Lut Gaye || لٹ گۓ

SEVEN | Haider's Promise

"lut gaye ham toh pheli mulaqaat mein."

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IF Haider had to characterize himself in three words, they would be: indomitable, assertive, and confident.

He was always a man in control.

Of his life.

Of his emotions.

He had been through many rough patches, had been in problematic predicaments but he always managed to retain his composure regardless of the situation.

But not tonight.

Tonight, every fibre of his being was shaking with unbridled wrath.

His heart was ablaze.

He was burning.

And he wanted to burn the whole world to cinders with the raging inferno she had sparked inside of him.

Standing in the half-empty banquet hall―the place where he was supposed to tie the knot tonight―with his downcast eyes and hands latched onto the top rail of a chair, he fought to control himself.

The space was charged with the cacophony of complains and apologies but he failed to focus on anything. His mind reverberated the same news he had received upon his arrival; the words that had struck him like a bolt from the blue.

"Iman is not here."

He grounded his jaw.

"She ran away with a guy."

His knuckles turned pale with the crushing grip he had on the chair.

He hadn't believed it at first. He thought his ears had betrayed him because she couldn't do this.

Iman. His Iman.

The woman of his dreams; the woman he had waited patiently to make his; the woman so delicate and pure like a flower―she could never do something so vicious, so immoral.

But she had.

His ears hadn't betrayed him, she had.

In the span of few moments, his emotions had transformed from utter bewilderment to pain to sheer indignation. It took an ample amount of restrain to not destroy every garlanded object around him; to not crush every chain of flowers that seemed to taunt him.

"If Iman didn't want to marry my son, then why didn't she say so earlier? Why did she do this? And how could you not know she already had someone else in her life, Ashfaq?"

His father's booming queries slashed through the air and reached his haywire brain grappling with the same questions.

"I... don't know what to say," came Iman's father's dejected reply, prompting Haider to lift his gaze and march forward until his sturdy frame was standing right in front of him.

Haider had never seen Ashfaq Bakhtiyar look so helpless; so defeated. He couldn't believe he was the same old man who always held his head high and could intimidate anyone by just looking at them but couldn't even look him in the eye tonight.

"I always thought your daughter didn't like to speak much," his voice was ominously low, scathing, and scorching. "But, I didn't know she also had a talent of leaving people speechless."

Her father averted his gaze shamefully and mumbled, "I'm so sorry, Haider betay."

"Sorry?" he scoffed in repulsion before an acidic edge coated his tone. "That your daughter will be, Uncle."