Chapter 43
2016 Words
✨The Cost of Waiting.✨
Nasir Pov
Nasir didn’t drive.
He let Rafe drive, which told everyone in the car exactly how serious this had become.
The city blurred past the windows, lights streaking like something already breaking apart. Nasir sat in the back seat, jacket off, sleeves rolled, phone dark in his hand. Calm settled over him—not the soft kind he gave Flora, but the cold clarity that came when decisions stopped being optional.
He called Leila.
"Spend the day with Flora," was all he said then cut the call.
Rafe glanced at him once in the rearview mirror. Then twice.
“You’re not going to like this,” Rafe said.
Nasir didn’t answer.
They pulled into the underground garage beneath a building that didn’t exist on paper. No sign. No cameras that could be traced. The kind of place Victor Hale thought he controlled.
Nasir stepped out first.
Inside, his cousin was already waiting—Eli. Lean, sharp-eyed, all edges and appetite. Eli smiled when he saw Nasir, the kind of smile that never meant anything good for anyone else.
“So,” Eli said, clapping his hands once. “This is about the girl.”
Nasir stopped walking.
Rafe closed the door behind them.
Eli lifted both brows. “Didn’t even try to deny it. That bad, huh?”
Nasir finally spoke. “Tell me everything.”
They sat.
Rafe slid a file across the table. No names on the cover. Just weight.
“Trump didn’t just arrange an engagement,” Rafe said. “He sold her future to buy his own protection. The man on the other end of that deal? Victor Hale was the middle, not the threat.”
Nasir opened the file.
Photographs. Documents. Numbers.
Eli leaned back, whistling low. “Spineless son of a b***h,” he muttered. “Selling his own kid like that.”
Nasir’s jaw locked.
“The buyer,” Rafe continued, “is worse. Older. Patient. Likes quiet women. Ones who don’t fight back because they’ve been trained not to.”
Nasir closed the file slowly.
The room shifted.
“That man sent a feeler yesterday,” Rafe said. “Low-level. Polite. Wanted to confirm she was still alive.”
Nasir stood.
The chair scraped loudly across the floor.
Eli straightened, all humor gone now. “You want him gone?”
“I want everyone who thinks they have a claim on her to forget her name,” Nasir said.
Silence followed.
Then Eli smiled again—but this time it was sharp. “Finally.”
Nasir turned to him. “You don’t touch her world. You don’t scare her. You don’t let her see this.”
Eli held up his hands. “Relax. I know how to keep blood off the carpet.”
Rafe exhaled. “Victor won’t know what hit him. Not yet.”
“He’s already been hit,” Nasir said. “He just doesn’t know where it came from.”
He moved toward the door, already planning three steps ahead—intel, pressure, isolation. Victor’s operations would collapse in pieces small enough to look like coincidence.
But this wasn’t just business anymore.
This was personal.
As they walked out, Rafe said quietly, “She doesn’t know, does she?”
Nasir stopped.
“No,” he said. “And she won’t—until I can tell her without breaking her.”
Rafe didn’t argue. He knew better.
Nasir pulled out his phone, thumb hovering over her name. He didn’t call. Not yet. She needed peace for as long as he could give it to her.
Outside, rain began to fall—sudden, heavy, erasing footprints.
Nasir tilted his head back once, letting it hit his face.
They thought they were collecting something owed.
They were wrong.
By the time he was done, there would be nothing left of that world that could reach her.
And anyone who tried—
Nasir’s phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
He answered.
“Nasir Darven,” a voice said smoothly. “We should talk. About what’s mine.”
Nasir smiled.
“No,” he said. “We shouldn’t.”
He ended the call and crushed the phone in his palm without looking back.
The stakes had exploded outward.
And Nasir was done waiting.
✨Lights Meant for Someone Like Me.✨
Flora Pov
Leila whisked Flora away for a “girls day,”
Flora was already giddy and exhausted from feeling seen.
The spa smelled like money and eucalyptus.
Flora knew that because everything Nasir touched smelled like money, and nothing in her life before him had ever smelled like calm.
Leila was already grinning when Flora stepped inside.
“Relax,” Leila said, linking her arm through Flora’s. “You look like you’re walking into a trial.”
“I don’t trust places this quiet,” Flora muttered. “It feels like they’re hiding something.”
Leila laughed. “They are. Pain.”
Flora stopped walking. “What.”
Too late.
The waxing room was white. Too white. Clean in a way that felt suspicious.
The woman smiled sweetly. Too sweetly.
Flora lay down stiff as a board.
“So,” the woman said cheerfully, “first time?”
Flora nodded once. “If I die, tell my story.”
Leila nearly choked laughing.
The strip went on.
Flora squinted. “Is it supposed to feel warm?”
“Yes,” the woman said.
Then—rip.
Flora screamed.
Not a polite scream. Not a dignified scream.
A full, offended, betrayed scream.
“Oh—OH—JESUS—WHY—”
Leila collapsed against the wall, crying with laughter. “Breathe! BREATHE!”
Flora grabbed the edge of the table. “IS IT SUPPOSED TO HURT THIS BAD?!”
“Yes,” Leila said between laughs. “That’s the character-building part.”
Flora glared at her. “I HATE YOU.”
Another strip.
Another scream.
“I’M NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN.”
“That’s what everyone says.”
“I MEAN IT.”
By the end, Flora was sweaty, dramatic, and deeply offended by the concept of beauty standards.
When it was over, she slid off the table carefully. “I want compensation.”
Leila wiped her eyes. “You survived. Nasir’s going to be proud.”
Flora paused. “…Why does that make me nervous?”
Lingerie shopping was worse.
Tiny pieces of lace stared at her from hangers like they were mocking her.
Leila held one up. “This one.”
Flora blinked. “That’s not clothing. That’s a suggestion.”
Leila grinned. “Try it.”
Flora disappeared into the fitting room.
Five seconds later—
“LEILA.”
“Yes?”
“This thing has strings where fabric should be.”
“That’s the point.”
Flora peeked out, red-faced. “I can’t breathe.”
Leila tilted her head. “You look… dangerous.”
Flora stared at herself in the mirror. She didn’t recognize the girl looking back—skin glowing, posture different, eyes sharper.
Soft didn’t mean weak.
That realization hit her harder than the wax.
The lingerie store nearly broke her.
“So many strings,” she whispered, staring wide-eyed at lace in every color imaginable when Leila held up the next piece.
Leila burst out laughing. “You’ve been missing out.”
Flora held up a particularly daring piece, horrified and fascinated. “Where does this even go?”
Leila wiped tears from her eyes. “Trust me. You’ll figure it out.”
Flora’s face burned the entire time, but she laughed more than she ever had—trying on silks, recoiling at price tags, learning words she’d never had before for softness and shape and choice.
For the first time, shopping didn’t feel like fear.
It felt like possibility.
When she finally returned home that night, arms full, heart fuller, Nasir was waiting.
He took one look at her expression and smiled like he’d won something.
“You had a good day,” he said.
She nodded, breathless. “I’ve never had days like this.”
He stepped closer, resting his forehead against hers. “Get used to it.”
---
Flora knew something was different the moment Nasir smiled at her like he was hiding a secret too big for his mouth.
It wasn’t his usual quiet smile—the one that steadied her. This one had anticipation in it. Mischief. Like he had already pictured her reaction and was waiting to see if it would match.
“Get dressed,” he said, gentle but certain. “I’m stealing you tonight.”
Her chest fluttered at the word stealing. “Where are we going?”
He leaned down and kissed her temple. “Everywhere.”
She laughed, nervous and excited all at once, and let him guide her into one of the dresses he’d bought her weeks ago—still half-unbelievable in her hands. She moved carefully, like the fabric might vanish if she breathed too hard.
When she stepped out, Nasir went still.
Not the sharp stillness of danger—this was softer. Reverent.
“You look…” He stopped, then smiled. “Exactly right.”
The city swallowed her whole the moment they stepped outside.
Lights everywhere. Glass towers reflecting stars she couldn’t see. Cars humming like a living thing. Flora clutched Nasir’s arm instinctively, overwhelmed and thrilled in equal measure.
He noticed. Always noticed.
“Slow,” he murmured. “We’re not rushing anything.”
Dinner was somewhere high above the street—white linen, candles, a view so wide it made her dizzy. The waiter treated her like she belonged there, and that alone made her want to cry.
Nasir ordered for them both, confident but careful, and when the food came, he watched her take her first bite like it mattered.
“This is too much,” she whispered, smiling anyway.
“For tonight,” he said. “It’s exactly enough.”
Then came the helicopter.
She almost said no—her breath caught just looking at it—but Nasir’s hand was warm and solid in hers, guiding her up, talking softly until the city lifted beneath them.
She forgot how to breathe.
The lights turned into constellations. The river into a ribbon of silver. She pressed her forehead to the glass, awed, laughing in disbelief.
“This is real,” she said, half to herself.
Nasir watched her like this was the point of it all.
Back on the ground, wrapped in his coat, still buzzing, Flora wasn’t prepared for the next surprise.
The helicopter ride stole her breath completely.
She gripped the seat as the city shrank beneath them.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “I can see everything.”
Nasir watched her instead of the view.
Her face—open, stunned, alive.
She laughed suddenly, wild and free, and it did something dangerous to him.
---
The penthouse felt unreal.
Glass walls. Endless light. A quiet that hummed instead of suffocated.
Flora turned in a slow circle. “People live like this?”
Nasir shrugged. “Some.”
She faced him, suddenly shy. “I don’t know how to act here.”
“You’re acting perfectly,” he said softly.
That night wasn’t rushed.
It wasn’t loud.
It was slow hands, whispered laughter, shared heat, and the shock of closeness.
Flora discovered things about herself—about wanting, about trust, about how safe desire could feel when it wasn’t taken.
She laughed when she got overwhelmed.
She gasped when she felt too much.
Nasir watched every reaction like it mattered.
Like she mattered.
When she finally curled against him, heart racing, she whispered, “I didn’t know it could feel like that.”
He kissed her hair. “Neither did I.”
As she fell asleep that night, city lights blinking outside the window, Flora realized something quietly monumental.
For the first time in her life, something beautiful was being planned for her.
And she didn’t know yet how quickly beauty could turn into fire.
But for now—
She let herself believe.
- Writer
