with you | tere saath

chapter 1: mateo

A/N: ahhhhh we are so back! i've missed writing and it's been soooo long since i've had the chance to properly sit down and write, so it feels so good to upload a chapter or a story for the first time in like 2 years maybe. first year of uni has been hectic so i'm excited to begin uploading regularly again!

oh! just a little note: there is a mix of both urdu and italian in the chapter (ill be putting warnings like this in every chapter that has more than one language), putting the text through google translate should work, but if you need me to directly translate anything, let me know!

with hellos out of the way, let's begin this new love story, shall we?

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I sighed and loosened my tie as I finally walked into my apartment's home office, setting down my briefcase by my office desk. It was another long and grueling day at work, but I was finally able to relax. My long hours at work meant I had now enough vacation days stacked up to visit Ayzel for at least a month.

That was until I remembered I was referred to a case earlier today.

I took a deep sigh and sat down in my office chair, building up the strength to open the case file before finally deciding to bite the bullet and get it over with.

I skimmed through the contents of the file, the boredom of the case details intensifying with each passing second. It was a typical medical malpractice case; some doctor in a hospital owned by a corporation thought he could cut corners and put a patient at risk, not expecting them to fight back and sue both the doctor and the hospital.

Rightfully so.

It was a typical read, something so painfully and mind-numbingly plain that I felt my eyelids droop.

Witnesses? In a case like this?

That piqued whatever interest I had left, and I sat up slightly, reading the eyewitness testimonies. Nurses and other practitioners were expected, but what wasn't expected was the fact that I recognized a name.

Aaliyah Khan?

I couldn't believe my eyes. I rubbed the fatigue out of them, even going as far as fishing out my reading glasses from my briefcase and slipping them on as I read the name again and again.

Why is she the key witness? Why the fuck is she here in the first place?

I sat back in disbelief.

My little sister's best friend was the key witness to a medical malpractice case.

A deep sigh escaped my lips, along with a soft curse. I shifted my glasses from my nose bridge to my hair as I sat back and thought about back to whatever I knew about Aaliyah.

I knew of her; I didn't know her personally. I'd met her in passing often, mainly due to the fact that Ayzel had a habit of dragging her best friends to every single family gathering to, in her words, keep herself sane.

Not that I blamed her. I did also bring my best friend, Zain, around often as well.

From the little times that I had met her, I gathered that she was a quiet individual, not one of many words, and often the caretaker of the other two, Ayzel and her other best friend, Elena.

How could someone as quiet as her be involved like this?

My mind started scrambling for explanations as I looked through her testimony. She works as a clinical assistant, I knew that much, and it seemed like she was the closest to the patient, my plaintiff, for the majority of the time.