Chapter 21: Chapter 21

Flashback

"Shehryaar son, go make your life. Until when you would continue to be like this? " his father uttered with tears filled in his eyes while he sat next to him.

His father's health was deteriorating day by day. Shehryaar knew what had been eating him from inside. He was aware his father didn't have the will to live left in him. Since the day his mother was caught with another man in the bedroom she shared with his father, his father had been heartbroken.

His father, Haider and mother, Jaha Ara had been bonded in an arrange marriage but more often they seemed like a couple immensely in love with each other. As if it wasn't an arrange but a love marriage.

Haider fell in love with Jaha Ara the very day his eyes fell on her. She was standing in the middle of that garden full of roses, azaleas, lillies but to him, she was the most beautiful flower. He had requested his father Shabbir to get him married to Jaha Ara.

His father and Shehryaar's grandfather who was the mafia don at that time went to every length to get the girl married to his son yet both the families were not aware of the secret love of Jaha Ara with a guy names Umer. She continued to be in a relation with him despite being married to Haider. And the day she got caught was no less than an apocalypse for Haider.

He thought Jaha Ara loved him but she didn't. Since the day his wife committed suicide, the will to live within him diminished. Haider also came to know Jaha Ara had taken money from his father to get married to him. That piece of information destroyed him. He tried to kill himself too but his father stopped him.

This incident had an impact on three of his children. His eldest son Irtaza, the middle one, Shehryaar and the youngest daughter Dua.

Yet the most affected was Shehryaar. Haider had seen him growing distant from others over the course of time. He had seen that hatred and rage within his eyes for womankind. He didn't trust any woman apart from one or two that were family.

He had began to thought that all woman were alike. Just like his mother. If a mother could abandon her children for someone else then any woman could go to every length just to get what she wants without any care for her family.

That was also one of the reasons he wasn't getting married. He had began to thought, his wife would also betray him, just like his mother, she would also come after his money, just like his mother.

He began to see all women from that same angle. Shehryaar knew that wasn't the sane thing but he grew in to what he had witnessed and experienced in his childhood.

The impact was deep, engraved and he couldn't help but consider her just a piece or an object.

"What do you want?" he said, "do you want me to end up like this too?"

"Like what?"

"You know what I'm speaking about, baba,"

"Not every woman is like your mother, Shehryaar,"

"If she can be then anyone can be. Wasn't she the epitome of a good wife and mother? Wasn't she? But what she turned out to be? Look where are we now just because of that single woman,"

"Not everyone is like her," his father reiterated and he just scoffed.

"Get married, have children, set your life. I want you to see you getting married while I'm alive,"

"I don't want to get married," he said with a note of finality

"Look at me, son," he pulled his arm but Shehryaar didn't look at him, "look at me," he said again and this time around he turned his head towards his father.

Haider tried to sit and as soon as he placed his hand on the bed to support himself, it slipped and he wasn't able to sit up. Shehryaar stood up and immediately held his father's hand and helped him sit up.

He was stepping back when Haider held his arm, "tell me is there any girl in your life?" he asked.

"Why do you ask, baba?"

"Just tell me,"

After a few moments of silence, Shehryaar spoke, "yes, there is one,"

"Do you like her? Love her?"

"No, I don't,"

"Then what is she to you?"

"No one,"

"Tell me about her?" his father asked him with curious eyes, "tell me, what is that peeks your interest in her,"

"She doesn't fit in the definition that I've set for women. She is different from others but I know she too will show her true colors, sooner or later,"

"Marry her, Shehryaar,"

"As expected," he muttered under his breath. He saw it coming.

"You can ask my doctor, I may not have much time left. This is my last will to see you getting married before this disease eats me. I want to see you happy. Tell me will you fulfil it?"

He didn't answer and just looked at his father with a stoic face and void eyes.

"She is different but that does not mean I trust her. 'She is different from others' were the same words you used to use for my mother then we all came to know how different she was,"

"Will you fulfil last wish of this old man?"

He kept quiet.

"Will you?" he asked again.

Again all he got was silence.

"I ask for the last time, will you son?"

"You can't pressurize me like that and I don't want to marry to end up just like you, just like Irtaza. Didn't Zahra betray him too?"

He saw tears filling in his father's eyes, "I'm saying it for your own good. It kills me, your grandfather, the whole family to see you like that. What have you become son? See in the mirror, see, what have you become? If you think I don't want to live then what about you? Aren't you a living corpse?"

"Who made us all a living corpse, father? A failed marriage because of a two faced woman who came to you just because of your money,"

"Will you fulfil my wish?" his father asked again.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

After some moment, opening his grey eyes, he stared back within his father's eyes that depicted helplessness. They were dull. Dead.

"I will give you my answer soon," he tapped at his shoulder, "soon, baba,"

............

Marriage was not something he had ever thought about. It was a foreign thought to him. A distant one. Rather it never occured to him that he would get married.

He picturized his life in achieving as many success as he could for his company. He had invested day and night, blood and sweat in building it. His company making progress by leaps and bounds was all he always cared for.

He never compromised on his work.

And apart from his business his personal life was working with his brother, Irtaza and partner, Moosa in strengthening the mafia.

He was an obsessive man. In every field of his life he always carried an obsession in his heart to produce the results he wanted. If he won't get any thing by fair means he would use his own dangerous ways to get things done then but at the end he would have what he wanted.

Marriage was nowhere in this circle of his life. And his father had put up this weird demand.

And the only woman that was on his mind these days was just Sheharzaad.

As if she had done some magic on him.

Whenever his eyes would droop down, in that darkness, her face would appear.

That night would repeat in his mind like a broken record.

He didn't go near any other woman after spending that one night with her.

She was really something else.

And if he could give someone the status of his wife then it might be her. But still he wasn't sure.

He knew what needed to be done and he was doing exactly that.

When she had left his office, he retrieved his phone before dialing a number.

"Hello, h-hello sir," the man on the other side of phone stuttered.

"Ahmed," Shehryaar uttered.