Fifteen days.
That was all that separated the Sikandar mansion from reckoning.
Each sunrise in Barkat Mansion began the same way — with whispers. Servants traded glances. Nurses' footsteps quickened down the corridors. Even the children learned to speak in half-tones. Somewhere beneath that hush, greed and guilt had begun their final race.
Agha Jan was healing, but slowly. He now spoke little, conserving every breath as if words themselves might exhaust what life remained. The air around his bed carried both sanctity and sorrow. Rayyan often sat beside him, reading softly from the Qur'an, while Alyna pressed cold cloths to his forehead.
But peace — fragile and borrowed — never stayed long in Barkat Mansion.
The Sikandar empire shifted quietly, like a great building surrendering to cracks in its foundation. Under relentless pressure from Wajdan, and with his health too fragile to fight anymore, Agha Sikandar finally yielded.
Wajdan's assistant entered the room with the papers.
Wajdan followed, pen trembling in his hand.
Agha Jan's wavering signature transferred partial control of the family business into his eldest son's hands.
When he finished, the pen slipped from his fingers. His shoulders slumped. His eyes closed. For the first time, he looked not like a patriarch — but a man defeated.
Wajdan, however, emerged from the room with a triumphant grin. He carried the documents high, as though they were a crown placed upon his head.
"It is done," he declared to the family.
His voice swelled with pride — the pride of a man who believed he had finally claimed his destiny. That night, he held a dinner to celebrate himself. Guests toasted, relatives congratulated, and for a brief, shining moment, Wajdan basked in the illusion of power.
But illusions fade.
Downstairs, in the home office Ruhan once used, Wajdan now held court. Files lay scattered across the desk. Investors' calls came in waves — every conversation ending in fury.
"Delay again? Compliance review? Who's R.S.? I'll find out today — the day's already half gone!"
He stopped sleeping properly. Cigarette ash dotted the carpet. His tie stayed half-loosened, his face drawn, the gleam in his eyes fading into desperation.
Rubab tried to soothe him, but he brushed her aside.
"Don't talk about patience," he snapped. "Patience doesn't build empires."
"It doesn't destroy fathers either," she murmured — but he didn't hear her.
Meanwhile, Ruhan kept his silence.
He moved through the house like a man carrying both burden and blade. His phone never left his hand, but his voice remained calm. He called his legal team late into the night, revising clauses, delaying fund transfers — tightening the net around the Salex deal one thread at a time.
Zavian noticed first. "You're holding something back," he said one evening as they crossed in the corridor.
Ruhan smiled faintly. "Some truths are like storms, bhai. They must arrive in their own time."
Zavian didn't press further — but he felt it: the edge in Ruhan's calm, the inevitability of a coming reckoning.
By the seventh day, the cracks were showing.
Rumors reached investor circles that Forex Group had paused all partnerships linked to Salex's offshore accounts. Wajdan's phone became a battlefield of excuses. His voice grew brittle with every call.
"This is sabotage," he told Rubab. "Someone's poisoning my name. Someone in this house!"
He began suspecting everyone — Zavian for leaking data, Rayyan for "pretending too holy," even Ruhan for being "too quiet."
But the truth lay far beyond his imagination.
On the tenth night, Wali overheard an argument in the study — Wajdan shouting into the phone.
"You think I'll bow? Tell R.S., whoever he is — I'll meet him. Let him face me like a man! Five more days!"
Wali froze outside the door. The words meant little, but he sensed their weight. Later, in his notebook, he wrote:
"Maybe every man must face the truth he built himself. Maybe Abba's storm is coming."
Day Fourteen.
The mansion was restless again. Even Agha Jan sensed it.
He asked in a weak voice, "Woh meeting… kab hai?"
Rayyan hesitated, then answered softly, "Kal, Abba."
Agha Jan's eyes flickered with pain and pride both. "Bas Wajdan sambhal jaye… main aur kuch nahi maangta."
Day Fifteen.
The meeting was set in a private hall of the Pearl Continental, Islamabad.
Forex Group had arranged it — or rather, Ruhan had.
It was the fifteenth anniversary of Forex.
Flashback: Ruhan had prepared the invitations himself, addressed to Salex and all partner firms. He told Kaina gently, "It's an office event — they've asked families to come too." She hesitated, then smiled. "Baba bhi jayenge?"
"Baba will be there," Ruhan said. "And there's a surprise waiting."
The guests arrived in tailored suits and tight smiles.
Wajdan entered late, Rubab by his side, his arrogance polished like armor. Cameras clicked, reporters whispered, the stage was set for the signing ceremony between Salex Group and Forex International Holdings.
He walked in as if he already owned the place.
He mocked Ruhan as he passed. "Look, even jobbers get invites now."
Ruhan didn't respond. Not yet. The moment wasn't his to take — not until the world was watching.
Then, the lights dimmed. On the main screen, a digital banner glowed:
Forex–Salex Partnership: Towards Global Integration.
Wajdan straightened his tie and said to his assistant, "Find this R.S. before the signing.
I'll give him a handshake he'll never forget."
The assistant hesitated. "Sir… he's already here."
Wajdan turned. The crowd shifted.
From the far side of the hall, Ruhan stepped forward — dressed in a charcoal suit, calm as dusk.
The room went still.
For a heartbeat, Wajdan simply stared — confusion, disbelief, then dawning horror.
Ruhan extended his hand.
"Good to finally meet you, Mr. Wajdan Sikandar," he said evenly.
"I'm R.S. — Ruhan Sikandar. Chair and primary stakeholder of Forex International."
The silence that followed was louder than applause.
Every face turned — investors, media, staff — all eyes on the two brothers.
Wajdan's lips parted, but no words came. His hand trembled, caught between anger and humiliation.
"You… you played me," he hissed. "You delayed, you—"
"I protected," Ruhan interrupted, voice steady. "From greed. From collapse. From you."
The cameras caught the flicker of rage across Wajdan's face — the tightening jaw, the visible bleeding of pride before the entire board. Rubab reached for his arm; he brushed her away.
"You'll regret this," he spat.
"I already have," Ruhan said quietly. "Every day since I first called you bhai."
The microphones didn't record what came next — a murmur, a rustle, a hand striking the edge of the table — but everyone saw it.
Ruhaan's final words turned the hall into judgment:
He announced that the signing authority of Forex would be forwarded to Agha Jan (Saad Skindar to the world), its rightful founder, and that all shares of the company would henceforth be aligned under his name.
Agha Jan's eyes, watching from afar, filled with tears — pride, grief, and a peace he hadn't known in years.
Kaina stood still beside him, her hands trembling — joy and disbelief meeting in her heart.
Wajdan walked out mid-ceremony, his face pale beneath the lights.
That night, Barkat Mansion stood in eerie stillness.
Agha Jan sat propped against pillows, listening to the news replay:
"Forex Chair R.S. revealed to be Ruhan Sikandar, son of Saad Sikandar — the entrepreneur behind the empire."
Later, another storm broke — not outside, but within the mansion walls.
Wajdan laughed harshly when Ruhan entered the study. "You expect me to believe this?"
Ruhan walked to the window, hands clasped behind his back. "You wanted to know who R.S. is?" he said quietly.
Wajdan frowned. "Don't mock me."
Ruhan turned — calm, cold.
"The man whose pen could make or break your throne… stands right in front of you."
Silence struck like thunder.
Wajdan blinked. "You?"
He laughed again, hollow. "You expect me to believe you own Forex Group? You — a shadow hiding behind papers?"
"Not hiding," Ruhan said. "Protecting. I built Forex when you were burning Abba's name in petty deals. I used it to pay your debts, to guard our father's izzat. Every profit you bragged about — was mine, written under another name so the world would never call you weak."
Wajdan's face drained of color. "You're lying."
Ruhan opened a folder, slid it across the desk. Inside gleamed official seals — and at the bottom, the signature:
Ruhan Sikandar, Founder and Chair.
Wajdan's hand trembled as he stared.
"I let you think you were winning," Ruhan said softly. "Because I hoped pride might turn into gratitude. But you turned it into poison."
Wajdan slammed the folder shut. "You think this makes you the savior? You've been manipulating me since the beginning!"
Ruhan's eyes darkened. "No, bhai. I've been protecting Abba from you."
Wajdan lunged forward, gripping his collar. "You'll regret this!"
Ruhan didn't move. "It's already destroying itself. Look around you."
He pulled free, his voice like iron.
"This deal was your test. You failed it. There will be no Salex merger — because the owner you tried to deceive was me. And now it belongs to Abba."
The last word hung in the air like a verdict.
Makāfat whispered through the mansion's silence. The echo had begun.
That night, Wajdan shouted: "This house doesn't belong to you, Ruhan! I'm the rightful heir. You no longer stay here."
Without a word, Ruhan gathered his family — Kaina, Alyna, Rayyan — and quietly prepared Agha Jan's wheelchair.
"I knew this day would come," he told Zavian. "Whoever wishes to walk with us, come. But Abba will not stay here."
And so they left — the house breaking not in its walls, but in its relations.
Sahiba tried to stop them. Even Wajdan's children cried. But nothing could mend what had already split.
Sarim watched from the corridor, his eyes hollow.
He whispered, "Makāfat has come home."
Zavian switched off the lights. Silence filled the room again, broken only by the sound of rain against the windows.
Downstairs, Wajdan locked himself in the study. Papers lay torn across the floor. His reflection in the glass looked older, smaller — and alone.
In another wing, Wali wrote his final line of the night:
"Today, it was destroyed not by an outsider — but by the hands of my own."
And somewhere beyond the mansion's walls, thunder rolled again — quiet, inevitable — promising that reckoning was not yet complete.
Within weeks, the cracks began to show. Investors hesitated, whispering behind closed doors about Wajdan's past failures. Meetings grew tense, contracts slowed, staff murmured nervously.
The same recklessness that once sank his private ventures now poisoned the empire.
Projects stalled. Accounts slipped. And the grand house of Sikandar began to tremble.
In the shadows of his brother's false triumph, Ruhan worked quietly — protecting what little of their father's legacy could still be saved.
One evening, Alyana found him in the study, bent over ledgers, eyes weary but resolute.
"Let him wear the crown," she whispered softly. "It will crush him on its own."
Her words sank deep. Ruhan said nothing — but his silence was agreement.
Meanwhile, Wali watched his father strut through the halls, barking orders with borrowed authority. Once, he had admired that voice. Now, he saw only a hollow performance.
For the first time in his life, Wali felt no admiration — only pity. And beneath it, a quiet disgust.
The empire was still standing, but its walls had begun to echo with collapse.