Wrongly Accused

Chapter 72

Author POV:

The mansion was cloaked in a heavy, wakeful silence. The peace of the night was a lie.

In their separate rooms, each heart beat a restless rhythm against the memory of the day. Amaira stared at the dark ceiling, her stitched arm a dull throb, her mind circling back to the raw fear in Suhail's eyes when he'd held her. Across the room, Suhail himself paced, the images of the rush, of the hug, of the chaos all wrapped in his mind. Sharmila replayed the feel of Rehan's solid chest under her cheek, guilt and relief warring in her throat, while Rehan, in the quiet, grappled with the seismic shift her panic had revealed. Sleep was a traitor; every time they closed their eyes, they were back in the airport's chaotic roar of grief.

In her room, Elizey had finally succumbed to a fitful doze, the exhaustion overwhelming the reel of panic in her mind. But peace was fleeting.

THUD.

The sound was solid, heavy, a clumsy impact against the balcony door. Her eyes flew open, adrenaline surging before her thoughts could catch up. She sat bolt upright, the sheets pooling at her waist. The curtains of the glass door shifted, silhouetted by the weak moonlight.

The door slid open roughly.

A figure stumbled inside, off-balance, catching himself on the footpost of her bed.

"Deenaz?" The name left her in a whispered shout, equal parts shock and confusion.

He straightened up, his form hazy in the dark. His shirt was rumpled, his usually impeccable hair disheveled. He looked...hazarded. Unmoored.

"Are you drunk?" she breathed, swinging her legs out of bed, her bare feet meeting the cool floor.

"No," he mumbled, his voice thick but soft, almost childlike in its denial. He took an unsteady step toward her. "Not drunk."

Before she could process it, he closed the final distance. His arms wrapped around her with a sudden, desperate strength, pulling her flush against him, burying his face in the curve of her neck. He was trembling.

"Dee?" Alarm spiked through her, sharp and cold. She tried to lean back, to see his face, but his hold was an iron cage. "What happened? Why ddi you drink?"

He didn't answer. A harsh, ragged breath shuddered through him, and then she felt it. The hot, silent dampness of a tear against her skin. Another followed. He was crying.

Pure panic lanced through Elizey. The Deenaz she knew was carved from control and cunning; he was dominance personified. He did not break. He did not cry. Seeing him unravel like this, vulnerable and hurting, fractured something fundamental inside her.

"Dee," she pleaded, her own voice cracking as her hands came up to clutch at the fabric of his back. "Talk to me. Please. What's wrong?"

But he only held her tighter, his silent tears a confession too profound for words. In the dark, quiet room, Elizey could do nothing but hold him back, becoming the anchor for a storm she didn't understand, as the strongest man she knew quietly came apart in her arms.

"Let me just... let me stay like this for a moment, okay? Let me feel you here," he murmured, his voice muffled against her skin, a broken plea wrapped in a whisper. "I need to know this is real. When they said... when the news said it was your flight..."

His arms tightened, a reflexive flinch. "You don't understand. You can't. My mind just... stopped. It froze. They said no survivors, and all I could think was that I'd lost my family all over again. That I was that orphaned boy in the ruins, but this time, there was no revenge to fuel me, no anger to burn. Just... nothing. A hollow, silent nothing."