A call cut through the volcano of thoughts capturing his mind and body — thoughts so consuming he could think of nothing else except what if I get caught.
The voice on the other side was stiff and obedient.
"Sir, say one word and I will end Emris." A brief pause. "Just one word."
Mr. Kim sighed and stood up, beginning to pace back and forth across the room.
"Not now, Zayn. He has far more evidence than we think and he is more clever than we can ever expect him to be."
"Then let's bomb his house," Zayn said, his desperation bleeding through the line. "Or let's kidnap his daughter."
Kim chuckled quietly. "He likely has contacts we don't know about. If he finds out we are planning anything, he will end us before we even move."
He cut the call without waiting for Zayn's response.
The phone dropped onto the bed. Kim broke the knuckles of his neck slowly, his face still carrying worry, his eyes heavy with disappointment.
"Some people are already trying to kill him — I heard it from my agents," he murmured under his breath, throwing himself onto the bed like a man worn completely to the bone. "Then let's make their work easy."
Meanwhile, Caius lay on his bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, his thoughts lost somewhere far from this room.
"I am tired of my life," he said quietly, his teeth gritting together. "Because of you, Dad, I have turned into this. A monster."
His eyes went slightly glassy. He shut them before a single tear could escape.
"Now I will follow this role of mine forever. I will be a monster forever." A slow, pained smirk crossed his lips. "And you are my role model, Dad. I would not even leave a chance if I ever decided to kill you."
His eyes opened. They scanned the ruined room around him, sharp and cold, the bitterness and darkness in them unmistakable — his father's eyes, his father's face.
"Time to ruin the country's peace," he murmured.
On the contrary, Czar was awake.
The room was dark, the hour long past sleeping, but his eyes remained wide open, staring at nothing. Ever since he had learned what lia had done, his thoughts had refused to let him rest. They were eating him alive, slowly and quietly, the way they always did.
He was trying — genuinely trying — not to fall back into the darkness. The same darkness he had known between the ages of ten and seventeen, seven years of his life spent inside a home that never once felt like one.
His parents had treated him like a burden before he was old enough to understand what a burden was. They gave him little food. They made him starve for days. He slept on the floor of a dim room with a single light overhead and only a few pieces of clothing to his name. When he fell ill from eating food that had rotted in the refrigerator for months, it was his friends who took him to the doctor and paid the fees themselves.
He never told anyone what was happening inside those walls. He never wanted anyone to speak badly about his parents, even when they deserved every word.
His father made him clean his shoes every single day — bare hands, no cloth — and Czar used his own clothes to do it. His father beat him with a belt whenever anger took over, and his mother stood beside him when he did. For seven years his mother refused to acknowledge him as her child, and his father never attended a single program at his school. When Czar came home with awards and trophies, his mother threw them aside. When his aunt Mahira gifted him a bicycle out of love, his father broke it with his own hands and laughed.
Mahira always brought gifts for Czar. His mother always sold them quietly afterward.
They blamed him for everything — every misfortune, every hardship, every piece of bad luck that had followed them since his birth. They believed his existence had brought the backlash upon them and they never let go of that belief. They never encouraged him, never supported him, never saw anything in him except what they had decided to see.
Czar paid for his own tuition through a part-time job because they refused to pay. He studied in a government school and asked nothing of them. He never raised his voice at his mother. He never stopped trying to make them happy, even as every effort dissolved before their indifference.
He thought it was his mistake to be born. And so he hurt himself — quietly, privately — trying to release the guilt that had no business living inside him in the first place.
But Allah sees everything.
Despite all of it, Czar's mind never dimmed. His IQ surpassed anything his school had encountered before. He was top of every subject, disciplined in his speech, composed in every room he walked into. His teachers loved him. His peers admired him. His calm, fearless presence drew people in naturally, and he met every one of them with warmth and without judgment. Schools abroad sought to take him. He always refused.
His answers made teachers quietly doubt their own understanding. His aura was steady and grounding, his personality one that left marks on people long after he had left the room. He never spoke ill of anyone. He was good at football. He helped without being asked.
And still — through all of it — he remained good to his parents.
This was a test from Allah. For Czar, and for them.
Czar passed it.
His parents did not.
And in the end, they were killed brutally by Emris. Allah's justice is eternal, and accountability exists — in this life or beyond it.