One week.
In seven days, the moon would sighting would signal the end of Ramzan, and forty-eight hours after that, my life would no longer belong to me.
The library site was a skeletal ghost of its former self—most of the heavy lifting was done, leaving only the intricate, delicate finishing touches. The "Indigo Glitch" Alayna had worried about was now a central feature, a sprawling mural that looked like a heartbeat frozen in paint. I spent my days there, buried in invoices and logistics, trying to outrun the silent, suffocating pressure of the wedding preparations happening back at the house.
I was staring at a line item for marble polishing when the door to the temporary office opened. It wasn't a worker. It was my father.
Hassan Malik didn't visit construction sites. He sat in high-backed chairs and made decisions that shifted the city's skyline. Seeing him here, in his crisp white kurta against the backdrop of dust and sawdust, felt like a collision of two worlds.
"The progress is impressive, Zayn," he said, walking to the center of the room. He ran a hand over a finished mahogany shelf. "Waqas will be proud. It's exactly what he envisioned."
"It's what the contract required, Dad," I said, not looking up from my screen.
My father went silent. I felt his gaze on the back of my neck—not the gaze of a business partner, but the heavy, disappointed weight of a father who knew his son was lying to himself.
"Walk with me," he commanded.
I followed him out onto the balcony overlooking the main hall. Below us, the library was bathed in the amber glow of the afternoon sun.
"I know you think this is a transaction," my father began, his voice low. "I know you've spent five years in Islamabad learning how to turn people into numbers. But Alayna is not a number. And this marriage is not a merger."
"I'm doing what is expected of me," I muttered.
"You are doing the bare minimum," my father said, his voice dropping into that gravelly whisper. "You are showing up, you are working, and you are acting like a martyr. But look at that house across the garden, Zayn. Look at Alayna."
He stepped closer, his gaze pinning me to the spot.
"She lost her father when she was barely a woman. Waqas has been her spine, but he is frail now. And Salar... Salar is just a boy, Zayn. He has the heart of a lion, but he doesn't have the shoulders to carry a household yet. He's looking at you to see how a man treats his sister. Waqas is handing her to you because he believes you are the only one who can cherish her the way she deserves. She has no father to walk her down that aisle, and a brother who is still growing up. She only has you."
The air in my lungs felt like lead.
"If you go into this Nikkah as a CEO, you will break her," Hassan continued. "And if you break her, you break this family. She needs a husband who sees her, Zayn. Not a business partner who manages her. Take care of her. Not because of a promise to a dying man, but because she is about to become your responsibility, and she has no one else to turn to for that kind of strength."
He didn't wait for me to respond. He patted my shoulder and walked away.