VII. promise: وعدہ

                                    

                                          
He put water in the glass as his father sat in the majestic chair in his study as he stared out the window. Asfandyar's words undid something in him. This man wasn't Sultan Khan he knew off. This man was disheveled. The ashes of cigar piled up on his desk as he sat alone in his throne. The throne he lost everything for in cold blood. 
                          
"Is he here still?" His rash voice quietly asked, still staring out the window towards the vast backyard.
                          
"He left three days ago." He picked up the papers, putting in their right folder. "He left everything behind. He removed everything that was under his name and said you can do whatever you want with it."
                          
"How could he say no to so much I gave him?"
                          
"Because his life is full of peace that you lost, Father." For the first time, he raised his voice in front of his father and the man flashed his eyes at him. "Leve him alone, Father. He found his salvation. Let him live the life you took from him."
                          
"Kabir." The man wanted his voice to thunder across the room, but it just came as a struggle to find power over his son. A son who seemed to be shackled to him even though he didn't want to. "Why are you still here? You can leave if you want. I don't need anyone."
                          
"Mama." He picked the blanket from the couch and folded it then picked up the dirty whiskey glass. "She didn't do the right thing. She shackled me to this place, to you. She asked me to be the son you'll need. She freed Ayla. She freed Asfi Lala, but she shackled me and I'm still angry at her for that."
                          
"You're not doing anything for free. You'll inherit all this." His father's jaw clenched as he smashed the cigar on the table.
                          
"I don't want anything from you." He looked straight into the cold eyes of his father. Disheveled and shaken, this man still held on to his ego and wealth like his next breath. "Sell this all and donate it to orphans or charity, in a hope that maybe you can get even an ounce of forgiveness and redemption that you don't deserve."
                          
He bit the bitterness and hate on his tongue and swallowed it. The caged guilt and burden were on the brink of lips but yet no one was here to listen to him. His brother went through the barbaric abuse and his sister still woke up with nightmares of the day when her hands were stained with murder. What right he had to complain about the guilt of survival? That it suffocated him to know he went unscathed because he was Father's favorite.
                          
"You'll always be my father because my mother said so. Other than that the only Thing I hold for you is hatred for what you did to all of us. I will never forgive you for what you did to my mother. You killed her."
                          
๏
                          
She rubbed her head. The throbbing was killing her as she stared at the screen of her phone. More than the throbbing it was the fear of the unknown that kept her shivering. 



                          
You will pay for what you did
- Red



                          
She remembered that night like the color of her blood. The night when she was humiliated and the only thing she could hear was her bloodcurdling scream and torn clothes. When she cried for mercy and the only thing he gave her was the scars. Her back burned and scarred with each touch of the burning cigarette. 
                          
The world around her had blurred that night as she tried to run for her life and he had torn her back in half as the glass pieces pierced her skin. She had never even found the strength to defend herself. The shame and humiliation tied her lips. But when atrocities cross a limit and the choice only between life and death, it even reinvigorates the fear to retaliate. She had taken the same broken bottled and shoved it in his heart as he came for her again. She pulled it out and shoved it in his body again. Again and Again. Until every ounce of blood left his body and she sat there in the corner with her back bleeding.