Heartless love

The Silent Patriot

Without drawing any attention, Anubhav and Haseena slipped away in different directions.

Raka and his goons, outnumbering the constables, quickly overpowered them. Confident in their dominance and assuming Anubhav must be lying unconscious somewhere, Raka paid him no further mind. Haseena had cleverly told Raka that she was taking the hard disk to sell it, a calculated lie meant to deflect suspicion from Anubhav's sudden disappearance. The deception worked — Raka, believing the hard disk was still within his reach through Haseena, finally let his guard down.

But then came the call.

Raka's brows furrowed in confusion and irritation.

"Yeh Haseena abhi tak wahan pahunchi kyun nahi?" he barked into his phone.

Turning to his men, he ordered sharply, "Suno, tum sab turant Haseena ko dhoondo. Aur jese hi kuch pata chale, mujhe inform karo."

As expected, the moment Raka learned that the hard disk hadn't been delivered to the foreign buyers, panic set in. Haseena's plan had worked perfectly — if she had escaped with Anubhav carrying the hard disk, the goons would've chased them both, and the mission could have spiraled into chaos. But now, believing the hard disk was still with her, Raka and his men focused solely on finding Haseena. She had willingly become the decoy, risking everything so the hard disk could be delivered safely, without bloodshed.

While Anubhav took a safer route to ensure the secure transfer of the disk, Haseena chose the denser, more dangerous forest path — her injuries worsening with each step. Eventually, the pain in her leg became unbearable. She collapsed beside a tree, breath shallow, and examined her wound. The bullet had grazed dangerously close to her artery. With no medical aid in sight and the bleeding unchecked, she took the rumal from her hand and tied it tightly around the wound. It was all she had.

Meanwhile, Anubhav reached the designated drop point and successfully handed over the hard disk. The entire operation team breathed a collective sigh of relief. Anubhav reported everything — how Haseena had been wrongly accused, how she had risked her life to protect the very nation she was being accused of betraying.

He pleaded that their next priority should be finding and rescuing her.

But bureaucracy, as always, had other plans.

"Nation first," they said.

"There's protocol," they insisted.

They dragged Anubhav into post-operation procedures, debriefings, and layers of confidential formalities — all while the one who had made their success possible lay bleeding in a forest, alone and abandoned.

Time passed. Haseena, weakened by blood loss and exhaustion, finally lost consciousness.

She lay there for hours.

And in that crucial window — it wasn't the IB or the police who found her — it was Raka's men.

They scoured her for the hard disk, but when they found nothing, they tried to wake her. When she didn't respond, they carried her off and summoned a doctor — not out of concern, but to interrogate her.

When Haseena finally opened her eyes, her body was frail, her spirit heavier still. Betrayal ran deeper than her wounds. She had endured every humiliation, every wound, all to serve a nation that had doubted her integrity again and again.

Even Anubhav — the one who should've known her heart — had once pulled the trigger on her.

But despite everything, she had protected the hard disk. She had delivered.

And once again, when it was all over — when the hard disk was safe — no one came for her. No one asked where Haseena was. They were too caught up in sealing files and submitting reports.

So when the criminals tried to break her down, she said nothing. She endured their threats and the pain, refusing to divulge a single detail. Because she knew — the hard disk hadn't yet reached its final destination. It would take two more days for it to arrive at the highly secured location where national secrets would finally be protected. Until then, she would protect it with her silence, even if it cost her life.

And the criminals, realizing she wouldn't speak, decided to break her.

Anubhav could have gone to save her.

The police could have tracked her.

They all could have chosen her.

But they didn't.

Because once again, her loyalty, her sacrifice, her pain — was sidelined.

And still, even in captivity, even when tortured, even when left for dead, Haseena remained unshaken. She would not betray her duty. Not even for the ones who betrayed her.

She was not a traitor.

She was the only one who had remained truly loyal.