Chapter 96: Never Play With Me

It wasn't in his hands. What he did with her, it was all bolted up inside him, pent up, and she

was the one on whom he released it all. He was never in love with her. She was just

someone who attracted him, with her innocence, with her moves. She lured him. And for

some moments, he was lured in. She was nothing but a mere infatuation. And after one fling,

she was off his head. But then he came to know of her reality. The web she created on

purpose around him so he could be moved by her moves. All the memories of his childhood

flashed into his mind. The rage, the anger, the revenge—everything came at once and with

such sheerness to destroy someone if exposed to it all at once. And he did what the demons

whispered. He kept on doing that, kept on torturing her until he was satisfied, yet those

emotions collected within him for a lifetime couldn't be subsided.

He was not done yet with her.

She would have to pay.

Pay for playing with him.

Pay for killing him.

"Every woman could bear a child, but not every woman could be worth."

His own words cursorily rang in his ears as, in a trance, he stared at the mirror of her eyes.

Sheharzaad's grey eyes.

"So never play with me, Sheharzaad," the whisper played on his lips. One of the very few

sentences that were said without him having control over them.

They were said. Just like that. Diffused in the thin air.

But he always meant each and every syllable of such instinctive sentences.

"Let's go now," he was about to place the blindfold on her eyes when that woman

completely turned towards Sheharzaad. Her grey eyes collided with Sheharzaad's.

And in that moment, Sheharzaad's heart stopped beating. A flash of recognition ran across

her face. She was chilled to the core.

Before she could see more, the blindfold had already blackened her vision.

Her mind was too numb to produce a response.

"How could it be her?" her mind probed a question. And then she was taken away.

\---

"The information has become insufficient for us to initiate any charges against him,

Sheharzaad. You just need to try and find the file that they signed. That would be proof

enough to put him behind bars. You've two days, Sheharzaad. Be very fast on your steps."

It was another letter from Khaleda. She found it on the floor when she entered the door, as if

someone had slid it through the little space between the door and the floor. Sheharzaad was

quick to pick it up. Since Amna wasn't home, she read it without the worries of being

noticed. And as soon as she read the words, she immediately got up from the sofa and

walked towards the kitchen. Turning on the stove, she let her eyes go through the words of

Khaleda once again. She did not want to miss any of the instructions. She could not save the

picture of the letter on her phone, afraid that Shehryaar might somehow know it. It was best

to memorize the content of the letter rather than save it anywhere. She put the letter on the

burning stove, her eyes glimmering with the fire that burnt the letter. And soon the paper

turned into ashes. She turned off the stove and walked away.

But she didn't know she had just burned the letter that... signed her death.

Shehryaar had dropped her at her home. Amna had gone with Ahmed to Multan to look at

the flat Hannan had told them about. Sheharzaad had told Amna and Ahmed everything

from the very start now. They both were appalled. Amna began to cry in her arms and cried

out that she had better let her lay dead instead of going to that extent just to get some

money for her treatment. The guilt and the pain had overtaken Amna completely.

Then Sheharzaad had told them about the plan she was cooking with Hannan. Sheharzaad

asked Amna to call Hannan from her phone as Sheharzaad's phone might be tapped.

Hannan told them about the flat in Multan where they would be living, so Ahmed and Amna

decided to go and look at the conditions of that flat and the basic amenities there.

Sheharzaad was alone at home. She didn't tell them about her work with the FBI, as Khaleda

had even forbidden her to whisper such words, as walls have ears too.

Sheharzaad had already made up her mind. After witnessing the condition of that woman,

the urge to see him behind bars had grown. And so did the terror in her. She was afraid of

playing behind his back. Sometimes it felt like he was aware of everything and pretending to

be oblivious. She noticed it in those moments when he would stare into her eyes longer than

usual. Whenever his eyes grew intense upon hers. And whenever he smiled at her. A smile

that would never reach his eyes. Those moments always made Sheharzaad's breath hitch in

her throat. Those moments would force her to do as he said and back off from whatever she

was planning. She would feel all the courage evaporating from her from his single, intense

glance. This was the power his eyes held. He needed his eyes only to convey his dominance

and power.

She was playing with fire. And if she failed in this game, she would be doomed. Badly

doomed. The situation of that girl was enough for her to establish the fact of how worse it

could get.

And if she didn't take this chance, then she had to marry him. And if she married him, then

she would kill herself in no less than a month. The way he confined her now, when she was

nothing to him, had certained her about her confinement after the marriage.

Yet Sheharzaad was now able to gauge whom she was running away from. After all these

years, she at last got it.