For a moment, Feriha didn't fully grasp what Ravi had said.
The killers think she knew where the victim's brother was?
She barely knew anything about the case at all.
"What do you mean he disappeared?" she asked, her voice unsteady. 🙃
Ravi stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind him. He didn't ask permission. He didn't need to. There was an urgency wrapped around him like a second skin.
"He vanished from his apartment," Ravi said. "No signs of struggle. No phone. No bag. Just gone."
"And what does that have to do with me?"
Ravi looked straight at her.
"Because someone used your name to contact him." 🎭
The air around her turned cold.
"What?" Feriha whispered.
Ravi pulled a folded paper from his jacket and placed it on her table. It was a screenshot printed from a phone;an anonymous account messaging the missing brother:
"Meet me urgently. I found new evidence. – Feriha Devran."
"That's not me," she said instantly.
"I know," Ravi replied. "But they don't. They think you're involved."
Feriha pressed her palms to her forehead, trying to steady her breath. 🤦
"Why me? I don't understand any of this."
Ravi exhaled and scanned her apartment,as if checking for things she might have missed. His eyes lingered on the closed curtains, the laptop, the untouched coffee.
"You were at the archives yesterday," he said. "Someone saw you find the folder. That alone makes you a threat."
"I wasn't investigating anything dangerous," she protested.
"You don't have to be," he replied. "In this game, curiosity alone is enough to get you killed."
His voice was calm;too calm for a man speaking about death. 😲
Feriha sank into the nearest chair. Her mind was foggy, looping the same questions over and over. Why her? Who was watching? What file had she stumbled into?
"Why did you come here?" she asked quietly. "If you don't even know me?"
Ravi hesitated for the first time.
"You won't believe me," he said.
"Try me."
He took a seat across from her, elbows on his knees, eyes locked on the floor like he was pulling out a memory he didn't want to revisit. 🙍🏻
"Twelve years ago… I investigated a case involving a missing girl," he began slowly. "She was found;traumatized, confused, unable to remember anything clearly. The kidnappers were never caught."
Feriha frowned.
"What does that have to do with me?"
Ravi raised his eyes. 🙄
"You were that girl."
The room tilted.
"What…?" Feriha felt the words leave her lips but they didn't feel real.
"I didn't know until last night," he said. "I got the message too. It said:
'Protect the girl you failed to protect the first time.'"
Feriha shook her head, disbelief churning inside her.
"I was never kidnapped," she said. "My childhood was normal—" 🎶
"Memories can be rewritten," Ravi said gently. "Trauma can bury things you don't want to remember."
"No," she whispered. "You're mistaken." 📍
Ravi reached into his jacket again and placed a small, old locket on the table. The metal was scratched, the chain broken.
"I've kept this for twelve years," he said. "It belonged to the girl I saved."
Feriha stared at it.
Her pulse quickened.
She knew that locket.
She had seen it in a childhood drawer her mother always kept locked. It disappeared when she was around seven.
Her fingers trembled as she touched it.
A flash of something,dark hallways, crying, strangers' shadows;shot through her mind like lightning.
Her breath caught.
Ravi saw the shock on her face.
"You remember something, don't you?"
Before she could answer, a sudden sound cracked through the quiet apartment;
A window shattering. 🔫
Ravi slammed her to the floor just as a bullet sliced through the air where she had been standing a second earlier.
"Get down!" he hissed. 🔔
Heart pounding, glass raining around them, Feriha realized with icy clarity:
Someone had already found her.
And they weren't here to talk. 🙅