Three days.That's how long Ishaal had avoided him.No café.No calls.No messages.Only silence and the strange ache that came with it.
She told herself she needed space.To breathe.To think.To stop hearing his voice in her head every time she closed her eyes.
But Raabistan's city lights have a habit of pulling people back to what they're running from.So when her studio door opened that evening and a single white envelope slid under it, she already knew who it was from.
You can stay away if it helps.But don't lie to yourself about missing me.
No signature. No explanation. Just that bold, infuriating line.
Ishaal crumpled it, threw it in the bin and ten minutes later she was sitting on the floor, smoothing it back out.Pathetic, she thought. But curiosity was a disease and Rayyan was the infection.
That night, she opened her phone and found a new message request.No name. Just a video file.She hesitated, then played it.
It was the café's CCTV footage.She saw herself leaving the night of the warning note… and a shadow following her across the street.Not Rayyan. Someone else.
Her breath hitched.
A new message flashed:
You still think you were safe?
She stared at the screen, fingers trembling. Then she typed back before her fear could stop her:
"Who is this?"
No reply. Just three dots blinking, then disappearing.
Meanwhile…
Rayyan sat in his study, the city stretched out behind him.On his desk lay another phone, the one he used when he didn't want her to know it was him.He hadn't sent that video.Which meant someone else was in the game now.
He leaned back, eyes dark. "So they finally touched what's mine."
The game had changed, and Ishaal didn't even know it yet.