"Whatever," she replied. 
"I didn't realize it until it was too late, and for this... I apologize."
"Talk to Allah about forgiveness."
"My oversight changes nothing," he said as if she didn't just throw his apology back in his face. He separated a piece of fish. "You should eat. Zara's very sensitive about leftovers."
"How much?" She asked,
"All of it, if you can." He shoved food in his mouth, and when he chewed, the muscles of his jaw tighten and striated.
"How much was I worth?" she asked, she knew something was fishy the moment her father agreed to let him marry her. She didn't know what happened between them but she was sure money must have been involved otherwise nothing on this earth could make Humza do it. 
"Hm?" He took a drink of water.
"How much was the debt I paid?"
He looked at her as if she confused him, then made a tsk sound in his throat.
"That's not your business." he said, 
"Yes, it is!" She doesn't mean to shout but she doesn't care anymore either.
"Says who?" Humza asked as if her life was just a rhetorical question. 
"You're mine, my wife." He speared another chunk of meat. "I decide what you need to know. This is how things are done here."
There was a sweating glass of water in front of her and She wanted nothing more than to throw it in his face right now. He doesn't talk to her, not really, and did not let her talk to anyone else from the moment he forcefully married her. 
It was frustrating for her. 
"You mean you? Where you're from? I'm from here. And that is not how things are done here. You can go to jail for this."
Humza sighed in frustration. He's letting her know he's being patient with her after what he did that day, her ignoring him made him feel strangely uneasy. 
The king of the underworld does not like to explain himself. Or this situation. Or anything in general.
"You are an Indian, a country where arrange marriages happen the most, in the public eye, we had an arranged marriage. Still, I'll let you do this," He dug in his pocket and extracted his phone. 
"Would you like to call them?" He kept the phone between us. "I know the number of DGP. He's a friend." A heavy pause sat between them. "He knows all about you."
The precise weight of his revelation crushed her. He's got his punishing fingers hooked where he can hurt her most.
Overwhelming loneliness filled her up, every inch. She was alone. 
Digging her nails into her palms might make nice little flowers of pain to distract her, but not enough to keep her from crying. By the first hitching blubber, She couldn't even feel them. Tears fell like droplets on the water glass.
"Don't. No." Humza's demeanour changed in a flash. He flicked a handkerchief from inside his jacket and passed it to her. 
"Don't do that."
"Do what?" She tried to swallow down the sadness, but they feel much too large to contain. Her throat was full of sticky gunk, and She couldn't get control of her breath.
"Cry. No. Don't cry."
His cruelty is shed for something that sounded a lot like sympathy, and for some reason, that's what finally unlocked the remainder of the tears she had been holding back. They come pouring like monsoons and every inch of resolve she had carried is swept away in it.
"Zara!" He yelled, "Bring a box of tissues. fast."
A dim outline of a person entered and exited the room on demand. Her sadness have fully exploded, and she was only barely hanging on.
"Rhythm. Listen." Humza's voice dropped to an unthreatening purr. "You just have to accept that you are married to me and you..."
"I'd be grateful you married me?" She hiccuped, furious, tears still running down her face.
"You aren't taken from your life. I'll let you finish college."
"Let me?"
"If you behave. And maybe, if you want..." Humza reached out and touched her arm, and the gentleness of it shocked her as much as her reaction to it. She hated it and She was grateful for it all at the same time. 
"A job?"
She jerked her arm away and the tears flow faster, harder. If she was a good girl, he'll let her go work in a shop somewhere. If She behaves, he'll let her go to college. She was not just a slave, not just the house decor, she was his pet, too.
How could this possibly be her life? After every tragedy she had to endure as a young girl, this is how she end up?
My heart cracked open.
"Rhythm!"
He didn't just get frustrated, he yelled. His yell is a big man's yell, one that fills up the crevices of the room and blankets her whole. His yell is that of a man accustomed to power and obedience and cruelty. 
Who has seen things? Who has done things?
And She had been angering that man. 
Her eyes dried up immediately. No more snot. No more tears. No more heaving. The aching pity, one that she despised so much, is gone.
In its wake leaves a very terrifying new creature.
Wrath. Loathing. Fear.
His anger woke her up like an animal who heard a sound in the night. Defensive, protective, afraid for its life and ready to flee.
She thought she wasn't afraid of him before. He's hurt her more than once, he's issued threats numerous times. But to have him yell is a whole new level of hell. It's more than thunder. It's more than lightning. He doesn't act like a king.
He acts like a god. A vengeful, wrathful god.
She doesn't want his sympathy. She doesn't want his kindness. She doesn't want his niceties. She won't manipulate him so he threw her a bone and feigned concern.
"These are the rules," he said. 
"One, You do as I say. You go where I take you. In public, you smile like a good wife. Two. You do not speak to another man without my present. You very well know what happens if you did, Three. Your family? Their lives are forfeit if you try to run. Do you understand? If you run, They'll be the ones to pay."
He is firm. He is godlike, holding out a finger for each rule like a war talisman.
Her own voice was clear in her mind, even if her mouth cannot speak through the spit of sorrow.
It says that she has rules, too.
One: Humza will never have her body.
Two: Humza will never have her mind.
Three: Humza will never have her soul.
Four: She will never, ever cry in front of him again. She will never shed another tear so long as She is near this man.
Author's Note:- 
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