"How can you do something like this, Haider? Do you consider marriage as a joke? When you wished, you wedded someone and when you didn't, you abandoned it. And now announcing it proudly that you had a contract marriage. A game which you and that girl played? She seemed so naive and here look what she did. She was deceiving us all along with her innocence and sweetness," Aqia clapped back as she didn't know how to control her anger.

Haider who first was hearing her silently after bearing a slap from his mother completely lost it at Ishmal's mention. "Don't talk about her. She wasn't deceiving anyone. It's all done by me so talk to me, not involve her in it."

"Oh so was she so pure and nice that she married any stranger. It must be due to money, right? Tell me, how much money you gave her in exchange for marrying you?" Aqia said in sarcasm.

Haider's eyes became hard at these weird accusations against Ishmal by his own mother. Why was she going completely off track? It was his doing. He had used her helplessness as his owl's ulterior motive.

"Stop this Mom. She has gone so don't bring her into her talks negatively like this again and again. She got nothing from me except the shelter of this house for these four months," he told her, truthfully controlling his rage.

From the very beginning, the selfish man in him perhaps wanted freedom by making Ishmal bad in front of his parents at the time of divorce. But he didn't know that she would become one even without him saying and wanting anything like that.

Tashfeen held Aqia's arm and pulled her behind. He knew his wife would get extra hyper and get high blood pressure very soon. And besides, this issue needed to be talked about calmly. What happened had already happened. What is required now is to make things in the future more smooth and less complicated.

"Four months, Haider. And you keep on making us ignorant for four months. That wasn't expected of you. Why did you have to do this?" Tashfeen asked.

Haider smirked. "Are you asking me, Dad? You guys had made my life hell. Did you forget that? On every occasion, every time, and every day, you guys couldn't stop forcing your wish to have a daughter-in-law and heirs on me. Then what could I do?"

"So to avoid this you played this game with us? You thought of us as fools. Don't know who that girl was, what was her motive, and where from she came from and you made her live among us," Aqia let out her wrath again by indulging in the discussion.

"Aqia, please. I am talking to him, right? Let me do it," Tashfeen narrowed his eyes at his wife.

Unaiza came to Aqia and made her sit on to sofa. After obvious resistance, she did listen to her husband. Meanwhile, Huzaifa shook his head at this whole scene and conversation. Thankfully Hiba was still sleeping yet or she would have already cried finding her teacher cum sister-in-law already absent from her life.

Tashfeen again looked at Haider. "But we wanted the good for you. We weren't mean or selfish. You needed a life partner and children of course. We wanted to see you happy that's why we were urging you."

Haider opened his both arms in the air. "Then see. That's what had happened because of your urge. My life and heart have no place for a woman. Even if I forcefully try to make one, I can't bring myself to become nice, loving, and accepting. Those layers of indifference and insolence won't rub off me anytime. No woman can be happy with me. And you guys should know this by now."

Aqia who was listening to this with trouble couldn't hear anymore. She stood up without caring for Unaiza's call for her and scrambled towards Haider. 

Aqia glared at him. "Till how long are you going to mourn that Nisha got married to Sufiyan Ahmad's son? You yourself called off that marriage because we all thought she had an affair with that guy. After everything, when she had forgotten it and moved on with her life, why can't you do so? My heart hurts when I see her happy with that guy who stole our happiness and then you who isn't coming out of what happened years---"

"Mom, cut this crap already." He didn't know due to resentment, his tone got high in front of his mother.

But that woman meant nothing to him anymore. His reasons for leaving Ishmal were many but absolutely not Nisha. He perhaps would have tried to make her stay by telling her about his feelings and becoming a better man, but that was one thing he couldn't do. He didn't even have a small sprinkle of goodness inside of him.

There was only destruction, devastation and darkness in his heart and soul. He couldn't give Ishmal what she deserved and what she needed. His heart was replaced by a stone now, incapable of feeling anything tender and warm. And he didn't want Ishmal to share that blackness with him.

"Don't talk about that woman in front of me. She is nothing to me that I will spend my whole life grieving for what she did. Yes, in the beginning, that was the truth but not now. I hate her and stop linking her to me every time. I tried to find some light in my heart but all I found was darkness. And I can't ruin someone's life by giving her this darkness," he snarled.

Nisha exclusively wasn't the reason for his change of personality in the start as well perhaps. It was the feeling of humiliation, an insult that had irked him. Someone who was engaged to him had been seeing another man by keeping a tag of being his fiance. Her feelings should have been for him as her future husband but she had been harboring it for another man. The hit to his self-respect and ego wasn't healed yet. And he didn't want to see and enter his heart again. But ironically and unexpectedly Ishmal did. She entered his heart but she couldn't see it because he hadn't let her do so. Because he couldn't let anyone to notice his already rotten ego and play with it again.

Aqia remained quiet now but her red eyes showed all the anger for Haider right now.

Haider sighed and picked up his cap again. "I am leaving for Sheikhupura due to a case for two weeks in a while. Allah Hafiz."

His mother tried to again stop him as he was going upstairs to his room but Tashfeen interrupted her.

"Aqia, let him go. He isn't a child. He is a grown-up man and he knows what he is doing. He finally has done what he wanted. Don't force him further. Let him sort himself alone," Mr. Tashfeen advised her.

And she listened to him because what else was there to do?

                    ________________

When Ishmal knocked on her gate, her brother had opened it. His eyes widened finding her.

"Ishmal Api..."

Her eyes teared up. "Ayyan, my brother..."

"Ayyan, who is at the gate?" It was her stepfather's voice and this made her jump in fear.

"It's Ishmal Api, Abbu," he announced in a loud voice.

Minutes later Abid appeared in the hallway. His jaw dropped at her sight but the next moment, a different gloss appeared in his eyes. He rushed towards Ishmal.

"What are you doing here? From where have you been coming from, you bitch?" He grasped her hair tightly in his fist. Ishmal gasped in pain.

"Farah, come out and see. Your nasty daughter is back after bringing a shame upon our faces," he yelled.

Farah came out hearing his voice. Her reaction was no other than Ishmal upon seeing her. She reached forward and tried to remove Ishmal's hair from the hands of her husband.

"Keep your hands off my daughter. Leave her," she said in between sobs.

"Ishmal...my daughter...where were you?" Farah asked cupping her face.

Tears fell from Ishmal's eyes. "Ammi..."

"Stop with this emotional drama, Farah. At least ask her from where she is coming by getting herself dirty. Why did you leave the house, you bitch?"

"Don't you start this, Abid? I know everything about you. If I am bearing you, it's just due to my sons. Or else I wouldn't have stayed for a second with you," Farah snared at him, coming in front of Ishmal. It made it seem like her body was shielding her daughter from her husband.

Abid scowled at her and held her arm. "What the hell are you saying?"

"I know your reality, Abid. You are the reason why she left. And now get lost from here. I don't need to hear any ridiculous talks from you," she mumbled.

Abid was about to raise his hand on Farah when the gate knocked again. He mumbled some curses under his breath before walking over to it. But it proved to be his biggest mistake as it turned out to be the police who were ready to arrest him.

"Who is Abid Abbas?" One of the inspectors asked.

"Me, Mr. Inspector. Why are you here?" Abid quickly started mumbling like a frightened person.

"Oh, so it's you." He declared in irony and gestured for one of his subordinates to put handcuffs around Abid's wrists.

"What...what are you doing? Why are you arresting me?" He looked at them with widened eyes.

Ishmal, Farah, and Ayyan were too numb to say anything about the scene going on. What was the police doing here?

"You rascal, you tried to force yourself upon your stepdaughter. We are arresting you under the charge of harassing and trying to molest your stepdaughter," he growled.

Ishmal swallowed hard. Police and imprisoning her stepfather for harassing her? The reason why she left the house in the first place and met Haider.

Haider. Her mind stopped here. Haider was ASP. He knew why did all this happen. So did he send his police to capture Abid? Surely he had done it.

                    ___________________

AssalamoAlaikum/ Hi guys!

A new chapter is updated.

I hope you like it.

Do you think Aqia's words for Ishmal for a reasonable and justifiable reaction from her?

Do you think she actually meant that to was it all because of anger?

Do you agree with Haider's answers?

And what about Farah's reaction to her daughter's arrival?

Why do you think she wasn't angry at her?

What do you think will happen next?

If you like this chapter, don't forget to vote and comment. ❤❤

Till next one, Allah Hafiz/ Bye.  💟