t go through this again. 

He will rip Chaudhary Aslam’s face off if he ever sees him again. 

How dare he! How fucking dare he! That two faced poisonous foul mouthed—

“Hamza….”

Yalina. 

She was sleeping. He had completely forgotten about her. The sounds must have woken her up. 

Hamza looked up and saw his wife standing by the railing of the staircase. Her pretty face was a little pale as she gazed down on him - concern shining clearly in those sleep drunk eyes. 

“I’m sorry sweetheart. Did I wake you?”, he whispered tiredly. 

“Whom were you yelling at?”, Yalina walked down the stairs carefully. 

“No one of importance. Don’t worry”, Hamza murmured, pouring himself a glass of water. His mind was still screaming, gears turning so fast that one could almost see the sparks from the friction. 

“Hamza, you are scaring me again. Please tell me, you aren’t scheming anymore”, Yalina implored, her hands coming up to his shoulders. 

Hamza felt guilt surge up in a tidal wave. 

“No. No, I was just taking care of some loose ends. No more..scheming”, he could feel the truth of his own words settle into himself. 

He had schemed and plotted and connived for so long that he had forgotten how it felt to be finally free of the burden. 

The death of his mother and sister will always be a blight on his soul. A stabbing agony rotting a part of his heart. But the need for vengeance that had been burning his insides for fourteen long years had scorched itself into ash. 

And the bitterness of the detritus had coated his mouth. 

Can one pain cancel another? Or has it only compounded into each other till he didn’t know where one began and where it ended?

There was no peace waiting for him at the end of either path. 

Yalina was still looking at him cautiously hopeful. 

“Will you ever tell me why you did all this?”, she asked carefully. Hamza knew he wasn’t being fair to her. It wasn’t only him that was suffering because of his actions. She had been separated from the people who had come to be her family too. 

Hamza had seen her stare at Ulfat’s number on her phone for hours, terrified to contact the woman who had treated her like a daughter more than a de facto sister in law and yet longing to hear her voice again. 

She deserved to know the truth and he was being a fucking coward. 

How could he tell her that she had only been a pawn in his game for a long time? Of course that had been before he had fallen in love with the small fierce twenty two year old who could order around men three times her size and a hundred more in power and influence. 

He needed to tell her. 

Hamza caught her hands in his own and marvelled at the size difference for a few precious seconds. It can very well be that this is the last time he was allowed to hold her hand.

“I swear to you Yalina. I will tell you the truth. Give me just a little more time.”

Coward. 

Yalina’s face fell but she nodded still. Trusting and loyal as always. He pulled her into his arms and held her for a long time. 

Hamza needed to get out of SP Aslam and his benefactor’s shadow by hook or by crook. He knew that they wouldn't let him go so easily. He knew too much. And there are no loose ends left in this game. You cannot just retire from this. 

He had to be more cautious. 

The stark absence of the once prevalent protection that had always been wrapped around Hamza at one point in time, now felt like a mocking laugh of a very familiar cadence. 

Like they always say, you don’t feel what you have had until you lose it. 

And this loss felt like a jackhammer to Hamza’s still healing ribs. 

_______________________________

Rehman clicked his tongue in annoyance and struck off a number written on the margin of a ledger with a sharp flick of his pen. 

The evening air was cool and his office lights were a warm yellow falling on the papers covering most of the mahogany desk in front. There was a faint sound of the radio playing an old bollywood song, from somewhere deeper inside the haveli. 

A resounding thud on the table brought the undisputed king of Lyari’s attention back on the other occupant of the room. 

Naieem was face down on top of a book of an impressive width. One could probably crush someone’s skull with it. 

The eighteen year old was grumbling something muffled in the pages, his black wavy hair, a mass of ink on the white neatly handwritten pages. 

“A very effective method of absorption as I have ever heard, son”, Rehman rumbled almost a touch teasing. 

“Please. I swear, one of these days, either I will finish the semester or the semester will finish me”, Naieem whined. 

“What is the score?”, Rehman turned a page on his ledger, peering at his teenager from above his reading glasses. 

“Two for zero.”

“Well, seems to me like you are playing pretty good till now—”

“Well, I didn’t have calculus till now.”

Rehman chuckled deeply and Naieem finally dragged his head off his notebook. His cheek had the impression of a folded page embedded neatly in one fine line. It felt sacrilegious for such a mark even if temporary to exist on a face so flawless. 

Naieem had his mother’s complexion and his father’s eyes. Ulfat’s slightly playful, incredibly witty smile sat endearingly below Rehman’s aquiline nose beneath a mass of his crushed velvet curls falling atop his forehead. 

He had come into his office a few hours ago, books under his arms, grumbling about annoying little brothers and how the only quiet place in the entire damned house was Rehman’s study. 

The boy had been so quiet for so long, the only sounds existing of the fan moving atop their heads and the quiet rustling of papers turned and ink being scratched that Rehman had almost forgotten about the other’s presence. 

“Well kid. You know my side is pretty much empty on that sphere of life so you’ll get no help from here—”, Rehman said good naturedly. His schooling had stopped with the death of the man he had thought had been his father and conventional learning was not something he had had. 

Who had money and time to go to school when one is trying to not die of starvation and being caught in the crossfire between two warring mobs on the streets?

Naieem, surprisingly rolled his eyes resembling his mother so much in that one move, that it hit and curled up inside Rehman’s chest like something soft and warm. 

“Says the man who quotes Sun Tzu in the morning to his business partners in perfect Russian and waxes Ghalib to Ammi in the evenings, knows how to manipulate the entire power structure of Karachi by exploiting their own loopholes and can perform such complex calculations in his mind within minutes, that would take me an hour to detangle with a freaking calculator”, 

He was frowning into his lesson as he talked, unbothered by his own words in a way which just solidified how much he actually believed in them. 

“Don’t act modest, Baba. It doesn’t suit you.”

Rehman swallowed once and then chucked an eraser with perfect aim at his oldest’s forehead making the latter yelp in surprise. 

“Brat”, he said, affection curling like flames from a hearth, inside his gut. 

“And when did you hear me quoting Sun Tzu to my Russian partners?”

Naieem smiled at him wickedly, this time mirroring his own smirk near perfectly. It sat so wrong yet so right on that youthful handsome face. 

“I was bored and your office door was open.”

“So you were eavesdropping.”

“I was strategizing.”

Rehman barked a laugh, throwing his head back and accepted his defeat gracefully. 

Naieem was his golden child. Sharp with his words but careful with his cadence. He could read a room just as perfectly as him and could put anyone at ease with his words just as good as his mother. 

He was the best of them both in one unique package. 

Rehman would not let Lyari suck his child’s brilliance, his softness out. 

Even if he had to send him far away from this place. This place that had dried out all his own dreams and had taught him to hurt rather than heal. 

Naieem was interested in medicine. He wanted to help people. And he was so good with his words, his hands, his will and his wit. 

It was an irony so potent that it made Rehman want to hope, after a very long time. 

Maybe London would suit the kid nicely.

The light on top of the table flickered suddenly and Rehman’s thoughts broke with a shuddering violence. He could feel it in his bones. The impending doom and his ensuing damnation - so strong that it layered on top of him like raining ash. 

“Naieem—”, he started and then was rendered mute as his gaze fell on him. 

The nineteen year old was looking at him, lips twisted wryly in a rueful mirth. His usually amber complexion had turned a pasty ashen shade. The tips of his ears are blue with the onset of rigor mortis. His beige kurta had converted into a sky blue color, stained a dark viscous maroon in patches. 

Blood was steadily dripping from his nose and the corner of his lips. 

Rehman opened his mouth but the scream was strangled into silence in his throat. His legs shook violently as he stumbled off his chair and rounded the table to catch his son as he dropped off his own seat. 

“Oh God…oh God… wha…oh God no!”

Rehman whimpered, clutching the cold body to his chest even as his oldest’s eyes rolled over to his face, lips stilled in a rictus smile, bloody and terrifying. 

The events came rapidly to his mind with a petrifying clarity. 

The wedding party. The phone call. The mad dash to the hospital. Hamza’s shirt, sticking with dried blood. His heart cracking like an egg against cement, the morgue, the nauseating scent of formaldehyde. Uzair’s tears, Faizal’s small body shaking in his arms. Ulfat’s screams, tearing through him like a barrage of arrows. 

Naieem… Naieem.. Oh god, his baby. 

“Please.. Please… no..”, his tears fell on Naieem’s face as the latter’s fingers curled around his kurta in a weak grip. 

“It’s okay Baba”, his words were gun shots hitting his already shattered ribs. 

Naieem is dead. Buried under the dirt in a graveyard that was never built to hold him. 

This was a dream. 

A nightmare. 

Rehman’s mind was punishing him for trying to see his child once more, even if in his dreams. 

“Were you scared sweetheart? Did it hurt?”, he asked tremulously, stroking his matted hair off his forehead, wanting the answers as badly as a glutton for anguish would. 

“I am the Lion’s cub. Fear doesn’t graze by me”, Naieem replied peacefully, like the continuously bleeding wounds pooling around them and soaking into the study’s carpet, didn’t bother him at all. 

“But it hurt Baba. It hurt so damned much. I tried to… but it hurt”, his voice was confused more than anguished. 

Rehman sobbed and pressed his forehead on top of his bleeding son, cradled so tightly against his own body as if he was trying to meld them together. He was shaking so hard he was half certain he would rip himself apart in pieces. 

“My baby, my baby, forgive me. I should’ve been there… I should’ve been in your place. I should’ve protected you… God… please…”

The pain was so excruciating that it eclipsed any coherent thought. 

Naieem’s hand was on his father’s cheek the next moment, even as Rehman buried his face inside his eldest’s hair and cried like he had never before. Choking wails ripping out of his scarred chest, undignified and ugly. His pride was a tattered mess on the floor. 

“Don’t punish yourself, Abbu. Not for me… not for Hamza too.”

Rehman gasped and looked down, confusion peeking through the pain. 

Naieem was seven years old now, the wounds looking even more horrifying on his fragile frame. It felt like a hand had plunged into Rehman’s chest and was shredding through his heart with its great cursed phantom fingers. 

“Promise me!”, his voice back to that squeaky one which hadn’t broken yet.

Rehman shook his head, tears blurring his vision continuously, rocking with his blood stained boy crushed to his chest. 

“Please please…”, Rehman begged like he had never done before. Begged to all the Gods he knew of, to the Devil, to any one kind enough left in the universe. 

“Promise me ! Promise me!”, young Naieem kept repeating like a mantra. 

The room was closing in on him. The air, heavy with the scent of gunpowder. The blood was a blanket of a sickly cloying metallic drape. 

“Please…”, Naieem cried out forcefully and Rehman dropped his head on that tiny chest, exhaustion burrowing into his marrow like venom. 

“I’ll try…”, he choked through his tears somehow. 

Because he couldn’t lie. 

Not to Naieem. 

Not to this manifestation of his own punctured conscience. 

“It's okay Baba… it's going to be okay… one day… it will be okay…”

“No..”

The body was ash and Rehman was left kneeling on his office floor, holding air in his empty arms, his insides shifting to accommodate the gaping wound left in his soul like another mark against the board. 

Rehman woke up with a gasp. 

His lashes were stuck to one another with grit and crusted with tears. The trails of his grief were carved down his face as he struggled to breathe through the now very physical ache of his healing wounds. 

His body was a canvas of agony. 

The disorientation was probably the reason why he hadn’t been able to gauge his surroundings properly. The moonlight was filtering in through the sheer curtains as the heavy drapes had been pulled aside. The room was dark other than the silvery beams lighting the bed in a soft ember. 

Rehman found himself not on the pillows as he had previously thought, still half caught in the mire of the dream, but rather over his wife. 

Ulfat was curled around him protectively, a hand rubbing his back gently as he laid pulled over her soft chest. Her other hand was running through his sweat soaked hair with a tenderness which made him want to curl up into a ball and hide forever. 

“I woke you, meri jaan?”

His voice was a weak fractured rasp that he loathed with all his being. 

“You were calling out..his name”

Ulfat’s voice was breathy in a way Rehman knew only happened when she had been trying to cry silently. He closed his eyes as reproach burned down his insides immediately. He should have been more careful. 

“You could have woken me up”, he said quietly once he knew his voice wouldn’t waver. 

She hadn’t stopped rubbing his back, now in small consoling circles or threading her fingers through the hair falling on his forehead, somehow becoming even softer. It was like he was a spun cloud she was trying to handle without it vanishing into the mist. 

Rehman despised it. 

Not Ulfat. Never her. He would rather swallow a bullet. Or twenty. 

He despised this weak pathetic shell of a man that he had become. Unable to even sleep properly for one night without it turning into a fucking spectacle. And the way Ulfat moved like she was terrified he would break if her steps fell too hard on the ground made him want the earth to swallow him up. 

Shame and guilt was a dangerous concoction for a man of his stature. 

His pride was a mangled decaying thing, it seemed like his will was shattered as well. 

That simply won’t do. 

Not anymore. 

“Seemed like an important conversation. I was waiting for it to get over”, she responded tenderly, blissfully unaware of the hurricane of self hatred running through her husband. 

“I am sorry”, he said finally, the shame leaking through his whisper, despite best efforts. 

“Just how many times have you held me together when I have howled awake into the night? When did we start to keep a count? Am I not allowed to do it even once for you?”, Ulfat asked, her voice painfully tight. 

“No dearest, that is not what I meant. I just… you need to rest. I have not been my best, the past few weeks and I—”

“Rehman, this is your home. I am your wife. You almost died. And received a very painful shock. Your body is healing and your mind needs rest. Stop dwelling on your trivial nonsensical pride and focus on your recovery. You have held everyone upright for thirty years. Let them do it for you, this time.”

Ulfat always did have a way with words. 

Rehman could only surrender to her, as always. 

The only being in the world who could make the Lion of Chakkiwara, bow down to her with a single glance and a few words. 

She had always humbled him - his fierce no nonsense lioness. 

He let his body relax into her hold and felt the tension coiled in his muscles drift. Ulfat’s arms tightened around him for just a minute before she rolled them over, taking an inordinate amount of care to not accidentally hurt his injuries. 

His eyes were sore with all the unintentional crying and her lips were like a blessing over them. His lashes fluttered weakly against her mouth and she moved down the meandering paths left over by dried tears and traced the faded bruising on his jaw. 

He sighed, feeling her lips on the hollow of his throat and then a smattering of kisses down his chest. Her lips on the wounds on his sternum and his stomach felt like featherlight whispers. 

The bandages absorbed her tears and she traced her path upwards with the same devotion. 

Rehman turned his head and dropped a kiss on her nose and then held her face and pressed his dried lips on her forehead, feeling her hands tug the blankets over them. She turned and lay tucked beside him, arms and legs holding him down gently but cautiously. 

“I love you”

He didn’t say it enough. 

“I know”

Ulfat’s cheeky reply followed Rehman into a dreamless sleep like a guardian protecting his subconsciousness. 

_____________________

The encampments of the Baloch United Front were unnervingly quiet for this time in the afternoon. But then, after the sheer merriment that had followed the entry of the so monikered Sher-e-Baloch had most probably tired everyone out. 

Rehman Baloch had been like a powerhouse of vicarious charm wrapped in charcoal Balochi silk. 

His demeanor had dripped with the usual amount of a restrained vitality and that particularly irritating blanket of arrogance that it had been nigh impossible to think that this was the man who had almost died two months ago. 

He had even danced a little while entering the main camp set up for his visit, delighting everyone into loud cheers, immediately uplifting the mood and letting everyone know that their chosen messiah was still kicking. 

But, the leader of the BUF and one of the most insightful men Rehman had ever known - Shirani sahab had taken one look at him and those wizened eyes had caught his internal exhaustion at one precise go. 

He had herded him towards the throne and made him sit.

Making it look like he was hasting to put the turban on his head and get down to business but Rehman knew it for the small mercy that it had been. 

After a few hours of talks and reorienting their plans and goals and discussing future directives, everyone had dispersed for the moment. 

Rehman had wanted to talk to Uzair but his brother had vanished before he could call for him. 

Somehow he had been getting the distinct feeling that Uzair was avoiding him. It was a ridiculous and completely irrational thought but the way he had barely seen his cousin in these two months except for work and the way he had almost stopped speaking unless in monosyllables made something strange twist in Rehman’s chest. 

Uzair had been working like a maniac. 

And Rehman had been too preoccupied with his own mess to realise that. 

Of late he had been seeing the signs. 

And it pointed to a fast approaching collapse. 

Rehman knew it from personal experience. He had to talk his brother down from this futile effort to avoid his own feelings by burying himself in work before he explodes or worse, does something irrevocable. 

Yes, he knows how hypocritical he sounds, but he is older than Uzair so the latter can shut up and listen to him, thank you very much. 

A familiar sound turned Rehman’s head towards the source and he found himself standing in front of a small dargah. It was a makeshift tent, made for ablutions no doubt. A small haven for the Balochi frontline fighters to offer their prayers to their God. 

Rehman couldn’t remember the last time he had entered a mosque. 

His relationship with God was strained at best, non-existent at worst. 

He knew he didn’t belong here. To the pure white stretches of divinity. He didn’t care for begging to an invisible entity of unfathomable power who had never seen it fit to answer to any of Rehman’s pleas whenever he had found himself desperate enough to try. 

And those times had been rare at best. 

There had been only two times in his life that Rehman Dakait remembered pleading to a higher power for anything. 

Once when he had been locked up in prison and the inmates had found his too young body a good substitute for their perverted fantasies and treated it like a piece of meat. He had begged and begged for Allah to save him or just kill him. 

Nothing. 

Rehman had bought a knife in exchange for favors he still shuddered to think about and protected himself in the only way he knew. His reputation from the ensuing nearly barbaric murders had protected him after. 

The second time, he had prayed to the same cruel God, had been when he had been burying Naieem. 

Seeing his oldest’s body being placed inside that freshly dug grave, thinking about his baby trapped underneath the ground with suffocating darkness and maggots for company had had him begging to God to kill him too.

So that he can wrap himself over his son and lie with him in the grave, protect him in death in the way he hadn’t in life. 

Nothing still.  

What kind of a merciless God would let a father breathe after burying his child. 

The faint sound of prayers pervaded the air as Rehman sat on a rock, waiting. He didn’t know how long he had been sitting when he felt a presence beside him. 

Shirani sahab. 

“You are angry at Him.”

Rehman looked up and saw the BUF leader look at a distance, his gaze almost far reaching as if he could pinpoint an apparition haunting the makeshift mosque. 

“What right does a puny mortal have to be angry at Him”, Rehman scoffed and turned to look at his feet. The oppressive heat from before had cooled into something almost pleasant as evening fast approached. 

His wounds were a dull ache at the back of his mind. 

“You need to forgive yourself, Shera.”

The familiar nickname grated against old wounds flaring anew. Rehman remembered the time when he had been twenty and too choked full of ambition and a righteous rage towards the treatment of his kaum by people who had taken it upon themselves to teach people about what was right. 

When he had led charge into war, without learning the art of restraint, without realising the sheer level of destruction that the collateral damage itself can create. 

Years of experience had sharpened him as it had made him see the value of control over uncontained and directionless anger. 

“I don’t want forgiveness”, he replied evenly. 

Want, not need. The difference didn’t go unnoticed. 

“He accepts us all. His mercy is without reproach and without conditions”, Shirani continued unperturbed by Rehman’s increasing restlessness. 

“His mercy is a delusion and His forgiveness is reserved for good men. I can’t afford the first and I can’t change into the second.”

“You know a strange thing”, Shirani sat down beside his favourite pupil and looked at the setting sun, his eyes following the vermillion orb instead of observing the man beside. 

Rehman’s presence was a force in itself. It made people nervous. It made them sit up and take notice. He didn’t need anyone to wilfully look at him. People did it subconsciously. Turning towards a simmering volcano out of morbid attraction and definitive intimidation. 

But Shirani had seen the boy when he was twenty and angry and alone. 

He could see through the armour into the bleeding howling wounds. 

“We don’t forgive our parents as easily as we do our children. You can’t forgive Allah like you couldn’t forgive your mother. But He can easily forgive you like you have forgiven your son.”

The words fell like a landmine. 

Rehman whipped his head so fast that he almost gave himself whiplash.

“I didn’t… you— he is not my son. And I didn’t forgive him!”, he said defensively, astonishment curling into disbelief at the sheer ease with which Shirani had unfolded the situation. 

“Shera, lie to me all you want. But don’t lie to yourself. I have seen how you looked at the boy. And mercy at the hands of Rehman Dakait is an easy death not a banishment without even a single finger lifted. That was not charity. That was forgiveness.”

The silence in the air seemed to draw out all of Rehman’s indignation and his will to oppose in one brutal move. 

The truth laid so exposed and so violently in front of him felt like a kick to his still tender gut. 

Shirani had been mercilessly blunt with his words as usual. 

Rehman carried them with him like a gangrened limb dragged along instead of being amputated, long after he had left the swathes of the sandy desert behind, approaching the city lights and the so called safety of his territories. 

“You forgave the boy the moment that bullet hit you. The rest was just your mind finally catching up to your heart.”

______________________

The foyer of the mansion welcomed them with the quiet that had become their new normal these past few weeks. 

Rehman, having already decided to not let Uzair vanish back into his office or the warehouse or wherever he seemed to be spending his days presently was angling towards the latter the moment they had stepped out of the car. 

“I will check on the shipment—”, his cousin was already halfway across the gravel path towards his office when Rehman stopped him. 

“Uzair! Leave the shipment for tomorrow. Come, have dinner.”

“No, I.. I have to see the boys. They were hankering about some trouble down in the ports…”, Uzair protested, looking strangely desperate to escape. 

It only deepened Rehman’s growing concern. 

“Donga can manage that. I didn’t see you have lunch. Did you eat anything?”

“I…uhh”, his eyes darted to the right like it always did when he was about to lie. 

“Uzair, you need to slow down”, Rehman said finally, observing his cousin’s hackles rise immediately. 

There it was. The slow unraveling. 

“I am perfectly fine. You go have dinner. I will join you later.”

“That is what you said last night and the two nights preceding. What is wrong? You are behaving erratically. If the pressure is too much, I can—”

Whatever Rehman had been about to say was lost in the sudden shout which Uzair let out.

“I told you I am fine! Why can’t you get a simple fucking sentence? And there is no fucking pressure! I am perfectly capable of getting the fucking work done as I have been doing for fucking years!”

His words were so loud, it probably could have been heard from three streets over. 

Rehman had been so shocked by the suddenness and the sheer volume of the outburst and the way Uzair had moved so violently towards him that he had almost instinctively stepped back, forgetting about the steps he was standing on and had nearly stumbled. 

His men who had been looking everywhere but at them had been so alarmed that they had raised their guns at Uzair in shock more than in defense. 

Rehman Dakait didn’t stumble. 

Not even when there had been machine guns levelled at his chin by men thirty times stronger. 

And he certainly didn’t look like a deer caught in headlights.

Rehman’s completely uncharacteristic and frankly unbecoming stumbling had been what had brought Uzair back to earth, that manic glazed look in his eyes vanishing into startlement perhaps at his own outburst and then had suddenly transformed into utter mortification. 

He dropped to his knees immediately, shocking Rehman some more. 

There was an almost violent remorse and gut wrenching guilt curdling Uzair’s insides. 

He had never dared to even raise his voice at Rehman forget speaking with him in such a derogatory manner. Or charge at his still healing older brother like some demented idiot. 

“Bhai, I am sorry. Oh god, please forgive me, I don’t know what came over me, I… oh god—”

He was bending so low, his forehead almost touched the ground. Rehman was so shocked at the sequence of events that it took him a minute to understand what was happening. 

By then Uzair had taken to chanting continuous apologies, his voice getting more desperate and lower by the second. 

Rehman grabbed his little brother by his biceps and pulled him up with the beastly strength most people would think him incapable of and wrapped him up in his arms like he used to do when Uzair was just a boy woken up shaking after a nightmare. 

“Hush hush, it's okay laadle, shant ho jaa..”, he rubbed Uzair’s back in gentle circles as the latter clutched his brother’s black vest like a lifeline, still muttering relentless apologies against his neck, where he had buried his face.

Rehman had silently glared his men into retreating by the time Uzair was calm enough to speak coherently. 

“Bhai! I didn’t know what I was saying—”, he started again raspy but Rehman cut him off gently but firmly. 

“This is what happens when you don’t listen to me. You need to eat properly and sleep, you giant idiot. This is called a nervous breakdown. You have been overworking yourself.”

“I… didn’t realise..”

Rehman sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“Uzair, look at me—”, he forced his cousin to look into his eyes before continuing slowly but as clearly as he could so that his words were hammered into the latter’s brain, “ Hamza betraying us wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t because of your negligence or you missing something or you trusting him. It wasn’t your fault. Stop punishing yourself for it.”

By the way Uzair looked down, Rehman knew he had hit the nail right at the head. 

“He tricked us all. He tricked me. You couldn’t have known. It was inevitable and no one could have stopped this from happening. I need you to be your best Uzair, now that I am compromised, at least temporarily.”

Rehman knew giving Uzair some sort of responsibility would work better than insisting on a point he knew the latter wouldn't get so easily at this moment. His cousin straightened up like he did when he would be given any work of great importance. 

“And that would only happen if you let this go. Let it go. It’s over. We need to look ahead now. It's for the best.”

Uzair closed his eyes once and then nodded sharply as if bracing himself.

The sad part was Rehman didn’t know who he was trying to convince like this, Uzair or himself. Shirani sahab’s words refused to leave his mind. 

How could he have forgiven the man who had single handedly unravelled everyone in his family? 

How was it even possible? 

But the truth, unfortunately, had always been a rather bitter pill to swallow. 

And the truth was that Rehman Dakait didn’t let go. He didn’t forgive and most importantly, he didn’t forget. He couldn’t afford to. In his world, mercy and forgiveness were a liability. 

But seeing his little cousin, the man who has and can terrify anyone into doing his bidding, shaking at his feet had finally snapped his resolve. 

He had to move on. 

He had to forget. 

For the sake of his family, if nothing else. 

_________________________

Rehman had left Uzair sleeping in the latter’s room, refusing to leave till the younger Baloch had succumbed to his dreams lest the latter had decided to sneak away unnoticed the moment his brother’s back was turned. 

It reminded Rehman of olden times and younger days, watching over his rambunctious sibling sleep after a tiring day, terrified that he might stop breathing if he doesn’t watch over every rise and fall of his chest.

The clock in the hallway struck two in the night. 

Rehman sighed and tightened the shawl around his shoulders. 

There was one more person left who was worrying him quite a bit. 

Meher had wrestled away the responsibility of the household from Ulfat almost by force. She would not let her lift a finger and had directed Parveen, their manager for every little problem towards her. 

Not that she had stopped visiting her chamber. 

And that had been what worried Rehman. 

The girl was just as relentless as her husband in avoiding her emotions by burying herself in work. He had seen neither hide nor hair of his sister in law since the day they had brought him back from the hospital. 

She had fluffed his pillows, stared down at him sternly and informed him that she would pull out all his shady dealings and drag him to court for years if he aggravated his wounds by moving too much. 

It had been quite an effective threat in a way Rehman knew the mad girl would follow through with her promise and actually sue him. 

And God bless, he had enough skeletons in his cupboard for it to be dragged in public that too during election season. 

But then, he didn’t quite see Meher again after that evening. 

She would disappear before breakfast and arrive late at night. He hadn’t even seen her with Ulfat, when once she would always be found trailing behind her sister in law, playfully irritating her with strange demands at odd times of the day. 

But most importantly, he had not seen her with Uzair. 

Usually the pair would be quite the entertainment for the haveli, fighting like a pair of alley cats on a good day and pranking each other in increasingly dangerous innovative ways that usually ended up with the rest of them being the collateral damage, on a bad one. 

Rehman had been apprehensive of the day the two would bring the entire mansion down around their ears. 

But now, he hardly saw them at one place let alone go about their usual strange mating ritual. 

The car zooming in with that familiar reckless abandon had announced Meher Baloch’s entry before the guard stationed at the foyer could. 

Rehman observed his sister in law for some time, the way her hair was dishevelled, falling off from her usually neat yet elaborate updo, the lawyer’s coat stained with what appeared to be ink and coffee at the collar of one sleeve, a pair of stilettos dangling from one hand as she tiptoed barefoot inside the living room. 

She was holding her laptop and a couple of files in the crook of her elbow and was so engrossed in her phone that she yelped and almost fell over when Rehman spoke. 

“Ye koi time hain ghar aane kaa?”

“Khudaya! Bhai! Daraa diyaa aapne mujhe—”, she breathed, dropping her heels and pressing a hand to her fluttering chest. 

Rehman just raised a sharp eyebrow and waited patiently for the excuses. As expected, Meher looked away slightly, face darkening in embarrassment at being caught more than her behavior had been since the past few weeks. 

“I had a very convoluted case. So—”

“The murder case where the husband killed the wife’s lover, which everyone from here to Islamabad knew would get shut within hours? The one you won around”, he checked his watch, “twelve in the morning?”

Meher bit her lip and straightened nervously. 

“I had a few pro bono cases to work on and—”

“Meher, you haven’t come home for either lunch or dinner since the past two months. I have not even seen you eat breakfast. I hardly see you at home anymore. And is there a cold war going on between you and Uzair that no one has informed me about?”

Rehman knew he was backing the woman who used her words as razors for a living into the corner. Meher was not a woman who was easily intimidated. But he had to scrape open the scab if there had to be any healing done.

And he would rather, Meher burst upon someone who can take the fire instead of the poor souls who might be left bleeding in the aftermath. 

That would only make the girl feel more guilty when the haze clears. 

Because despite her acerbic nature and devil may care attitude, Meher Zarvari cared too damned much. She was much too like Rehman for comfort. It was a tragedy, if anything. 

“Its nothing like that. We are fine. And I have actual work to do instead of burying myself in useless backstreet gang fights and comparing dick sizes to boost my already overflowing testosterone!”

Meher was out of the breath by the end of it, cheeks flushed and eyes bright with frustration and fury. 

Rehman just waited patiently, inanimate and completely unperturbed at the outburst. The ticking of the clock was the only sound in the living room except the heaving exhales the young lawyer was giving out. 

“Shit”,

Meher pinched the bridge of her nose, regret flooding through her overcharged nerves once the rage had passed, just like Rehman had expected. 

“That was uncalled for. I am sorry, Bhaijaan. I was completely out of line—”, she whispered shamefully, eyes lowered, laptop and papers now lying on the seat in front. 

Rehman let the silence continue for a bit before approaching Meher carefully. 

The signs of exhaustion were clear on her body. 

The way there was a near permanent frown on that effervescent face, the lines growing at the corner of her lips, the overbright sheen of fatigue in her honey brown eyes, the slight tremble to her fingers pointed towards the undoubtable overconsumption of caffeine. 

Meher looked like an overstretched elastic band. 

A seemingly common look on all of them these days.

Even without the heels, Meher Baloch was a tall woman, but in front of Rehman, she always felt strangely small. 

“He has that effect on most people. It used to irritate the hell out of me when I was younger and kind of foolish”, Uzair had replied to his wife when asked, his reverence for his older brother painfully candid in his tone. 

Rehman lifted her lowered face with a finger under her chin and turned it from one side to another, oddly acute in his gentleness, almost like he was inspecting her. 

Some scars were easy to find once you look for them. 

Rehman sighed again. It seemed like the only thing he did nowadays. 

“How many times do I have to repeat this to all of you till it gets through your collective thick heads?”, Meher met his gaze startled. Rehman cupped her face in one calloused hand, frustrated yet fond.

“Baccha, you couldn’t have known. He was trained. Why don’t you all get it?”

“I am a lawyer! Finding lies is my job and I am supposed to be good at my job and I..just.. How the hell did I not see? It was right in front of me!”, Meher protested, voice thickening rapidly. 

“There is a difference between spotting lies and loopholes in court from clients and defendants and from specially trained operatives. He was planted. And if any person is to be blamed for this, it is me.”

“Kaisi baat kar rhe hain Bhai!”

“Sach keh raha hun. You might be a lawyer but I am fucking Rehman Dakait. My entire life has revolved around spotting traitors and betrayers. Yet, I brought him into the fold. Not only did I let him infiltrate the gang, but I also let him into my family, into this house, into all of your lives.”

Rehman dropped his hand and looked somewhere behind her, focussed at the distance now. 

“If any of you had ended up being the collateral damage in this, I would have never forgiven myself. In that way, I am glad it was only me, he targeted—”

Meher gripped his hand suddenly, tears blooming in her tired gaze finally. 

“What are you even saying! He could have killed—”, her voice broke and she swallowed hard, “you could’ve died and… and we wouldn’t have been any wiser. What…”

Rehman closed his eyes once. Hamza’s face came to his mind. His bloodstained face, eyes so undeniably agonized as he gazed at Rehman that day in the hospital, almost like he was begging him to understand something. 

But what? 

What had been the helplessness that made him—

“I didn’t want to kill you. I—”, his words were a never ending hell loop in Rehman’s mind. He forcefully banished them for the moment. He couldn’t let it torture him anymore. 

Some questions were better left unanswered. 

Rehman turned and cradled Meher’s now tear stained face with his hands. Her kajal and mascara had smudged under her eyes making his old heart twist inside his chest savagely.  

“Forget about it, Meher. Jo hona tha woh ho chuka. Ab aage dekho. Inn sawalon ka koi rok nhi hain. Iss raste bass dard hi milega”, he said with a conviction he had trained for years to be able to conjure, “Don’t let someone else’s action turn you into someone you will end up hating, for the rest of your life.”

“Mujhse, tujhe aur Uzair ko aise aur dekha nhi jaa rahaa.”

Meher held his wrists gently where his hands were still holding her face. 

“I cant believe I am saying this but I miss seeing you two fight. Go, put nair in his shampoo or something. Just climb out of this hellscape somehow.”

Meher burst into a suspiciously wet laughter and it immediately lightened her beautiful features considerably. 

“There she is…”

Rehman winked teasingly and pressed his lips gently on her forehead for a second before pushing her towards her and Uzair’s rooms. 

The night felt just a tad lighter or maybe that was just his heart trying to soften any upcoming blows. 

Rehman had stopped believing in destiny easing his way for anything, a long time ago.

And if next morning the haveli woke up to Uzair Baloch’s horrified shouts and Meher Zarvari’s answering cackles of pure evil glee, he only exchanged a mischievous look with Ulfat and sipped his morning tea, trying desperately not to accidentally start to hope. 

___________________________

It was a bright winter afternoon and Rehman had finally started to feel the tightness in his chest lessen. 

The pain was not gone. 

It probably never would but the Lion of Lyari would learn to live with it, like he had for so many other injuries, both visible and invisible. 

The wounds on his abdomen had started to scab over and he could eat solid foods again, so that was a plus. 

It would be too soon if he saw another broth or soup for the next hundred years. 

The bruises had almost faded and the scars were a silver crisscross, giving evidence to yet another war he has survived. 

The streets had been quiet and settled. 

It should have been the first indication of something brewing. Lyari is never quiet for too long.

Maybe Rehman had started to become too complacent. Somewhere along the long days spent languishing in burning fever and trying desperately to hold his crumbling family together, he had become distracted. 

“I swear Bhabi, that Javed Khanani looks at Bhai like he is a feast laid out on Eid. I was so concerned about my poor brother’s honor I was almost ready to jump in between them during the last meeting.”

Uzair chuckled wickedly from where he was perched on his wife’s chair, throwing an orange up and catching it back in his hand like it was a ball. 

Ulfat cocked a delicately arched eyebrow while pouring pomegranate juice in Meher’s glass from the crystal decanter kept on the table. 

“Should I feel threatened, husband?”

Rehman who had been leaning back on his patio chair, eyes closed, basking in the afternoon sun like a lumbering lion after a good hunt, opened one eye teasingly and looked at his wife, suppressed amusement coating his words. 

“I can’t switch this off, Begum”, he pointed at himself with flourish, “but I think it is time to diversify, don’t you?”, his eyes twinkled maniacally. 

“Does that mean I can finally ask out that pretty boutique owner who keeps staring at me when I go for my measurements? She definitely flirts with me every time I visit her store”, Ulfat asked cheekily, earning a lascivious smirk from her husband. 

“Oh my God! You two are shameless. We are right here! I am traumatized now”, Uzair lamented mournfully, one hand over his eyes theatrically and almost dropped on Meher who was busy giggling into her juice. 

“You started it honey, now don’t start clutching your pearls like a prude. It is the twenty-first century after all”, the young lawyer replied sagely, making Ulfat and Rehman chuckle simultaneously. 

Uzair was still waxing lyrical about his sensitive sensibilities being ruthlessly attacked when it happened. 

Donga and Basheer were storming towards them, faces clouded in an apprehension so stark that it made Rehman sit up immediately and Uzair jump in front of him by sheer reflex. 

“Donga! Kya hua?”, Uzair barked before the other man could even reach them properly. 

“Bhai woh, yeh.. Maine koshish ki rokne ki.. Par mujhe samajh nhi aaya, kya karna chahiye—”

“What are you blabbering you idiot?”, Uzair snapped and the two men shifted apart nervously. 

“Yalina?”

Ulfat rose from her chair, eyes wide in surprise and concern as it was indeed the daughter of Jameel Jamali who stood in front of them, trembling like a leaf stuck in a thunderstorm. A woman who had chosen to walk with her husband and thus had been unofficially banished from the gang’s territories as well. 

At least that was what everyone had known and believed. 

What made Rehman immediately jump up from his seat and come right in front of the young woman, despite his cousin’s vehement protests, were the blood stains covering her yellow anarkali like a macabre Jackson Pollock painting. 

“Yalina, are you injured? Do you need a doctor?”

Rehman barked impatiently, eyes roving over the shaking form, unconcerned about her unprecedented presence at the moment, as worry for the trembling girl eclipsed everything else. 

“Bhai woh…”, she choked, then stumbled and fell on the ground on her knees, she clutched Rehman’s feet desperately and started crying. 

“Bhai.. please please.. They took him! They took him and.. I don’t know what to do…please do something, I beg you..”, her words were near incoherent with sobs. 

Rehman had jerked back in shock at the completely unexpected move. He tried picking her up, but she was adamant and her grip was borne out of a desperation which not even his monstrous strength could counter. 

Rehman Dakait has had a lot of people fall to his feet and cry for mercy, for help, for forgiveness throughout his life but never had it hurt him so viciously before. 

Seeing such a headstrong and fierce girl, the girl he had started to think of like his own God forbid, Ulfat and her ability to adopt strays like anything, to see her reduced to such a state - it was unbearable. 

“Beta, utho utho.. Kya kar rhi hon..”, Rehman finally managed to rip her off his feet and started rubbing her arms worriedly. 

Ulfat, having snapped out of her daze, was beside them on the grass, immediately. Her motherly instinct, surpassing any thought of past betrayals like smoke misting in the air. 

“Yalina, sweetheart, breathe first. And talk slowly, here have some water”, she force fed the girl water from a tumbler stroking her hair and her back alternatively. 

“Now tell me, who took whom?”, Rehman asked, when she had calmed down somewhat. 

“Hamza… they are going to kill him, Rehman Bhai! Oh God…please help me!”, she started sobbing yet again. 

Uzair who was looking down at them shocked into silence jerked sharply. Rehman could feel his men shifting in the background. But his mind had frozen. 

There should be a million calculations to go through before saying anything right now. 

But he couldn’t think. He couldn’t even breathe. His mind was a blank canvas. All he could think was about the blood on Yalina’s clothes. The way she was trembling. Her words quavering like a mocking laughter of a man he somehow already could guess, pulled him in a quagmire. 

Panic. 

He knew the feeling. 

Panic so profound that it sharpened all his senses into his legendary single minded razor focus. The bird’s eye view of the target. 

And he had a very good idea of who had taken Hamza, even if he did ask Yalina to cement his assumptions. 

“Who took him, Yalina?”

His words were hard, this time. 

Yalina looked at him once, face crumpled and tear stained, hair stuck to her forehead painting a picture of misery so acute it should have unravelled anyone. 

“SP Aslam.”

Fucking shit, sometimes Rehman hated being right—

To be continued.

[glitchy-head]

So freaking fine is his half up do 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼