Life Sentence

CHAPTER 20

Yusuf pushed Saad off himself, having had enough of letting him do what he wanted. Sure, he’d make a huge mistake. But he was the sinner of Kubra. He’d take any shit from her, but others coming up at him when he was here to warn them about something they ought to know, without even asking why he was here was getting over his nerves.

Yusuf never was a patient man, unlike Saad, and he especially didn’t have much tolerance for people throwing him at walls, even when he deserved it. Oh yes, he accepted that he deserved it, but that didn’t mean he would take shit from everyone. Not even from the person who had been more than a brother to him his whole life.

“Enough, Saad! You should really start asking people what they are doing at your home before you disrespect them.” Yusuf adjusted his collars and stepped away from the seething man who he was sure would soon jump his bones again.

“If you had respect for yourself, you wouldn’t keep popping into places you’re not welcome in,” Huma sneered at him. He hadn’t expected anything else. He was sure that if she didn’t have the warning restraints of her father and brother, she would remove his guts from his body, hang them to dry on a hook and make him watch, the judiciary be damned.

“You keep out of this, Huma,” he’d expected this too, to be honest. Shams Mirza rarely let Huma talk when he was there to have a better word. He watched as the tips of Huma’s ears turned red. Being friendly with the Mirzas all his life, it wasn’t something new.

Even knowing she didn’t want him to and he was angering Saad more, he couldn’t help but let his eyes seek the only black ones in the room. Kubra was uncharacteristically quiet (But what did he know of her character anymore), though she was still looking at him, her stance more cautious than he had ever seen it.

Saad pushed his shoulder, forcing him to keep his eyes off her. “Just bark what the hell you wanted and scurry off from here!”

“I needed to warn you guys about something.” He dared to take a step towards Kubra. “I needed to warn you.”

He watched her swallow and once again was reminded just how much of her personality he had changed. The Kubra before was never scared of anything. “H- How did you know where I was? Are you following me?”

“No.” Not since last week, was what he did not say, because he had other things on hand.

“I didn’t take you for a liar, Yusuf. I saw you outside Fatima’s clinic.”

“I didn’t mean to-”

“What do you hope to achieve from your tricks, Yusuf?”

“Courage to beg for your forgiveness.” He knew that there wasn’t hope for any forgiveness, but he couldn’t keep on pretending that it wasn’t an empty space in his soul where he had ripped her out himself.

She snickered, and probably the way she wasn’t breaking down at this moment was why the siblings weren’t throwing him out of here. “Where did you even get the nerve to say that, Yusuf?” He didn’t even know what he was going to say when he opened his mouth to speak but Kubra didn’t give him the chance. “Just deliver your warning.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, the heating systems of the house providing no warmth against the chill that spread over her seeing those blue eyes shutting in every emotion and displaying the icy cold exterior that he’d used when she’d begged him to believe her. The memories lingered close, threatening to take her under at the slightest chink in the false armor.

Yusuf put his hands in his pockets and took a step back. “Jamal Bajwa is going to be released on bail.”

Kubra gasped. Saad stilled. Huma gave word to what they both wanted to confirm. “What the fuck? How is that even possible?”