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Chapter : The Weight of What's Gone
The private jet touched down under a dark sky, its wheels whispering across the runway like an omen.
Rayyan didn't wait for clearance. He descended the steps before the hatch was fully open, his coat catching the wind, his chest tightening with every step toward the car.
Something in him was wrong.
Twisting.
Burning..
Where is she?
He had to see Margaret.
He had to hear her voice—calm, sharp, always steady.
Maybe she'd figured it out. Maybe she could tell him that everything wasn't lost. That he hadn't made the worst mistake of his life by letting Dee go. That there was still something to fix.
But when he arrived, the house was quiet.
Too quiet.
He walked the hallway, calling her name.
No answer.
He searched the garden.
The kitchen.
Her room.
Stillness.
A storm began inside his ribs.
He turned to his parents. "Where's Margaret?"
His mother's eyes widened, confused. "She left two days ago. She didn't say where."
"What?" His voice was sharp.
"She said she had something important to do," his father added, concern lacing his tone. "She just… left."
Rayyan's throat closed.
He dialed her number.
Straight to voicemail.
He paced. Restless. Agitated. Heart slamming against his ribs.
"She always answers."
His parents exchanged glances, worry turning into fear.
Rayyan's voice was razor-sharp now. "Get the men. Every available one. I want CCTV footage, border checks, traffic reports. Don't miss a second. Find her."
---
An hour later.
A call came.
Rayyan answered it on the first ring.
"Sir… we found her."
"Where?" His voice was already dead.
"In the woods. South valley. Outside city limits."
"Is she okay?"
Long silence.
"She's… gone, sir. They found her body. She was already—"
Rayyan didn't hear the rest.
His ears rang. His hands went numb.
The phone dropped from his fingers.
---
He didn't remember the drive to the morgue.
Or how he made it inside.
He just remembered the silence. The cold. The sterile white.
And then—her.
Margaret.
Laid out under fluorescent lights.
A white sheet to her chest. Blood dried at her side. Her long black hair brushed from her face by someone who didn't know her.
Rayyan's knees buckled.
He staggered forward.
"Margaret…"
He touched her hand. It was colder than it should have been.
Still.
Unmoving.
Rayyan sank to his knees.
Tears fell silently at first. But they kept falling. And then came the sound—the sobs that cracked his chest open like thunder. That shook his lungs. That tore the man out of him and left only a brother behind.
"No… no, not you. Not you too…"
He bent over her body, forehead to her fingers, whispering like a prayer.
"I wasn't supposed to lose you. I wasn't—"
He couldn't finish.
Because it wasn't just death.
It was finality.
Margaret—the one who always held things together—was gone.
And he hadn't even known she was in danger.
He hadn't protected her.
Not from this.
And he would never forgive himself.
---
The funeral was a haze.
His mother didn't speak.
She sat by Margaret's bed at night, holding her scarf, whispering her name.
His father locked himself in the prayer room.
Rayyan didn't cry at the burial.
He just stood still—stone-faced—watching as the earth swallowed his sister.
But that night…
That night, the storm came.
He sat in Margaret's room, her perfume still lingering on her bedsheets.
He held her sweater to his chest and wept like a boy again.
For hours.
Until his voice went hoarse.
Until his fists were bloody from punching the wall.
Until his soul cracked wide open.
---
Then something whispered through his memory.
A thread. A clue.
Margaret was looking for something before she died.
She had been suspicious.
She left for a reason.
He questioned her guards. Desperate. Unblinking.
"She got a call, sir. From someone. Said it was urgent. Life or death."
"Who was it?"
"We don't know. She left before we could find out."
Rayyan's breath caught.
It was Dee.
She was the only one Margaret would risk everything for.
He ran to her room, pulling drawers apart, searching for notes, voice memos, anything.
Then he remembered.
Margaret always sent mission data to his email.
He opened it.
There it was.
"URGENT – Dee. Please read before it's too late."
Inside: chaos.
Photos. Documents. Coordinates.
Lab footage.
Dee—unconscious. Hooked to wires. Strapped to a bed.
Duke standing over her.
And her last message:
> "Rayyan… it's me. Duke has Dee. She's not just sick. She's being used. I tried to save her. I failed. If I don't come back, find the watch you gave me. I recorded everything. Don't let her die there."
Rayyan's world shifted.
His hands moved faster than his thoughts.
He tore through Margaret's drawers, her coat pockets, her scarves—until he found it.
Her silver watch.
Cracked. Stained with blood.
He clicked it on.
Her final voice.
> "She doesn't remember you. But I know she'd want to. He's giving her things—serums, injections. I saw her scream. Rayyan, I think they're changing her into something else. You have to stop it. I'm sorry I couldn't do more…"
Rayyan crumpled to the floor, watch to his chest, breath ragged.
She died… trying to save the one woman he'd failed.
He stood, gaze burning.
"Get the men. Get the weapons. We're going now."
---
They hit the village like lightning.
Found the house.
Tracked the coordinates to a lab hidden beneath the hills.
Rayyan kicked down the gates himself.
Guns blazed. Blood sprayed.
No mercy.
No survivors.
Rayyan moved like a machine.
Room by room. Floor by floor.
Until—
He found her.
---
She was strapped to a cold steel table.
IVs hooked into her arms. Monitors beeping. Her skin pale and bruised.
"Dee!" he shouted, running to her.
She stirred.
Blinking slowly.
Then stared at him like he was a stranger.
"Who are you?"
His heart snapped.
"You know me… it's me. Rayyan."
"I don't…"
"You do." His voice cracked. "You loved me. You left to protect me. You lied so I wouldn't chase you into danger. Margaret died trying to bring me to you. You were never alone. I just didn't come fast enough…"
Dee blinked again.
Something flickered.
A flash.
Him.
In the hospital. Holding her hand.
The rain. The night he begged her to stay.
Their garden.
The scent of roses.
Margaret's voice.
The watch.
Her own screams in the lab.
Her hand trembled. "I… I remember something."
Rayyan took it. "You're real. This is real. I came back."
Tears pooled in her eyes.
"Why would Duke do this to me?"
"I don't know. But I'll burn the world until I find out."
---
Rayyan lifted her into his arms.
His men swept the lab.
Every vial.
Every report.
Every drop of evidence.
And then—they set it all on fire.
Flames rose behind them.
Ash rained from the sky.
But Dee was safe.
Finally.
---
At home, his parents stared in shock.
Their son had come home carrying a ghost.
"We're leaving," Rayyan told them.
"Where?" his father asked.
"Vienna."
"Why?"
Rayyan looked at Dee—her fragile hand still wrapped in his.
"Because someone there knows how to undo what they did to her. And this time…"
His voice softened.
"This time—I won't lose her."
---