The rain hadn’t stopped. It just softened, like the city had grown tired of weeping.
Reyan stood beside his aircraft, wiping water from his face with a worn black shawl. The jet behind him was sleek, silent, and silver — its engines cooling in the night like a sleeping beast. He hadn’t turned off the locator beacon. He wanted to be found. By someone specific.
The airfield outside Lahore wasn’t on the maps — at least not the ones civilians used. It had been abandoned since the 90s, used now only by those who needed to come and go unnoticed. People like him.
People with blood on their hands and names erased from databases.
He adjusted the leather gloves on his hands and walked into the hangar. Inside, his contact was waiting — Colonel Sarfaraz, a retired intelligence officer with more loyalty to money than to flags.
“She was there,” Reyan said flatly.
Sarfaraz raised an eyebrow. “Who?”
Reyan took out a small memory chip from his watch and plugged it into the projector. A grainy security cam still appeared. A figure, hunched in the rain, face hidden by curls, camera raised.
“I know that posture,” he said. “That stillness. That patience.”
Sarfaraz blinked. “You sure?”
“I’ve only met one woman who shoots death like it’s art.”18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbmMLvTjutQ
His tone turned darker. “Alishba Razaq.”
Sarfaraz stepped back. “You mean that Alishba?”
Reyan didn’t respond.
Everyone had heard the name. The girl with the camera who’d once infiltrated a minister’s funeral disguised as a floral assistant. Who’d vanished after releasing evidence against three smugglers — all dead within weeks. But what most didn’t know was that Alishba didn’t do what she did for the thrill. Or even justice.
She did it because someone took her brother.
And she wanted every man involved to pay — with interest.
Reyan drove into the city as the clock ticked past 3 a.m., passing through gulmohar-lined roads and ghost-quiet alleys. His car, a black Prado with government plates he had no authority for, slid through the shadows like it belonged there.
He hadn’t seen her in years. He’d watched her from a distance after Karachi — just once. Long enough to know she was still breathing. Then he forced himself to stay away.
But tonight changed things.
She had captured something that wasn’t meant to be seen. Something that connected too many people with too much to lose.
And he knew exactly what Alishba would do with it. She’d study it, trace it, follow it.
And eventually…
She would get herself killed.
Unless he got to her first.
Alishba was editing the contrast on a close-up of the tied man’s wrist when the screen flickered.
She blinked.
A moment later, her lights dimmed — just slightly — and then returned.
She froze.
Safaid the cat hissed.
And then, quietly, so quietly, a boot creaked against the rooftop above her.
She moved fast.
Pulled the drawer open. Grabbed the knife. Slid silently against the wall beside the curtain.
Another creak.
The back window.
Then silence.
She knew that silence.
She whispered, “Show yourself, Reyan.”
And just like that, he did.
Not through the window. But through the door.
Unlocked. Opened without sound. Just enough for him to lean his tall frame against it, rain dripping from his shoulders.
"Still sleeping with a knife under your table?" he asked, voice as smooth as chai, bitter as nicotine.
Alishba didn’t lower the blade. "Still flying ghosts across borders?"
A small smile curved his lips, but his eyes were steady. Watchful. “Put it down, little mouse.”
Her grip didn’t falter. “You’re in my home.”
“You’re playing with something bigger than you can handle.”
“I always do.”
A beat passed. Tension crackled between them like electricity waiting for metal. They hadn’t seen each other in three years — and yet, the room felt like it remembered them.
She finally spoke, colder now. “You’re not here to warn me.”
“No,” Reyan said, stepping in, closing the door behind him. “I’m here to ask what you saw. And what you plan to do with it.”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because those men you photographed?” he said, voice quieter now, deadlier. “They weren’t just moving a body. They were moving bait. And someone wanted you to be there to see it.”
She blinked.
That… she hadn’t expected.
He continued, “Someone wants you involved. And they’re using me to pull you in.”
She stepped back, slowly lowering the knife but never breaking eye contact. “And why would they do that?”
“Because if you’re dead,” Reyan said, “a lot of powerful people can sleep at night.”
She looked at the photographs on her screen. Then back at him.
“I don’t scare easily, Reyan.”
“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said, taking a step forward, voice dropping to something quiet and dangerous. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“Why?”
Another step.
He was standing just in front of her now — tall, steady, rain still trickling from his jawline.
His eyes didn’t move from hers.
And when he spoke, it wasn’t with anger —it was with something much worse.
A quiet kind of fury. The kind that protected by destroying.
“If anyone lays a hand on you, Alishba… I’ll make sure they don’t have hands left to touch anything ever again.”18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH3WOxILkvf
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