'We are sun and moon, dear friend, we are sea and land'
.
And finally their lives made sense
"Come again?" Maaz's authoritive voice was booming in the room and through his laptop to his assistant who was on a video call with him, discussing weekly business.
"I beg your pardon. Sir, but if I did something to offend you, I didn't mean it," The older man, Maaz's assistant, Hammad's face had shrunken in worry, as Maaz gave him a pathetic glance and looked over at her on the picture frame on his desk, and from that frame to her eating food on the coffee table. He sighed looking back at Hammad.
"I am offended and very much so. You are telling me to come back to America, while my psycho cousin is still out there and Ayat is in evident danger?"
"That is not what I am suggesting. Sir, with all due respect, it is just a lot here for you to deal with. The investors from Japan and Korea are in country, and they intend immediate business, if that's possible," Hammad coddled in the tense atmosphere.
"Tell them it is not possible, physically, virtually if they intend, by all means but I can't leave her here like this, unprotected. Note that, and do not insist again," He was strict when it came to business but since her, it could be officially stated, he had been neglecting some of his duties. No one could but convince him otherwise.
"I will not, but if you change your mind, just know Ayat madam will be under full protection," Maaz raised an eyebrow. Hammad retreated instantly.
"Not that I am insisting, sir," Hammad didn't fondle before adding the regiment which meant to somehow please Maaz, or better yet, his ego.
"Better. You can go now," Maaz mentioned. "And keep me updated,"
"Wait!" Ayah's voice muffled between bites, biryani this time, she couldn't get enough food when she was stressed which was funny, but not that he'd say that on her face, not if he wanted her flashing wrath coming his way. He could deal with crime lords but her, he just couldn't.
She rounded from the coffee table in his office to his desk where he spent last few hours going through and awful lot of work. Business was boring, so much so, she had yawned thrice in her lunch break just watching him work
"Sit back, mia amor, and eat," Maaz refrained her. She frowned and came to the laptop anyways wiping her hands and face with a paper napkin.
"You can call me Ayat. Not madam. It sounds awful," She smiled from the call. Hammad had clearly an uncomfortable face on, like he was constipated. Only if Ayat were in his shoes would she understand the situation the poor man was in.
"Okay. Ayat," Hammad's smile was rather stiff and incoherent. Maaz almost absorbed himself in the camera and stressed upon his words. "You will call her. Madam,"
"Better, sir," Hammad said and dismissed the call on Maaz's cue.
"What the hell?" Ayat retorted. "Why can't he call me like normal people do?"
"Because, he is my consigliore,"
"You're what?" Ayah's ear's perked up.
"He is my consigliore, my advisor, not my brother, so he can't call you your name, and that's final. Conversation over," he marked with sitting back down on his desk and typed away on his laptop.
"You are impossible, and I will get my revenge for this," She warns him and walks out the door, while he kept wondering what she means by it. He was thrilled to find out.
Ayat was walking through the pavement of her house, keys jingling in her hands as she opened the door to the house. She heard the sound of crockery from the kitchen, her footsteps led to her mother preparing something in the pan.
"Hi, ma," She kisses her mother. Sara turned the stove off and looked at her daughter, already starting to look a lot younger and better, her hair now slightly falling on her forehead unlike before when she tied them up until her roots hurt.
"You know about it..." Her mother's eyes were glistening with tears. Ayat felt the need to process it. Know about what? And then it clicked her and she wished internally 'Not that' because she was not ready, she was surprised how her mother had found out that she knew. Did she know about Maaz and her as well? She wanted to do it the right way, but nothing had happened the way she had aspired, universe conspired to bedevil her plans.
She nodded. "I do,"
Her mother nodded hers in clear disappointment. She shrugged her shoulders taking support of the shelf. Ayat put her bag down, looking at her mother react this way she got defensive. "Ma, why'd you hide it? Do both my brothers know?"
"They know, but for you it was important, for your own welfare," She underlined and slowly her voice was fading out, her face coming transform from red to pale. She held her mother's hand and led her to the couch.
"Ma, sit down, so she was your sister then?" Ayat asked taking her hand politely. Her mother nodded, and the threatening tears had started to come down. What was happening?
Her father walked in them, surprised by them in this tense environment. "What is going on?" He asked the same question. What had happened to them so many years ago, that merely the thought of it had gotten her mother on edge.
"Did you know Maaz was mom's nephew?" Ayat couldn't help but ask. Her father's eyes darkened in realization, he took a seat across from them.
"We did," He said. "We didn't want that family to influence you; your aunt was murdered because of her brother in law,"
"Wait...Javed Chaudhry?"
Her mother nodded. "He killed her, and when her wife found out the atrocity, he killed her own wife as well, it was her wife that told us, but he threatened to kill Maaz as well if we did something stupid, he told us to keep our mouths closed,"
"You were black mailed by him?" It was more to herself than her parents. "He threatened you..."
"And not just to kill him, but to kill everyone in the family...and since he easily got away with all his previous crimes, we were positive, that we'd die and no one would look for our remains, so we kept silent and lived with the false story of her dying in childbirth,"
"Does Amna Khala know?" Ayat asked. Her mother's face turned agonized in guilt. "Mom...just tell me the truth,"
"When Amna talked about having you back. I was considering it, but then she demanded that you knew about this family secret since everyone knows about it, even Aman, and I couldn't put your life in danger," Her mother said. "So I rejected,"
She had wished it had remained the way it was before, when she thought her parent's had rejected the proposal because Aman couldn't respect her, gulping the anger in she patiently listened to her parents.
"You like Zara's son. Maaz?" Her father asked her and as complicated as it might have sounded, telling them that she loved him was the easiest of the task right now.
"I do, a lot," She curated.
"We understand, he is just like Zara, and now that Javed is dead I will love for both of you to be together, this is what Zara would want," Her mother said smiling. Unfortunately, Ayat didn't feel any happy emotions.
Her mother was threatened, understood but there are other ways to put a criminal behind bars, Javed couldn't have such a strong influence, her parents weren't the ones to hide away, she wanted to feel empathy but all she felt was rage, as she thought of how young Maaz had lived in under the influence of a mass murderer just because her parents were cowards, she felt rage fuming out of her. She left her mother's hand as if been touched by fire.
"You could have tried harder," She said all of a sudden. Her mother's smile died, as her father looked at her in curiosity.
"You just stopped, and let him live with that monster, and did his father know? Just tell me..."Her voice cracked. "Who else knew because he does not know shit...mom, he is broken and he suffers each day, and just because you failed to put Javed behind the bars, he still suffers, his father was killed mom, and he wouldn't have if you had tried hard enough, he wouldn't have been going mad because he couldn't find who killed his parents, and when he came you just pretended not to know him?"
" We didn't' at first but then I put two and two together and it was confirmed, and after that picture thing, we wanted for you to stay away from him," Her mother said.
"What changed your mind?" Ayat asked.
"He is still my nephew,"
Ayat blinked away, exasperated and tired of secrets. "Truth, ma, please,"
Sara shrugged her shoulders. "He came to take our blessing, yesterday, he told us you knew, and I love him as my own son and we definitely agreed,"
"Yet, you left him to rot alone," She couldn't put through the fact that her parents had hidden like a criminal.
"Ayat," Her dad tried to refrain her, but Ayat could not. "Why dad? Isn't that the truth?"
"You don't say that to us, we have suffered enough," Sara was always a women of honesty, when she meant to be honest, she was, but for the first time their suffering looked less than his, and she hated herself for feeling this way, but her parent's excuse to let that monster go was just not good enough.
"Really mom? Is that all you say for letting a crime lord walk freely, a monster shadowing your nephew, corrupting him...he is a mafia boss now, because he wants to feel safe, and all because of you...and that picture you used to hold onto and cry, it was Maaz right? The baby in the picture, it was him right? It was him,"
She had never used such a tone with her parents but right at that moment her mother had had enough. "We know what he is, he told us, and we understand, but you need to stop,"
" So it was him, then why the hell did you not put the man behind bars, because I know you...I know that you don't just hide because of threats...I know that about both of you dad, I know you are not cowards, you are fighters...and,"
"They killed your twin brother!" Her mother shouted. The floor slipped from under her feet and the world seemed virtual all of a sudden, like nothing she had ever known was real, everything a falsity. Her father's eyes lodged as if he had been transported in a different, dark universe. A tragic part, a painful memory.
A faint voice came out of her constricted throat. "What?"
"Yes. So it was not just threats, he killed your one year old twin brother just to make sure we kept our mouths shut, and that why we had to lie to you, and that is why the whole family knew except you, because your twin just as I lost mine, and we lost a child, so yeah I have suffered enough because of that man and you don't get to bash me all these years later after all I have done is protect you... he was just like you...he could have turned into a handsome young man..."
"He was the baby in the picture..."
Sara nodded crying constantly.
"Oh," She gasped, and broke into tears.
She kept saying and crying. "Oh, I am so sorry, I..."
Her mother hugged Ayat, as she broke down with her. "It's okay, honey, it's not your fault,"
"Dad, I am sorry...I shouldn't have shouted on you both, I was just so...angry,"
"I know. I know, and see you're crying and that's why we didn't want to tell you that, because you are so sensitive Ayat, and you always have been, when he died you couldn't sleep for days...we couldn't lose another child," She had never seen her father this vulnerable before, he was calm and collective, always.
"After that the only way to protect Maaz was to disappear from his life, as his father had done, we were asked to or we would have seen another baby corpse," Her mother said.
She felt alarm and disengaged from reality. Her guess was right, but Maaz was sure that it could be anyone but her uncle. She was dreading the moment that Maaz knew the actual killer, the problem was he had died, and his son was the only answer, whether he was involved or not in the murder, he sure was involved in getting Ayat raped, and that was more than enough to drag him through the mud for Maaz.
"He still lives Ma," Ayat said. Her mother's eyes looked up in petrification, her father's equally estranged. "His older son is doing what his father does, he has been after Maaz and Maaz just went past the real murderers of both his parents, and I have to tell him..."
"Is he in danger?" Her mother's concerned eyes were so refreshing somehow, no one had cared so much for his safety. Ayat laughed at that. "He is a crime lord, ma, he can't be in danger...they are the ones who need to worry now, so much for being hibernated,"
Later that night, her fingers slipped through the call log as she dialed his number. "Maaz? I might know who killed your parents,"
And like that finally their lives made sense, until it didn't.
...
Greetings Fellas!
Long time no see. Eh. I am a little guilty, but heck procrastination is a bitch, and so is inspiration, it comes when it wants to. But here it is, another chapter. Have fun! And let me know how is it going?
Love,
Romaisa.