Chapter 5

Raiyan hadn't slept.

Not since that night.

The mug on the bedside table held cold chamomile, the steam long gone. The pill bottle was still where it always was. He hadn't opened it. He couldn't. Something petty in him didn't want to do a single thing she would've told him not to—as if refusing it could undo what he'd ruined.

He stood at the bedroom window with one hand against the glass, staring down at the pool.

The water looked black in the dark, still enough to reflect the house back at him. A perfect image. A lie.

Nothing in him felt still.

The villa was too big tonight. Not quiet—hollow. Every room had space that didn't know what to do with itself. He kept hearing her without hearing her: soft steps in the hallway, the click of a mug on the counter, a door closing gently because she always closed doors like she didn't want to wake the world.

He turned his head.

His phone sat on the table behind him, screen dark.

It shouldn't have mattered. She left. That was a fact. He lived on facts.

But she hadn't left the way people left him.

No slammed doors. No ugly texts. No argument he could rewrite later in his head and decide he'd won.

Just silence.

He checked his phone anyway.

Nothing.

He set it down like it had burned him and walked out of the bedroom, barefoot on the cold floor. The hallway lights were off. He didn't turn them on. He didn't need them.

He moved through the kitchen without thinking and stopped at the counter.

Two teabags sat neatly beside his files.

Chamomile. Peppermint.

He stared at them longer than he should have, throat tight for a reason he didn't want to name.

By morning, he'd already made the calls.

Quiet conversations. Short sentences. People who didn't ask questions and didn't offer comfort. Names exchanged like currency. Locations confirmed like routine.

By afternoon, he knew enough.

Zoya was safe.

She hadn't vanished. She hadn't done anything dramatic. She was staying with friends from LSE, attending classes, living as if distance was a decision—not a wound.

That was the part that hit him the hardest.

Not relief.

A cold, steady awareness that she could function without him—and she was choosing to.

His phone rang in the early evening.

Grandfather.

Raiyan answered immediately. Some habits were older than thought.

"You sound tired," his grandfather said.

"I didn't sleep."

A soft sound—approval or sympathy, Raiyan couldn't tell anymore. "You never did well with unrest."

Raiyan said nothing. He kept his eyes on the counter like it could anchor him.

"I hear Elena has been around more than usual," his grandfather continued, voice casual. "Don't let her confuse you."

Raiyan's fingers tightened around the phone. "She doesn't."

A pause—small, deliberate.

"You've always been perceptive," his grandfather said mildly. "More than you realize."

Something in Raiyan's chest shifted. He hated that he couldn't explain why.

Then, as if it were an afterthought, carefully placed:

"How is Zoya?"

The question landed too clean.

Raiyan didn't answer right away.

"She's fine," he said finally.

"You should make sure she stays that way," his grandfather replied. "She shouldn't be alone right now."

It sounded like concern.

It also sounded like a reminder.

"And her grandparents," the older man added lightly, almost conversational.

"They're... attentive people. They don't like uncertainty where family is involved."

Raiyan's grip tightened.

"They trust me," he said.

"I'm sure they do," his grandfather replied smoothly. "Trust works best when nothing forces it to be tested."

Silence.

"She chose to leave," Raiyan said, his voice steady even when his grip wasn't.

"Did she?" his grandfather asked gently. "Or did something push her there?"

Raiyan exhaled through his nose, slow.

"Marriage," the older man continued, "was meant to bring stability. Not fracture it. Feelings complicate things."

"And feelings don't matter?" Raiyan asked, sharper than he intended.

A faint smile touched his grandfather's voice. "They matter only when they interfere."

Silence.

Not tense—familiar. Thick with history.

"I want you in Los Angeles," his grandfather said. "In three days."

"That's not urgent."

"No," his grandfather agreed. "It's important."

Raiyan nodded even though no one could see him. "I'll be there."

"I know you will," his grandfather said. "You've always been reliable."

The call ended.

Raiyan lowered the phone and stared at it like he expected it to do something else. His palm pressed flat to the counter, steadying himself.

He had always trusted his grandfather.

As a boy, it had been his grandfather and grandmother who listened. Who asked questions. Who made space for him when his parents didn't.

That gratitude ran deep.

And still—something about that call sat wrong under his ribs, like a finger pressed gently against a bruise to see if it would flinch.

Three days later, he flew to Los Angeles.

He didn't stay long.

The meeting was efficient: numbers, risks, future moves. His grandfather watched him the whole time, not openly—just enough that Raiyan felt it.

"You look thinner," the older man remarked at one point, tone almost fond.

"I've been busy."

"Yes," his grandfather replied softly. "I know."

They didn't mention Zoya again.

And somehow, that silence was louder than the question.

Raiyan flew back the same night.

Heathrow's private terminal smelled faintly of coffee.

The scent made him slow without meaning to.

He glanced down at his cuff and caught a faint stain near the seam—old, almost invisible.

Coffee.

Memory hit fast and sharp: the collision, the spill, the woman who hadn't flinched. The way she'd stepped into his space like she'd never been taught to shrink for anyone.

He stopped walking.

For the first time, he didn't push the memory away.

Because standing there now, in the same place, surrounded by the same polished quiet, one truth settled in him with uncomfortable clarity—

He hadn't forgotten her because she was unusual.

He hadn't forgotten her because she was beautiful.

He hadn't forgotten her because she challenged him.

He hadn't forgotten her because he'd noticed her.

He'd never forgotten her because the moment he did, something in him had already decided she mattered.

And that had been the real danger from the start.