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.

He looked like the storm they had spent weeks preparing to unleash.

And suddenly, she hated her yellow suit.

"It's too bright," she muttered, smoothing the edge of her dupatta for the third time, already halfway to the wardrobe again. "I should change."

Murtasim turned, eyes dragging slowly over her from head to toe. And for a moment, all the steel in his body seemed to soften.

"You look perfect," he said simply. "Like sunshine."

Her mouth twisted, lips fighting a smile she didn't want to give. "Sunshine doesn't exactly scream I am going to ruin you."

"Maybe not," he replied, stepping forward. "But it's what kept me alive."

She rolled her eyes, but gently, because despite herself, his words caught in her chest like a sigh she hadn't meant to swallow. She approached him with a mock scowl, but it softened the moment she reached him.

She watched as reached for his shawl, not the smaller one she sometimes borrowed, but the large, weighty white one, the one with faint embroidery along the edges, unmistakably his. Without a word, he wrapped it around her shoulders, folding the ends with care over her chest. She didn't protest. Not even when the familiar scent of him, mint and bergamot, rose from the fabric and settled around her like a second skin.

She hummed, low and content, the sound slipping from her without thought.

"I could get you a pink one," she teased lightly, trying to shake off the weight in her chest. "You want to wear mine?"

He huffed a laugh, a real one, low and brief and so very him, that she felt her heart unclench. "Absolutely. As long as it's sequined."

She stepped up to him on her toes and kissed him, soft, quick, but lingering enough to leave something behind. "That's the first time you've laughed all morning," she whispered against his mouth.

He sighed, forehead pressing against hers. "I'll laugh more once this is done."

She nodded, the moment stretched taut like a thread between them, neither willing to cut it.

She stepped into his arms, folding into him with a familiarity that still felt like newness every time. His hands came around her without hesitation, one curling over the shawl he'd draped on her shoulders, the other pressing lightly against her back, just under the curve of her ribs. She stayed like that, tucked into his chest, her hands pressed flat against the fabric over his heart.

And for a long minute, they didn't move.

They simply stood there, two figures pressed close in the quiet before the storm, the fabric of his shawl caught between them, breathing the same breath.

When she finally pulled away, it was with a quiet sigh, her hands lingering at his chest before slipping from his frame like silk. She turned to the armoire and reached for another shawl. His again. Darker this time, thicker wool dyed the shade of a dark night, stitched at the hem with faint threadwork that caught the light in brief flickers. It had sat in the back of the closet in the village for months now, tucked away, waiting. She had almost forgotten it until just now.

She draped it across his shoulders with steady hands, smoothing it along the slope of his back, across the breadth of his chest. Her fingers paused briefly as they touched the cloth over his heart, then moved on. Not armor, exactly. But close.

And when she looked up at him, black from head to toe, the shawl draping low and heavy, dark eyes gleaming with a purpose too long contained, she was pulled back into memory so swiftly it nearly knocked the breath from her lungs.

He had looked like this before, too.

That night. The night after she had been taken.

She had woken up in this very room, bruised and dazed, the aches in her limbs only just beginning to register. The night sky had still clung to the windows, and the bed beside her was empty. In the hallway beyond, she'd heard low voices, the kind born of rage forced into control.

She had found him at the door with the Shah brothers, already dressed in black, that same shawl slung across his shoulders, his jaw set like iron, the heat of violence curled beneath his skin. He had held her before leaving, fingers tracing the bruise blooming on her cheekbone.

And then he had gone hunting.

She remembered begging Armaan not to let anything happen to him.

And now here they were again.

But this time, she wasn't begging anyone to keep him safe.

This time, she was going with him.

"Ready?" he asked, his voice low, quiet, just for her.

She didn't hesitate. "Ready."

He reached for her hand, fingers sliding between hers, the grip firm and warm. She squeezed back.

As they left the room together, she caught a glimpse of them in the long hallway mirror. A juxtaposition of opposites, she in sunlit yellow wrapped in white, he in midnight black. Light and shadow. Warmth and vengeance.

Both sharpened to a point.

---------

The haveli gates creaked open, sunlight flaring briefly across the windshield as they drove out onto the narrow dirt road. The morning was clear, the air still holding the crispness of a chill that hadn't quite surrendered to summer. Trees lined the road in bowed silence, their shadows dappling the ground in soft, flickering patterns. Beyond them, the panchayat waited, and with it, a reckoning years in the making.

Meerab sat curled in the passenger seat, draped in the familiar weight of his white shawl, the folds of it wrapped tightly over her shoulders. Her own dupatta had disappeared somewhere beneath the layers of his, and she hadn't bothered to retrieve it. It didn't matter. His scent, his shawl, the press of it around her grounded her better than anything else could.

Her heart beat with grim steadiness, not frantic, not calm. Just there. Present. Intentional.

Murtasim drove beside her in silence, one hand on the wheel, the other resting firmly over hers where it lay just behind the gear shift. His thumb rubbed slow, absentminded circles against her skin. Not coaxing, not soothing, just reminding. She's here. He's here. They're doing this together.

He looked composed to anyone else, effortlessly so, but she knew better. His jaw was tight, almost clenched, though his shoulders remained loose. His eyes were forward, trained on the road, but she caught the occasional twitch in his fingers. The pulse beneath his ear beat fast and sure, a traitorous giveaway.

The black shawl draped over his shoulder cast shadows across his chest, stark and sharp in the soft morning light. The fabric's weave caught the sun like ink absorbing flame. He looked like something ancient. Something righteous. The kind of man who walked into fire without flinching.

She turned her face to the window, watching the landscape roll by.

It was surreal. These same streets. These same houses. The open fields and corner wells. The last time she had passed through here, she had been chasing after him, chasing a flicker of rumour and hope and a dot on an app, of a man who had once promised to come when she called.

And now she sat beside him.

And she was going to ruin the man who had nearly taken him from her.

She didn't realize her fingers had curled tightly into the edge of his shawl until they began to ache from the pressure. Uncurling them slowly, she sighed and, almost as a distraction, reached up to pull down the grey visor above her head, the one with the mirror tucked inside.

The instant she flipped it open, a soft rustle fell across her lap.

A breath, a hush, a cascade of silk and scent.

Dozens of rose petals spilled from the hidden crease, falling in slow arcs onto her legs, over her knees, scattering through the folds of the shawl. A few caught in the dip of her collarbone. One nestled into the crook of her elbow. The scent was heady and sweet, curling around her in soft, perfumed ribbons.

She blinked, stunned.

Then laughter burst out of her – sudden, helpless, and bright. The kind of laugh that didn't ask permission. The kind that took over her whole chest and echoed against the quiet of the cabin.

"Murtasim - " she gasped, brushing petals from her shawl, her cheeks beginning to ache from smiling. "What is this?"

He didn't glance at her, but she could see the corner of his mouth tilt upward, pleased.

His hand tightened gently around hers.

"I missed your laugh," he murmured, soft and matter-of-fact, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You've been too serious lately."

She narrowed her eyes, but her heart cracked open just a little more.

She had been too serious. The nerves had wrapped around her like iron threads, stretching taut beneath every movement, every thought. The plans, the risk, the weight of what they were about to do, it lived beneath her skin. But in this moment, with petals on her lap and his hand over hers, that weight didn't crush her.

"Of course I'm serious," she muttered, brushing one from her sleeve. "This is my first actual case. A real one. Yet, there's no and—"

"Uh-oh," he interrupted, feigning dismay, "Should I have hired a different lawyer?"

She reached over and whacked his shoulder lightly with her hand. "Excuse me? I am your wife and your lawyer. For life."

He finally turned fully, eyes meeting hers, the faintest smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. It was the smile he gave her when they were alone, when the world didn't demand anything of them.

"Yes, Mrs. Khan," he said, voice low, with just enough amusement to soften the heat in her cheeks.

She rolled her eyes again, but her smile didn't fade. She let the petals stay scattered around her, caught in the shawl, the smell of roses curling around her. The kind of beauty that only bloomed in unlikely moments, before a battle, between breaths, between the beats of two hearts that had already chosen one another.

She turned back to the road ahead.

Ready.

-----------------

The air held the crispness of a Sindh morning in the days of harvest – cool but dry, the scent of turned earth and faint woodsmoke tangled with the sharpness of dew. It was early, but the sun had risen bright, casting long shadows across the manicured lawns of the sarpanch's haveli. The garden had been prepared for spectacle, though it wore its formality with the same arrogance as the men seated within it.

Comfortable cushioned chairs stood beneath a wide canopy, lined in a u-shape, reserved for those in power. A few dozen villagers had already spread across the grass, seated cross-legged on white sheets. Older men with weathered skin, younger ones in stiffly ironed kurtas, and women too, though fewer in number, eyes sharp from behind their dupattas.

The hush of their voices and the subtle turning of heads signaled what Bhaktu had warned them: rumours had been circulating for weeks.

They knew something was happening.

Meerab had felt it too. In the way the air had changed. In the lingering eyes of those who had once looked past her. The land had begun to buzz with a tension that hummed beneath the skin, and now it had found its epicenter here, in this garden, under the indifferent shade of a sprawling oak tree to the right of the seating area.

Murtasim's name had never stopped echoing since the night he disappeared, but the truth of those echoes had long been distorted. She didn't even know what people believed anymore.

That he was dead.

That he was gravely ill.

That she had poisoned him.

That he had run away.

It had been weeks since the night her world had fallen apart and then somehow stitched itself back together. Weeks of silence, of planning, of holding her breath. And no one, not one soul, seemed to expect that they would see him again like this.

When Murtasim Khan walked into the garden, dressed in black, posture ramrod straight, every step measured and controlled, alive in the most devastating sense of the word, the world changed.

Meerab walked beside him, his hand brushing hers, and behind them came Armaan, Hamza, and Bhaktu – tall, serious, silent. They made no fanfare of their entrance, no loud declaration, and yet the silence they stepped into shattered like glass.

Gasps rippled through the garden like a gust of wind. Loud, unfiltered, and too many to name. Someone said his name aloud, Murtasim Khan? And then another, louder, and then another. Soon, a chorus of shock followed them like a drumbeat. She heard it over and over again.

Murtasim Khan. Murtasim Khan. Murtasim Khan.

Her chin lifted higher.

Her gaze swept over the stunned expressions, the wide eyes and dropped jaws, but she wasn't looking for them.

She was looking for that man.

Malik sat near the center of the panchayat circle, one leg casually crossed over the other, a smug smirk tugging at his lips as he conferred with a man on his left. He didn't look up right away, too sure of himself. Too sure that he had won whatever war he thought they were still fighting.

But then he too heard it.

"Murtasim Khan."

The name dropped again from a dozen mouths and at last, Malik's gaze lifted, lazy at first, then blinking, and then –

There.

The moment it hit him.

His smirk froze. The color drained from his face with all the subtlety of a glass tipping over.

Beside him, Ammar, the puppet and false heir, looked even worse, mouth ajar, eyes blown wide as if death had appeared at the gate.

And perhaps it had.

Meerab couldn't help the smile that curled at the corner of her mouth. Small. Sharp.

They hadn't known.

Or if they had, if whispers of his survival had reached them, they hadn't expected this. They hadn't expected Murtasim to walk in of his own accord, on his own two feet, shoulder to shoulder with her, as if the grave hadn't opened and then slammed shut behind him.

As if he'd never left.

As if nothing had ever happened.

They reached the central ring of chairs, where a space had been left open. One carved out not in courtesy, but in recognition of power, of lineage, of command. Murtasim didn't hesitate, he moved as if the ground still belonged to him, and it did. He stepped forward and pulled one of the chairs closer to his own.

He drew it forward. Deliberately. With care. Aligned it beside his own. Not behind. Not at an angle. Side by side.

Then he turned to her. Just once. Just long enough to meet her eyes. And motioned.

Sit.

No words.

No dramatic pronouncements.

Just that small, quiet gesture. You and me. Side by side.

She took her seat.

She folded herself into the place he had made for her, her hands adjusting the shawl more out of instinct than nervousness. And in that single movement, the air shifted.

It started as a hush, thin and almost imperceptible. Then grew into a wave of murmurs that rolled across the gathering like a monsoon wind skimming low over still water. The silence before thunder. Dense. Watchful.

People shifted on their seats. Some leaned toward their neighbours, hands half-lifted to hide their mouths. Others merely stared, their expressions pinched between confusion and awe. The rustle of fabric, the creak of old charpais, the distant shuffle of feet, each sound sharp in the quiet.

Because this... this was not what they had expected.

Her presence at the panchayat was not new, but it was meant to have ended. Her prior claim to the space, to his space, had been made under exceptional circumstance. A wife acting in the vacuum left by her husband's absence. And while many had bristled, they'd allowed it, because he had not been there.

But he was here now.

And still, he had pulled the chair. He had placed it beside his own. He had offered her his place, not in silence, but in solidarity. He could have let her stand behind him. Could have left her seated somewhere among the women, watching from a distance like everyone else.

But he had not.

His hand had hovered at the small of her back, firm and steady as she lowered herself down. Not possessive. Not guiding. Just present. A quiet reminder: I am here. You are not alone.

It was more than affection. More than partnership. It was a reordering of the very rules they were all governed by, and the panchayat didn't know what to do with it.

This was not tradition.

This was not precedent.

This was power being reshaped. Not with fanfare, but with the subtlety of a hand offered and accepted. And Meerab felt the weight of every eye on her, every unspoken question. But she also felt Murtasim's presence beside her like gravity itself -- constant, unflinching, inevitable.

Let them watch.

Let them wonder.

He had made space for her in a world that had never wanted her to sit. And she had taken it. Not with defiance, but with certainty.

And they didn't know what to make of it.

Because for once, it was not just the Khan who had returned.

It was the Khanum too.

And she had come to rule.

Murtasim sat down beside her with the ease of someone reclaiming a throne. His posture relaxed, commanding without trying. He crossed one foot over his knee and leaned slightly back, as though this were any other morning, any other day, and not the first time he'd appeared in public since they had all thought him dead.

His posture was relaxed in that specific way only powerful men could ever afford -- shoulders loose, spine straight, exuding calm the way others exhaled air.

But Meerab could see the coiled energy beneath. She always could.

His hand rested lightly against his thigh, but his fingers drummed once. Slow, deliberate. A signal. She wasn't sure to whom. Maybe to her. Maybe to himself.

Around them, the crowd settled into an uneasy hush. It wasn't silence so much as a pause in breathing, a suspension of sound. Everyone was watching. Waiting.

Her eyes swept over the gathering, faces lined with curiosity, disbelief, and a creeping unease. And always, always they circled back to him.

Zubair Malik. His frame stiff in the ornate chair he'd once occupied like a throne. His head was tilted slightly, not in confusion, but in calculation. But she saw the twitch in his jaw. The tiny shift of his eyes. The pulse just beneath his temple.

Beside him, Ammar looked even worse. Young and trying not to look it, stiff-backed and pale-faced, his hands clenched so tightly on his knees that the knuckles had turned bloodless.

Meerab watched Malik closely.

Recognition had just begun to solidify on his face, creeping like a crack across glass. He had been smug only moments ago, sitting as if the gathering had been called in his honour, as if his heir would be blessed, his lands legitimized, his secrets buried.

But the moment Murtasim walked in, the ground had shifted. She could see him grappling to steady it again.

And failing.

A slow smile curved on Murtasim's lips, subtle and sharp. One that didn't reach his eyes.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Malik," Murtasim said at last, his voice silken and low, stretched just enough for the entire gathering to hear. "Surprised I'm alive?"

It hit the gathering like a bell ringing at the start of a war.

A wave of murmurs surged, breaking over the circle like a tide unbound. Names were whispered. His name. Over and over again, like a litany. Murtasim Khan. Not dead. Not lost. Not gone.

Meerab watched the moment land. She watched Zubair's mouth part, then close again. Watched him sit straighter, his arrogance reassembling like armour hastily thrown on.

The sarpanch leaned forward, his brow furrowed. "Where have you been, Murtasim beta?" he asked, not unkindly. "We were told you'd... that you were gone."

Murtasim's eyes didn't leave Zubair's face.

"Malik tried very hard to make that true," he said, each word measured and iron-clad. "I almost did die. But Meerab saved me."

His voice was even. Measured.

But the impact of those words was anything but.

The garden filled with noise. Gasps. Sharp exclamations. Shock rolling across the seated villagers like a wave crashing against stone. The old tree nearby rustled, leaves trembling as if it, too, bore witness to a reckoning long overdue.

Zubair Malik straightened in his seat, outrage painted across his face in broad, deliberate strokes. "That's a lie," he barked. "I did nothing – "

Meerab turned her head slowly, her eyes like sharpened glass. "So you didn't attempt to kill him," she said evenly, "so you could present Ammar as heir and take over all of our land?"

Another rush of gasps. A woman in the back clutched her dupatta to her mouth. The whispers started again, louder now.

Zubair's lips curled in a sneer, trying to recapture his footing, but the mask had cracked.

"You let your woman speak for you now?" he growled, voice bitter with venom. "You sit back and let her bark like a dog in a man's gathering?"

Murtasim didn't flinch.

He didn't rise.

He didn't even raise his voice.

But the chill in his words was unmistakable.

"Careful, Malik," he said softly, his eyes narrowing. "This woman is my wife. The Khanum. And my lawyer. And I won't tolerate a single breath of disrespect against my wife. Not here. Not anywhere."

Zubair sneered, his mouth curling like he wanted to say more, but Ammar leaned forward suddenly, whispering something urgently into his ear. Malik froze.

It was too late.

The murmurs were rising again, not the uncertain rustlings of before, but a swelling current of suspicion, of doubt. She could hear it in the cadence of hushed voices. The scraping of chairs. Control was slipping through Malik's fingers like dry sand.

"You can't prove anything," Malik said finally, teeth gritted.

But even as he said it, Meerab could see the flicker in his eyes, the faint tremor at the edge of certainty. Because he knew. Deep down, in whatever was left of his soul, he knew they had everything.

Murtasim turned toward her, the dark fabric of his shawl shifting with the motion. He didn't speak, he didn't have to. The nod was enough. Sharp. Certain. Your turn.

Beside them, Bhaktu stepped forward. He carried a familiar tote, worn, overstuffed, stubborn in its weight, and placed it gently beside Meerab's chair. It had travelled with her through law school, it slouched where it landed.

Her hand reached for it instinctively, practiced, sure. Fingers brushed familiar canvas, then curled around the first folder. Blue.

The moment her hand lifted the file, the hush fell again.

Zubair's eyes were on her. They flicked nervously to Murtasim, then back to her, restless, tracking like a man watching a match slowly lower to oil-soaked wood.

She didn't break eye contact as she rose slightly in her seat, the blue folder now held in her hands. "You're the only one with motive," she began, voice calm, clear, carrying through the garden with practiced grace. "You tried to kill Murtasim. And then, not long after, presented a supposed heir to the Khan fortune."

Her gaze slid past Zubair then, unflinching, to where Ammar sat. His spine went ramrod straight under the weight of her attention. She saw the flicker of panic in his eyes, quickly masked, but not quickly enough.

"Because he is," Zubair snapped, stepping forward as if bravado could overwrite fear. "He's Anwar's son."

Meerab tilted her head, eyebrows rising just slightly. "So you're saying he's my half-brother?" Her voice didn't change, but the edge was steel. "And Murtasim's cousin."

Zubair nodded, eager now, desperate to reassert a narrative already collapsing under its own weight. "Yes," he said, as though the lie had always been truth.

Meerab made a soft, almost thoughtful sound in the back of her throat. Then, with a voice calm as a still lake, she asked, "And how did you know that?"

A pause. Barely a second. But enough.

Zubair faltered. "Your father told me," he said at last, grasping at the only rope he thought he had left.

Meerab's smile was small. Terrifying. "Interesting."

Then, without another word, she turned to the sarpanch seated in the center, holding out the file. One of his aides stepped forward, collected it from her hands, and handing it to him.

"You'll find," she said, addressing the gathering now, voice rising like a tide, "that the DNA test included in that file confirms Ammar is not related to us. No match to Murtasim. No match to me. No match to Maryam. Not a drop of Khan blood."

The words detonated like a small explosion.

She could hear the murmurs rise like smoke; shocked, hissing, incredulous. Someone gasped audibly. Several heads turned toward Ammar, whose face had gone white.

Zubair stiffened beside him, his jaw tightening before he barked, "That's fake."

Meerab laughed. Not cruelly. Not softly. Just... confidently.

"I'm a lawyer," she replied simply. "I don't forge evidence. But if it helps you sleep at night, we can run another test. Publicly. With every official present. Would that make you feel better?"

She turned, gaze softening only when it landed on Murtasim. A tiny smile played at the edge of her mouth. "Of course... it hardly matters now, does it?" she said, voice lowering just enough for him to hear. "My husband is here. Alive. Whole. And no one's replacing him."

Murtasim leaned forward, the slow movement pulling every eye back to him like a tide returning to shore. His voice, when it came, was quiet. Not raised, not sharpened with temper. But laced with something far more dangerous. Certainty.

"My uncle was misguided in many things," he said, each word steady and precise, slicing through the murmurs like a blade. "But if he had a son... he would have brought him home himself. He would've sat right here." Murtasim's hand lifted, fingers splayed in the air behind him, gesturing to the space that stood loyal and empty. "He would've been on this side. With us. Behind me."

It landed like thunder.

Not in sound, but in weight.

For a beat, there was nothing but stillness. The collective breath of the panchayat hung suspended in the air, and then, like a dam cracking open, the murmurs came.

But they weren't whispers anymore.

They were voices. Rising. Pointing. Names once buried in polite silence were now spoken aloud, some hissed in disgust, others shouted in fury. Accusations long held under the tongue were finally set free, rising on the back of Murtasim's words like arrows loosed into the sky.

She felt it in her bones.

The shift.

The turning of the tide.

And it turned against Zubair.

She watched him closely now. He hadn't moved. Not a twitch. Not a flinch. But she saw it, clear as daylight. The way his jaw clenched a second too long. The vein pulsing near his temple. The rigidity of his shoulders, braced for the impact he still thought he could outrun.

He thought silence made him invincible.

That if he said little and claimed less, he could disappear behind the chaos. That shadows were enough to shield him.

But shadows don't stand when the sun rises.

And today, she was the sun.

He had no idea how long she'd been building toward this day. How meticulously she had laid every stone on the path leading here. Every question she'd asked. Every file she'd chased down. Every woman she'd found.

Her voice was steady, cold. "So it's obvious now, isn't it?" she said, turning to face the crowd, letting her words carry. "The motive. It's always been there. The Khan lands. And..." Her eyes narrowed. "...the land Murtasim secured for the school. Land which, I should mention, will still benefit from the new railway line."

That drew more than murmurs. That drew gasps and hums.

"You were hoping no one would notice that shift. That we'd think the railway project was dead since the land set out for it was acquired by us. But it isn't. It's just a little further now, isn't it?" She turned her head slightly. "Far enough to suit the needs of a certain business. Close enough to be convenient."

She didn't say it aloud.

She didn't need to.

The word was already in the wind, passed from tongue to tongue like an infection. Trafficking. Brothel. Drugs. Women.

A rotting legacy exposed in daylight.

"There is no proof," Zubair said, too calmly. His voice was light, mocking, but it was the voice of a man trying not to look like he was drowning.

Meerab smiled tightly. "There are multiple women willing to testify against you. Some rescued earlier, by our family. And more from the brothel that was shut down just a few weeks ago."

His expression didn't change. She hated how well he could wear indifference.

Zubair's shoulders lifted in a familiar shrug. Dismissive. Arrogant.

It made her stomach twist with revulsion.

She knew that shrug. The careless gesture of a man who had gotten away with too much for too long and believed his luck wouldn't run out today. It made her want to rip the earth from beneath his feet.

He thought he'd walk free.

Again.

She wanted to break him with her bare hands.

Her breath hitched.

Fury, sharp and sudden, coiled up her spine like fire licking bone. It burned behind her ribs, curled into her throat. She had held it at bay for hours, for days. She had braced herself with logic and law and precision. But that shrug, that smug curl of Zubair's mouth, made her want to scorch the earth.

But then. A hand.

Warm. Steady. Grounding.

Murtasim's.

His fingers slipped over hers beneath the folds of his shawl, anchoring her to the moment with the quiet intimacy only he could offer. The pressure of his grip was neither too soft nor too firm, it was perfect. Reassuring.

"Calm down," he murmured, just for her. His voice, low and close to her ear, threaded through the chaos around them like balm through flame.

And then, he rose, not to his feet, but in presence.

His voice cut through the murmuring crowd, rising with quiet authority, measured and rich. It didn't need to shout. It settled over the garden like a mantle, impossible to ignore.

"For months," he began, "Zubair has been acquiring lands my uncle lost in gambling."

The panchayat stirred.

Chairs shifted. Necks craned. Faces turned.

A few heads turned sharply.

"We all know," he continued, his tone steady and rich with a weight only truth could lend, "that my uncle's property bordered the disputed stretch where the railway was going to be built. The land that now belongs to us legally, we fought over it for months, it is where the new school for the village will stand. And we all know what that land is worth now, with the railway project confirmed."

Zubair didn't flinch. His smirk widened, arms folding across his chest as if the accusations amused him.

"Those lands are mine," he drawled, lazy, derisive. "He lost them. Everyone saw it."

And that was the truth, wasn't it?

The murmurs surged again, not shocked now, but resigned. Quiet nods. Muttered agreements. Because in the eyes of this village, a gamble, however reckless, was a pact. A price paid. A loss accepted. What was given over the table stayed gone.

She could feel the question rise around her like smoke: And?

Murtasim didn't argue.

He simply turned.

One brow lifted, dark and amused, a silent dare flung into her lap. The floor was hers.

And she stepped into it, matching his smirk with her own. "Yes," she said smoothly. "He lost a lot of land through gambling."

Gasps fluttered like startled birds. A ripple ran through the crowd, confusion stirring at the edges of the villagers' faces.

So what?

It hung there, unspoken.

Everyone gambled.

Cards behind closed doors. Wagers whispered over drinks. And no one ever called it criminal.

But she wasn't finished.

"Which," she said, voice sharp as the crack of a gavel, "is illegal."

Her voice rang out across the lawn like a bell. Clear. Unflinching.

And in her mind, the statutes played like scripture. Under Pakistan's Penal Code and provincial land acts, any property acquired via illegal means, including gambling, could be challenged. No written contract signed under an unlawful wager could be upheld in a court of law. More than that, if proven, the property must be returned to the original, rightful owner.

"The law doesn't recognize those exchanges," she said, her voice even. "Not the courts. Not the police. Not even the land records office. Those lands? They still belong to their original owners."

Zubair scoffed, louder this time, rising an inch from his chair. "Laws never governed this village," he said, lips curled in disdain. "We settle our own matters."

It was a bluff.

And it was a weak one.

Because now, the law was staring back at him with a voice, a name, and a spine made of steel.

Murtasim's voice followed, smooth but unrelenting.

"You can't have it both ways," he said, turning slightly to sweep the crowd into his gaze. "We've followed the law. Built the infrastructure to support it. And if you won't honor that..."

His eyes found the sarpanch.

Then, the rest of the panchayat.

A pause.

"Then remember this. Our deen forbids gambling. And the wealth gained through it. Is this panchayat prepared to stand against that?"

That landed harder than any statute.

A hush followed. This one different.

A hush. Then, a few nods. Quiet. Muted. But real.

The elders of the panchayat - landowners, farmers, men with silver in their beards, began to murmur. Agreeing. Approving.

And then Murtasim drove the nail home.

"Every man who lost his land to Malik through gambling will get it back."

That changed everything.

It was like flint to dry kindling.

The stillness shattered.

The cries that followed were not whispers. They were guttural. Unfiltered. Loud. A man in the third row shot to his feet, pointing a trembling finger toward Zubair, spitting out a name and a year. "He took my father's field!" he roared, and the pain in his voice cracked like glass. Another shouted for his uncle's land. A third wept openly into his palms, shoulders shaking, grief freshened by the sudden hope of undoing.

The panchayat was no longer still.

It had become something else entirely.

Not a court, not yet a riot. But alive with anger, with memory, with men who had been silent for too long and now remembered every inch of soil that had been stolen from beneath their feet.

And Meerab, steady in the eye of the storm, lifted the green folder in her hands.

"The land transfers," she said clearly, "aren't just invalid. They never legally existed."

She held out the folder. "These," she said, "are the official orders. The gambling agreements are null and void. The land must be restored to its legal owners."

Chaos.

Pure, righteous chaos.

But Zubair didn't move. Not yet.

So, she arched her eyebrow in a perfect line of challenge.

She held out her hand. "Take it."

Not a plea. A command dressed in velvet.

For a long, stuttering breath, no one moved.

One of his men, a younger one, trembling at the shoulders, rushed forward and accepted the folder. His fingers shook as he took it, stepping back just as quickly.

"You can show it to your uncle," she said smoothly, her tone edged with frost. "He handles the legal matters, doesn't he?"

Zubair's face was stone.

But his silence spoke volumes.

And for the first time in weeks, Meerab let herself exhale. They weren't done yet, not by a long shot.

But the noose had started to tighten.

Zubair's voice sliced through the uproar, louder than it had a right to be, rising with the desperation of a man cornered. "But there's no proof those lands were acquired through gambling," he snapped, his tone laced with false confidence.

Meerab didn't flinch. She didn't even blink. Instead, her smirk curled, sharp and knowing.

"I wouldn't be too sure," she said sweetly, her voice velvet over steel.

Beside her, she felt Murtasim shift, not a large movement, not even enough to draw attention. Just the subtle lean of a man preparing to strike.

"The brothel on the outskirts of town was raided weeks ago."

He didn't raise his voice.

He didn't need to.

A stillness rippled through the garden like wind cutting across water.

"And it was not just shut down, tapes were secured. Years' worth of them. Every backroom deal, every shady transaction, every face and name recorded." His eyes locked on Zubair, dark and cold. "Including those conducted in the gambling den tucked away in the back."

The silence that followed was instant.

Malik paled.

Meerab watched it happen in real time. That insufferable smirk faltered. His lips parted ever so slightly. His shoulders shifted, just enough to betray that jolt of fear snaking down his spine. He didn't speak. Couldn't, maybe.

So she did. Her eyes like flame beneath her lashes. "Each annulment you see in that folder," she said, gesturing toward the green file, "is backed by documented evidence. Video surveillance. Financial records. Timestamps. Ledgers. All cross-verified, all catalogued. All submitted to the courts and the police."

Murmurs again, this time louder, layered with awe and confusion and growing belief.

And Meerab could feel it now.

The unraveling.

They were dying inside. Malik, Ammar, all of them. She could see it. The pride bleeding from their postures. The cockiness rotting away. The fear just beginning to set in like winter frost.

But she wasn't done.

Oh no, she wasn't nearly done.

Her hand reached into the tote again, and this time, she pulled free the thick red folder. It was heavier than the others. Weightier. Its spine was already worn from too many nights poured over it in silence.

She held it aloft, high enough for all to see.

"In fact," she said calmly, "what we have now is enough for a full criminal suit."

The air pulled taut.

"The brothel," she said.

A pause.

"The trafficking. The sale of women, some of them underage."

Another beat.

Her voice dropped, low and lethal now. A whisper that somehow struck like thunder.

"The attempted murder of my husband."

And then, colder, sharper -- "The murder of my father."

Gasps.

Actual gasps.

Not imagined. Not dramatized. Sharp, raw, human.

Her eyes met Zubair's.

"All plotted," she said. "And confessed to."

She let that sit for a beat.

"On tape."

That was it.

The match dropped in the oil.

The panchayat erupted.

Not in disbelief. That ship had sailed.

In noise.

Shock. Horror. Shouts. The beginnings of anger.

Meerab didn't move. She didn't need to.

The red folder, still warm from her grip, heavy with truths, passed from her hands into those of the man beside the sarpanch. His fingers trembled as he took it, the edges of the file fluttering like something alive.

She leaned back slowly, the hem of her shawl lifting in the breeze like a banner, like a flag planted in ground she had just claimed. One leg crossed neatly over the other. A picture of ease. Not the ease of indifference, but of control. The kind that came after battle lines had been drawn and crossed.

And then, she smiled. Wide. Cold.

"Witnesses have already given statements," she said, adjusting her shawl like she was bored. "Including the driver you hired to run my father off the road."

A gasp split the air.

They had tracked him down weeks ago, pieced his identity together from scraps. An unmarked license plate caught in the edge of a camera frame, a slurred confession by one of Malik's men in a video no one was supposed to record, alcohol loosening tongues that should've known better. It had taken time. Quiet work. And a brutal kind of patience.

But the truth had a way of surfacing, like rot under polished wood.

A hiss moved through the crowd like wind catching fire. In a village this size, nothing stayed secret forever. Not when enough eyes knew where to look.

"And all evidence has been turned over."

Her smile deepened. Triumphant. Unforgiving.

Zubair's gaze darted across the courtyard, wild and desperate, seeking faces he might still command. But the ones that once looked to him with deference now blinked back with wary distance. The hush that had settled across the panchayat broke with his voice, low and venom-laced.

"You think I'll go down alone?" he hissed, his lip curling into something between rage and panic. "She'll come for you next."

Meerab didn't even flinch.

She tilted her head and offered him a slow shrug, her tone almost bored as she replied, "You're the only one dumb enough to try to harm a Khan...and get caught on tape admitting it."

There was a beat of stunned silence.

"Did you really think that vile woman who ran the brothel didn't keep cameras in every corner?" she said, her voice slicing clean through the murmurs. "You think she didn't collect evidence to protect herself?" Her gaze swept across the crowd. "It's all there. You. Your men. The clients. The deals. The drugs. The women you sold."

A sharp inhale swept through the crowd, a collective recoil.

"And," she added, voice turning razor-edged and calm, "there are women willing to testify. Women you thought had no voices."

The color drained from Malik Zubair's face, that practiced smirk cracking under the weight of revelation. But before he could open his mouth again, Meerab's eyes narrowed on him with practiced precision.

"Oh," she said lightly, almost conversationally, "all of your assets have been frozen. That includes the accounts your father and uncle are named on. All the money."

And then came the collapse.

Not loud.

Not obvious.

But unmistakable.

Like a tide pulling back, his circle shifted.

Men who had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him for years began to quietly step away, their gazes cast downward, shoes scraping against grass. Supporters melted like shadows at sunrise, no one wanting to be caught standing too close.

Murtasim leaned back in his chair. "The people you used to count on?" he said, voice low but echoing across the courtyard like a verdict. "The ones who'd bribe and bend the law for you?" His eyes swept the edges of the garden, where power had once congregated in Malik Zubair's shadow. "They're struggling to stay afloat themselves. You will be alone when this storm hits."

Zubair opened his mouth, but there was no audience left to catch his words.

And then, Meerab turned.

Her eyes landed on Ammar, who had thus far remained unnervingly quiet, sitting just behind Zubair with the tension of a man who had started to see the walls closing in.

"And you," she said coolly. "You're not innocent either."

Ammar's head jerked up, startled. Like a schoolboy caught mid-deceit, the illusion of composure crumbling in the face of an accusation he had long feared would come. There was something pitiable in his expression, as if he couldn't quite believe she'd pointed at him too, as if he had convinced himself this storm was only meant for someone else.

"You were his accomplice in much of this. The lies. The cover-ups. The transfers. The names you fed to the men at the brothel." Her voice did not rise, it didn't need to. "You're just as culpable."

And this time, it wasn't just Zubair who looked around and found no allies.

It was Ammar too.

The tension snapped. Or perhaps it had been fraying all along, thread by thread, and now it had finally unraveled entirely with the last pull.

The villagers murmured loud and low, voices tumbling over one another in disbelief, in fury, in relief. Elders leaned in to speak, heads shaking. Younger men whispered to each other in hushed, agitated tones. Women at the back craned their necks to see better, some standing, their hands pressed against their mouths. The ripple had begun.

And then Murtasim stood.

Meerab felt it before she saw it, the silence that fell like dusk the moment his voice rang out.

"This village," he began, his voice even but filled with weight, "has suffered long enough at the hands of the Maliks."

It was not just a statement. It was a pronouncement.

"Zubair and his men circled your daughters like vultures. The Maliks bought silence and sold dignity. Used his greed to shatter families. Used your hunger to steal your land. And when that wasn't enough, he came for me. Tried to erase me so he could inherit what was never his."

Every eye turned to him. And they listened. Because they always did when Murtasim Khan spoke, not just out of fear or tradition, but because he had never broken their faith.

"Loopholes let him go once," he said, his gaze pinned to Zubair, voice darker now, angrier. "But no more."

And then, without fanfare, without the need for spectacle, he looked Zubair dead in the eye and said, "Tumhari hukumat khatam."

At that exact moment, as if summoned by the weight of his words, police jeeps rolled in through the courtyard gates, one after another. The seal of the state painted across the side. Uniformed officers began pouring out, eyes scanning, expressions hard.

A breath escaped Meerab, half a laugh.

She didn't need to look over her shoulder to know it was Arsalan. He had held them back until the perfect beat, like a conductor timing the crescendo.

She turned, just slightly, to look at Murtasim, the man still standing tall beside her, dressed in black and fury, a storm and sanctuary in the same body.

"Did I forget anything?" he asked, eyes on her now.

Meerab shook her head, slow and deliberate.

"No," she said, unable to help the smile that curved her lips. "You got it all."

And then the chaos truly began.

Men shouting. Others scrambling to flee. The police moving swiftly through the crowd. Officers closing in on Malik Zubair and his men, on Ammar, on the shadows of a kingdom that had ruled too long.

And she and Murtasim, the Khan and his Khanum, stood at the eye of the storm, side by side.

Unmoved. Unshaken.

Unconquered.

---------------------------

Author's Note: Soooooo, what do we think? What was your favourite part? And will Meerab/Murtasim stop here or is there more to come for Zubair and Ammar? Hehehehe.