Dhaagey: The Ties that Bind Us

48. reckoning

Author's Note: It was lovely to see that so many people enjoyed the last (very fluffy) chapter, your comments made me giggle - thank you! We move on to a chapter that I had a very hard time writing - pulling together a bunch of different strings to expose Malik. I hope y'all enjoy it, see you on the other side!

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The village haveli held its breath.

It was a bright morning, and though the sun shone with the full golden promise of summer just around the bend, a lingering chill threaded through the air, the kind that clung to exposed skin and crept under sleeves, as if the day had not quite shaken off the night. Light spilled across stone floors and courtyards, but nothing about the day felt warm. Not yet.

In the drawing room nearby, voices had dimmed to murmurs. The Shah brothers were already gathered, seated like sentinels, all tense shoulders and unreadable faces. Maa Begum sat upright on the carved settee, her prayer beads slipping rhythmically through her fingers, the subtle movements a poor disguise for the tightness in her jaw. Maryam lingered near the arched doorway, arms crossed, her knuckles white where they gripped the opposite arm. Even the birds seemed to sing a little softer this morning, as though unwilling to interrupt what was coming.

But in their room, there was a different kind of silence.

Not brittle. Not anxious.

Heavier. Denser. Like the pause before thunder.

Meerab stood at the edge of it, her eyes trailing the familiar edges of the space. The bed she hadn't slept in for months. The curtains that swayed lightly in the breeze. The walls pulsed with memory.

This room had seen things. Held things.

It had held her the night she returned bruised and shaken from being taken, having chased after a girl's scream only to be dragged into darkness herself. That night, bruised and aching, Murtasim had brought her back, to these walls, to this bed. He hadn't left her side once. Not when she trembled. Not when she cried. Not even when she tried to insist she was fine. He had stayed with her, anchoring her with nothing but presence, his warmth pressed to her back as she fell into restless sleep.

And it had been here, just hours later, that everything between them had shifted.

That morning played behind her eyes now with startling clarity – the stillness of dawn, the slow golden spill of light across the bed, her limbs curled into his lap, the weight of his arm around her, and his voice, raw and low, confessing the truth that had been unsaid between them for far too long. That morning was a memory etched so deeply in her that she felt it even now, like something stitched into the lining of her bones.

She moved toward the window, the glass cool against her fingertips. Somewhere beyond the dust roads and the fields of sugarcane, the world waited for them. For her. And for the truth she was about to wield like a blade.

Fear creeped up inside her.

Not the sharp, breathless kind. But a deeper unease that settled low in her ribs, a quiet voice that asked what if. What if something went wrong? What if this morning ended in chaos? What if Murtasim...

She shut that thought down before it could finish forming.

Still, the urge to wrap him in armour, to drape him in every protection the world could offer, was overwhelming. She had even suggested a bulletproof vest, framing it as a joke, and he had only smiled, kissed her forehead, and said, "It'll be okay." Like he could will it to be.

Behind her, she heard the soft rustle of fabric, that now familiar sound of him getting dressed, of linen sliding against skin, of weight shifting in quiet, deliberate steps. When she turned, he was standing by the dresser, his back to her, adjusting the collar of his black shalwar kameez. The cotton held its shape with stubborn sharpness, the sleeves rolled once to reveal the tension of his forearms, his jaw set in something stiller than resolve. It was the kind of black that didn't absorb light but threatened to swallow it whole. Stark. Severe. Beautiful.