Chapter 35
I barely registered the city lights below as Dominic held me on the rooftop, my tears soaking into his shirt.
Behind us, she stood.
Sanaa.
Alive. Breathing. Impossible.
Her presence was a phantom heartbeat, something my soul recognized but my mind rejected.
I tore myself from Dominic's embrace, stumbling back. He dragged a hand down his face, gaze heavy with the weight of secrets and guilt.
"Asvika's on her way," he muttered, his voice raw. "The three of you need this. I'll give you the space."
His eyes lingered on me, dark, unreadable, warning and comfort laced together. Then he turned and melted into the shadows, leaving the storm to break without him.
The rooftop wind clawed at my skin. Maybe if I turned fast enough, maybe if I shut my eyes.
I opened them and she was still there.
The world tilted, vertigo ripping through me. My chest locked, my fists clenched.
"Why?" My voice cracked like glass. "Why did you hide? After everything? After the life we thought was gone?"
Her lips parted, trembling. The girl who once dragged me into kitchens to steal pastries and laugh at my empty threats now stood weathered, hardened. A stranger wearing the skin of my best friend.
Four fucking years.
Every second of her absence burned into me.
"I had to," she whispered, voice cracking under the weight of confession. "I had to keep everyone safe—you, Vee, your family. If anyone knew I was alive..." Her voice faltered, fragile as glass. "They would've used me. Used you. All of us."
I shook my head, cold fury rising, shaking through my limbs.
"Do you have any idea what it was like? Watching the world go on as if you were dead?
I had to go back into the mafia, make impossible decisions alone, carry every risk on my shoulders, all because I wanted your killer to regret every move! "
Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears, but I could not forgive. I could not. Months of grief, rage, and absence had carved scars too deep for words to heal.
Hell No.
Asvika appeared then, her eyes wide, tears brimming. "W-What... who is that?" she whispered, disbelief and fear threading through her voice.
"Asv-"
—SMACK.
My eyes widened as Asvika's hand connected with Sanaa's cheek. Shock rippled through the air, tears threatening to spill from all three of us.
Asvika's voice cracked, raw and furious. "Do you know? Do you have any idea what I had to go through? Watching my other best friend slip away because we thought you were dead? I had to grow up! I had to grow up for the group. Do you know how scared I was, watching Vee lose herself?"
"To think all that was just...wow, Sanaa. Wow," I added, voice cold, flat.
Sanaa opened her mouth, then closed it. Words failed her. I didn't want them either. Silence carried the weight of four years.
"L-Let's go home," I whispered finally, and Asvika clung to me as we walked away, leaving Sanaa behind, a ghost of the past I had loved and mourned.
Home was quiet but tense. My mother stood near the doorway, with Zorian and Alvaro, the head of security, at her side. "Vee! There you are—"
Her smile faltered when she saw who followed us.
"Eliraana," my mother said softly, arms open. Sanaa stepped forward, shocked tears spilling freely, collapsing into my mother's embrace. "It must have been hard," she whispered, sobs shaking her shoulders.
For a fleeting second, I wondered if my mother had been in on it. But no, her expression was shock and sorrow, not complicity.
"Tomorrow morning, you three will go to Tehran," my mother said quietly she was speaking to us all but kept staring at me.
I wondered if she knew I was on my last straw. I stared at the dial pad. Was it too late to call my therapist? Or an exorcist rather?
I couldn't be anywhere near this…near her. I bolted up the stairs, locking my door and collapsing behind it.
My reflection in the mirror scared me. I was shaking badly, my eyes wide open. Was I in shock?
—
The next morning, the private flight to Tehran felt surreal. Sanaa sat with us, hands trembling slightly. I kept my distance, though part of me ached to reach out.
Asvika sat beside me, hand clasped in mine, equally tense, eyes darting to Sanaa repeatedly.
At the Khalighi estate, her parents waited. Relief and worry etched every line of their faces, but for me, the raw wound of betrayal burned brighter than their relief.
No way.
They couldn't have.
"You knew and you let me break?" I spat, voice bitter as I glared at her mother. Asvika flinched beside me.
Her mother took my hand gently. "Versace, it was the only way to protect her. And you," she said, voice trembling, "everything was calculated. Nothing was meant to hurt you."
Calculated. The word burned me.
"You hid her from me," I said flatly. "You stole years from me."
Her father nodded, heavy with regret. "We thought she couldn't survive otherwise. It was a choice between safety and heartbreak."
I said nothing. My hands clenched into fists, nails biting into my palms. Explanations could wait. Forgiveness could not.
Later that day, instinct drew me to the place I had sought guidance so many times, the fortune teller's tent. But it was gone. Empty space, silent, as if the universe itself had removed the final thread of certainty.
SANAAYA
Suriya.
The name I had lived by for four years. Hidden in an underground apartment Dominic had created for me. Watching, always watching.
I had witnessed her growth, her transformation into the fierce, commanding woman she had become. And Asvika had never left her side.
Now, in a quiet park in Tehran, I finally whispered, "Vee, I'm sorry. Every day I wanted to tell you, but I couldn't risk losing you again."
Her eyes were harder now, tempered by absence and survival.
Then, without warning, she slammed into me, hugging me tight. My eyes went wide. It had been four years since I had felt such contact.
The warmth. Was this real? Was the sister who I thought was going to kill me again really hugging me?
"I was waiting," she whispered against my shoulder, voice raw. "Waiting for you to disappear. Waiting for myself to wake up. And now...now I'm holding you, and you're actually here."
I sobbed into her, body trembling. "I'm sorry, Vee. I'm so sorry. I never wanted to put you through this."
She pulled back slightly, eyes wet but unyielding, her hands caressed my skin as if checking all my features, then urging Asvika to join in the hug.
"I'm sorry, Asvi. I'm sorry," I whispered.
And then we were three again, entwined in a hug that dissolved the years of absence and pain, just like old times.
But the world intruded, harsh and unrelenting. Zorian, ever loyal, stayed nearby, his gaze wary, protective.
This reunion was far from clean.
Yet in that moment, breathing each other in, we allowed ourselves to feel. Chaos, hurt, relief, love, they swirled together in one messy, beautiful wave.
Versace drew back slightly, brushing her hands through my hair. "You're here," she said softly. "You're actually here. That's enough for now."
I nodded, tears streaking my face. Apologies couldn't erase the past. Forgiveness could wait.
But being together again, fully awake to each other's presence—that was a fragile, imperfect, but essential beginning.
The city lights of Tehran shimmered below us, indifferent to the storms we had weathered, the reconciliations beginning, and the fury still quietly thrumming in my chest.
For the first time in years, I felt fully awake.
I know I wasn't clear from danger, but with the woman Vee had become, I was certain we would face it together.
I wasn't stupid though.
I knew how much my death had ruined her, broken her. I knew she had to break her promise to herself and return to the mafia.
I knew it all.
And I was sorry it happened that way
I just… couldn't.
It had to happen that way, or I would have truly been six feet deep in the ground.