Chapter 58
1543 Words
✨THE CITY THAT LEARNED HIS NAME.✨
Nasir Pov
The call came while Nasir was in his office.
Then the phone rang.
Eli didn’t bother with hello.
“We had a visitor.”
Nasir’s fingers stilled on the fabric. “Where?”
“At the house. A woman came asking for Flora by name.”
The walls seemed to move closer. Nasir’s expression hardened completely.
Flora had been home. Safe. He had left her curled on the couch with a book she pretended to read and a cup of tea she kept forgetting to drink. The idea of a stranger standing on that doorstep, breathing near her, speaking her name—
“What did she want?” Nasir asked.
“Information. Ask for you.”
Nasir closed his eyes. “Victor.”
A pause.
Eli confirmed.
“Victor sent a messenger,” Nasir said flatly. “To my home.”
Silence. Then, quietly, “That’s a line.”
“Yes,” Nasir agreed. “It is.”
Nasir pictured Flora laughing over burnt toast that morning, proud of ruining breakfast like it was a small rebellion. He thought of the scars she hid beneath loose dresses. Of how she still apologized when a door closed too loudly.
“Call Kamal,” Nasir said quietly.
“Already moving.”
“Rafe?”
“He’s ahead of us.”
“Find Victor,” he said. “Now.”
“I’m on my way.”
---
Nasir’s hand tightened on the doorknob before he even realized he’d stopped breathing.
He had to make the stop home first.
The house looked the same from the outside. Quiet. Ordinary. Safe.
But the air felt wrong the moment he stepped inside—as if something unfamiliar had passed through and left a trace behind.
Lavender lingered in the room. Flora’s soap. Her presence.
And beneath it—something else.
He shut the door softly behind him.
“She was here.”
Eli’s voice echoed in his head from the call earlier. Flat. Controlled.
A woman came asking questions.
Nasir moved through the living room slowly, eyes tracking every corner, every surface. The couch where Flora curled up in the evenings. The window she liked to sit near. The door.
That door.
Flora was in the kitchen. Barefoot. Folding a dish towel with more care than necessary. When she turned and saw him, relief crossed her face so fast it punched the air from his lungs.
“You’re home early,” she said, smiling.
Nasir didn’t smile back.
“Who came here today?” he asked.
Her hands stilled.
“A woman,” Flora said carefully. “She knocked. Asked if… if you were home.”
Nasir’s jaw tightened. He crossed the room in three quiet steps, stopping just short of touching her. He needed to know first.
“What did she want?”
“She said she was looking for you,” Flora continued. “She asked questions. About us. How long I was staying here.”
The words burned him.
Nasir closed his eyes for half a second. "What did you say."
"That it is not her business."
That surprised him, he wanted to draw her in but he needed to know.
“Did she give a name?”
Flora shook her head. “No. But she knew mine.”
That did it.
Something dark shifted inside him—something he’d buried deep, something that had no patience for threats circling what was his.
“Did she touch you?” he asked, voice low.
“No,” Flora said quickly. “She didn’t come inside. I didn’t let her.”
Good. Smart. Brave.
Nasir exhaled slowly, forcing his hands to unclench. He reached out then, resting his palms lightly on her arms—not to restrain, only to ground himself.
“You did exactly right,” he said.
Flora searched his face. “Nasir… who was she?”
He didn’t answer immediately. He didn’t want fear living in her chest if he could carry it himself.
“She won’t come back,” he said instead.
That didn’t satisfy her. He could tell by the way her shoulders stayed tense, by the way her eyes flicked toward the door.
“Promise?” she asked.
Nasir leaned down, pressing his forehead gently to hers.
“I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” he said. “And no one gets to reach for you. Not ever again.”
She nodded, trusting him with a faith that felt dangerous in its purity.
Nasir stepped back, already planning. Already burning.
Victor had crossed a line.
Trump had opened a door he should have left sealed.
Nasir turned toward the hallway, his phone heavy in his pocket.
Outside, the city was still breathing.
Inside, something had just declared war.
Nasir didn’t give the memory room to breathe.
The moment he saw the worry still clinging to Flora’s face, he drew her in, one hand firm at her waist, the other cupping her cheek like he was gathering every stray fear and pulling it out of her.
His mouth found hers before she could speak.
The kiss was warm, insistent—meant to drown the echo of that knock, the stranger’s voice, the unease still trembling under Flora’s skin. She felt herself soften against him, the tightness in her chest loosening as his lips moved over hers with slow certainty.
For a moment there was nothing but him.
The house, the door, the woman who had stood on the other side of it—all of it faded. Nasir kissed her like he was rewriting the day, like he wanted to replace every uneasy thought with the steady rhythm of his breath and the gentle command of his mouth.
Flora’s fingers curled into his shirt, holding on without realizing she’d reached for him. The world narrowed to the warmth of his touch, the way he lingered, unhurried, as if he had all the time in the world to remind her she was safe.
When he finally eased back, her thoughts were quiet again.
The woman was gone—not just from the doorstep, but from Flora’s mind entirely.
Flora felt the moment shift before he even spoke.
Nasir’s hands lingered at her waist, his thumb brushing absently over the fabric of her shirt, but his eyes had already gone somewhere else—back to duty, back to the world waiting outside their door.
“I have to go back to work,” he said softly.
The words landed like a small heartbreak.
She didn’t mean to move so quickly. One second she was nodding, pretending to be reasonable, and the next her fingers were curled in his jacket, holding him there as if he might disappear the moment she let go.
“Just a little longer,” she whispered.
Nasir smiled, that gentle, dangerous smile that always made her forget what she was trying to say. “Flora—”
She rose onto her toes and kissed him before he could finish.
Not careful this time.
Not shy.
It was a kiss full of protest, full of the simple, honest truth that she didn’t want him to leave yet. Her arms slid around his neck, and for a second he stilled—surprised—before his hands found her again, warm and steady at her back.
“You’re making it very hard to be responsible,” he murmured against her lips.
“Good,” she breathed.
He laughed softly, resting his forehead to hers. “I’ll come back tonight.”
“You promise?” she asked, still holding him like the promise lived in her hands.
Nasir brushed a strand of hair from her face, looking at her the way he always did when he wanted her to believe something impossible.
“I always come back to you.”
Flora finally loosened her grip, though her fingers were reluctant traitors. She watched him step toward the door, already missing him, already counting the hours.
“Don’t be late,” she called.
He glanced over his shoulder, eyes warm. “Not a chance.”
The door closed, and the house felt too big again—but her lips were still humming with the memory of him, and that, for now, was enough.
That was all he wanted in that moment.
Until...
The city cooperated the way it always did when fear walked through it wearing Nasir’s face.
By midnight, names were offered. Doors were opened. People suddenly remembered loyalties they had forgotten. Kamal spoke softly into his phone while Rafe drove like he was chasing a heartbeat.
Nasir listened to the pieces fall together.
Messages between Victor and Trump. Plans dressed up as business. A future designed for Flora that looked like a cage with ribbons on it.
Sold.
Delivered.
Used.
Nasir stared at the passing streets and felt something old wake up inside him—something he had kept chained for years.
“She cried on a bus once,” he said to no one.
Rafe glanced at him in the mirror.
“She didn’t even know I saw her,” Nasir continued. “And two days ago she told me she finally felt safe.”
The car filled with a dangerous silence.
- Writer
