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𝓔𝓿𝓮𝓻𝔂 𝓜𝓸𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽 𝓦𝓲𝓽𝓱 𝓨𝓸𝓾

𝓕𝓮𝓮𝓵𝓼 𝓵𝓲𝓴𝓮

Sweet and beautiful, prettier than anything. This was how life of Asfandyaar and Zubab was moving. It had been a month to their wedding. Smoothly Zubab was changing but for good. She was treated better than expected even by Maham. Zubab was not so anxious like she was before. She was happy and content.

Jibran tried talking to Zubab but she clearly declined. A person who declined her birth simply because she was a girl was hard for her and she'd never be able to forget that. There were days when she'd ponder if she was a boy, would she have been loved by her father?

Zubab dipped the tea bag into the hot water inside the mug as she exited the canteen for doctors of Shah Hospitals. She was focused on the tea as she bumped into someone in the corridor. Hot black tea spilled on his shirt.

"I am sorry! I am really sorry." She says before looking at the person. But when she did, she didn't regret spilling the ardent liquid. If it was in her hand, she would spill buckets of hot water in him.

Rizwan.

He smirks, noticing how horrified she looked. He assumed the power and authority she delegated to him was still there. None of it was. It was fear. No matter how much she makes herself confidential, it was meant to break in front of someone who destroyed her physically and mentally.

"Are you really sorry?" Rizwan asks with a smirk. A smirk which she hated the most. She hated everything about him. "If I had known you were going to bump into me. I would have poured the entire mug."

Rizwan laughs, making goosebumps raise in her body. She had to stand firm and strong. She cannot show her weakness to him, at least to him. "You have grown confident. You weren't this way." Zubab looks straight in his eyes. Though there are people in the corridor, it still scares her around him.

"You have grown to be a monster. You weren't this way." She started walking past him. He slipped his fingers to her arm, stopping her. She jerked his hand and glared at him angrily saying, "Don't you dare touch me, Rizwan. I will not go slow now."

"What if I expose your past to Asfandyaar?"

She knew. She was aware of the fact that he would use it against her. Not like she was scared of it. He should be scared. Asfandyaar knows about everything. She didn't hide anything. She knew if she did, monsters like Rizwan would quench every thrust of their life.

She let it slide and made it look as if she was actually scared. She wanted Rizwan to go to Asfandyaar himself and root himself in his foot. That's what he deserved. She made herself look horrified and stared back at him with fear. "Should I? He is just one call away"

"What do you want, Rizwan?"

"Now that you came to line." He chuckles and takes his phone and reads something.

"Go to Asfandyaar's office. Open his locker, and take out the Greater Kailash project files of South Delhi for me."

Zubab sighed. She was aware money was everything he wanted. But why? Who was he serving all the time? As far as she remembers his mother is dead and no one knows where his father is. He doesn't even know who her father is.

Money can make anyone go beyond the limits under the influence of something never satisfying. But the bigger question was, what was his real relationship with Tahmina? Did he actually care for her? Is he using Tahmina to get money out?

That night. Zubab understood very well that there was not a monster more wilder and scarier than him. He could never change, not like he had a tough past that made him that way. He was born that way but with a facade that would draw the attention of a cold hearted girl to a warm relationship. She wanted to stop it all.

"Don't dare to open your mouth in front of Asfand."

"Mrs. Shah?" Tahmina walked towards them. Zubab smiled at her. "You are a doctor?" Tahmina asks, thrilled. Zubab nods. "Why would you need to make a career? You are the wife of The Asfandyaar Shah."

"Sometimes after the process of education, there are a few monsters you meet, Tahmina. You need to be powerful for them."

"You are right. Can you please feature in one of the episodes of my podcast?"

Zubab nods, smiling. She could see the younger version of herself in Tahmina's eyes. She was too innocent. She could understand how naive she was when she was younger, how Rizwan's silly words would make her laugh. Everything which went wrong and how everything that made her believe the facade was love.

Afterall love for her younger version was just a few words.

"Are you here in the hospital? Everything alright?" Zubab asks, brushing away the fear of standing in front of her ex husband. "I came for an ear check up. These days my ears hurt a lot. Maybe because of my work, I have to wear headphones all the time."

"Did you complete the checkup?"

"Yeah. It was with Dr. Krithika Ghoshal. She gave me an ear drop with a few medications. She said it's nothing serious and hopefully I'll be fine."

Zubab nodded, assuring her with a smile. "You will be. Don't worry."

•

"Dead?" Asfandyaar looks at the details about Rizwan Faruqi. He was not going to let him go. Not at least when he came back. "Are you sure his mother is dead?" He asked Amit, his secretary.

"Yes sir. Mrs. Samreen Faruqi died years ago in an accident."

Samreen Faruqi is Rizwan's mother. Asfandyaar asked for Rizwan's details from Amit to check about his people and his entire life. Surprisingly, he had no one in his life. His mother was dead. His father was not known by anyone. This was so random.

Asfandyaar flipped the pages and read the other details. He gasped when he read the section of marriage. The truth is Zubab was his second wife. He had already been married to another girl named Saba Irshad before Zubab. And now, Tahmina Jaffar is the target. He expected something this big for sure by the way his eyes carried the filth.

"Who is Saba Irshad? She'd surely be the daughter of someone rich." He asks Amit.

"Azam Irshad, the vice-president of India Daily newspaper in West Delhi."

Asfandyaar nods, checking the other details which are random. Previous addresses and phone numbers. "What was the reason of divorce from Saba Irshad?"

"She refused to sign over her shares from the company to him. Because no physical torture was given the case took a little long to take over. Mr. Rizwan was in the final years of his master degree when he got divorced from her."

It all made sense to him. He knew Zubab before Saba because she was his junior but he married Saba before and kept their marriage hidden from the general public and Zubab because he knew his goals. He crunched the paper when he realised Zubab was the one who was tortured physically.

1st wife: Saba Irshad

(Divorced in 2017 due to collision of rights, divorce appealed through Miss. Irshad)

2nd wife: Zubab Zaheer.

(Divorced in 2021 due to domestic violence, divorce appealed through Miss. Zaheer)

Current relationship: Tahmina Jaffar. (Fiancée)

He crunched the paper in his hand. The heat in his cabin grew too ardent just like his heart burnt due to the thought of pain Zubab was put through. He threw the paper across the room.

He fiddled through more of the papers and his eyes darted at the networth Rizwan owned. He had too many properties owned by him. Big or small, many properties were in his name. A few small buildings, a huge restaurant and few plots in the expensive areas of West Delhi. It was registered in another name but it was all his to save himself from the income tax department.

"Don't let this information get to the police. Law cannot handle him. He needs to die and get crunched by my hands before Law touches him."

Amit nodded and went out of the cabin. The door of the cabin opened right after. It was Lily with a box of lunch. "Lil?" He looked up after gulping a glass of water.

"I bought lunch for you."

"It's not even twelve, Lil." He says getting up, unbuttoning the buttons of his sleeves as he sat down next to her on the couch of the cabin. "You didn't even have breakfast. So I thought to bring it early."

"You should have sent this with the driver. You shouldn't travel around so much, Lil."

"I can do anything for my son. I am fine. Not like I should be bed ridden." She smiled. Her smile was warm. She opened the box and he ate with her.

After he had his lunch. He was just talking with her about random things when they heard a knock. "Come in." Asfandyaar says.

It was Zubab. She usually visits sometimes when she is done with her shift or at lunch times. She came in and grinned when she found Lily. Lily has been kind like Zarmain to Zubab. Maham treats her well as well. She was relieved that there were no bad people in her in-laws.

"So, Asfand already has a beautiful date here." They laugh at Zubab's words. Asfandyaar remembers the things she went through. Everything he read from the details.

Victim of domestic violence.

"I need to leave. I have to catch up with a few of my friends." Lily gets up with the box and leaves the room. Asfandyaar pulls Zubab in a hug, stroking her hair. He pecks the top of her head when his heart threatens to cry again on her past.

"Don't ever leave me." He whispers. He could feel her lips stretch into a smile in his chest. He was so glad to have found her. "I will never dare to." He chuckles, pulling her tighter. A while later, he heard her say, "Rizwan came with Tahmina to the hospital today."

Asfandyaar's hand stopped still around her. He could not handle Rizwan's presence in her life anymore. He knew Rizwan would try to intervene in her life now that she is his wife.

"Are you okay?" He asks quickly, still continuing to stroke her hair. "I am fine."

"I am glad. You should be bold to him, okay? Nothing and no one is stopping you, Jaan. You can even kill that bastard if you want to." She nodded, smiling at his words, pulling away and they sat together on the couch. "What did he say?"

"He threatened me. He thinks you are not aware of anything. He still wants money." She says, drinking a glass of water. "He always wanted it."

Asfandyaar wonders why Rizwan wants so much money. What was he going to do with it when he had no one? Was he a psychopath to get obsessed with women and money so much in order to break them? Asfandyaar was sure if Rizwan ever wanted more from him, he would keep his hand in the real estate business or construction of the Shah's.

"What did he ask for?"

"He asked for GK South Delhi project papers from the locker of your office. If not, he will tell you everything. I couldn't say anything because Tahmina came back."

He engages himself in a deep roll of several thoughts. Greater Kailash South Delhi project was the next top project of the Shah Constructions. "You should give the papers to him."

Zubab snapped at him, baffled and thrilled. She didn't expect him to commit such stupidity.

"Asfandyaar? Are you in your senses?"

"I am. Give him the morphed papers. I'll sign them." Asfandyaar told her the details of his life. The net worth, the properties, his first wife, everything. He had now a complete plan to bring him and his entire set up down. Asfandyaar was so ready to utilise it.

"But who told him that GK project is the next one of Shah Constructions?"

"Someone too close. We need to find them out. Maybe he has his roots in the construction business but only three people know about the GK project."

Zubab turned towards him, eyes at him with curiosity. "Who are they?"

"Dad, Mrs. Maham and I."

•

There's a lot more to come. A ride of emotions like victory, sadness and hope await in this story.

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