The letter arrived in a plain black envelope, sealed with wax.
No name. No return. Just one line inside:
“Ask him about the girl from Lucknow.”
Meher read it twice, heart slow, breath slower.
Kabir never mentioned Lucknow. It wasn’t on his maps. Not in his files. But something about the way he locked his jaw when the word was spoken—told her it mattered.
That night, as he shaved by the mirror, she asked, “Who was she?”
Kabir stilled. Razor mid-air.
“Who?”
“The girl from Lucknow.”
Silence dropped like a blade.
He put the razor down, stared at his reflection like it might bleed.
“She wasn’t supposed to die,” he said finally. “But she did.”
“What was she to you?”
“A mistake,” he whispered. “One I buried under bodies and business.”
Meher didn’t blink. “And now that grave’s opening again.”
He turned to her. “It’s not your war.”
“It became mine the second I picked up a gun for you.”
Kabir stepped forward, anger ghosting his features. “If you go looking, you won’t like what you find.”
She didn’t flinch. “I already don’t like what I don’t know.”
He paused.
Then walked past her—quiet, slow, defeated.
“She looked like you,” he murmured.
Meher’s spine chilled.
Because ghosts didn’t just haunt Kabir…
They warned her.
And now, Meher wasn’t just fighting his enemies—
She was fighting his past.
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