Don't give up on me.

She didn’t have a family life so she didn’t know what family was. Yes, she had a family but they never were there. A mother who shouldn’t have been a mother at all and a father who was never around, she didn’t get to bond with her father like all the other girls her age. And up until now she was content with being alone, thinking that no matter how much her brother showed that he detested her, he would always be there for her and both of her brothers, even though they both were fucked up in their own way, they would always care for her.

But this time it was matter of the heart. Ramlah didn’t know she had feelings for Atesh until he started flirting with a girl at the local café where he got coffee from on daily basis. She started getting jealous, wanting the green monster to come out and chase the girl away who was as blunt as Atesh, both going at each other like there was no tomorrow. But she knew, in the end it wouldn’t matter because he wasn’t the guy for her and she wasn’t the one for him.

He had never looked at her like that, she had known him since she was thirteen, when Zayan brought him home one day. She instantly bonded with him because he was funny and charismatic but she didn’t know when the stupid feelings started growing within her. Ramlah knew everything about him, his family, his friends, his habits and his rebellious ways, the way he tortured his enemies. He learned that all from her father and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it. He was proud of whatever he did.

It’s been two months since she started feeling this way, since she started avoiding him at every cost, escaping whenever he was around by making some stupid excuse. She just didn’t want to be there wherever he was because she didn’t want him, Ramlah didn’t want to have feelings for him. She wanted to remain away from gang life— despite being Faris Helmy’s daughter. And now that Faris was dead, she had the perfect chance to escape all of that. And she knew that he had started noticing her weird behavior whenever he was around. He kept gazing at her as if expecting her to do something or say something that’s been bothering her.

And right now, as they all sat around the table having a quite dinner, his gaze was annoying her. After every bite he kept looking at her which Ramlah tried to ignore at best but her heart was beating so loud, could he hear it? She was nervous.

They had all gathered to have dinner because it had been so long since they gathered together to have any sort of hangout. Ever since Zayan left two years ago, nothing had been the same. Rafiq and Atesh were busy handling his company, he sold them half of his shares and now they were partners. He operated his company through internet, attended board meetings, made decisions but he was not in the country. And nobody knew where he was, well, his friends knew, the people of gang knew but that’s it. Nobody else held that information.

Za’ir had been missing as well. Actually, she knew that he was in England, getting over past and building his life again. She saw his social media page. He had opened his own gym and trained teenagers and taught them karate. Everything he learned in the gang. And he had a lot of fan following. He even had opportunities to ramp walk on fashion shows but Ramlah knew that he was never in to that stuff so he declined. And yes she knew it because he occasionally sent her emails. They never talked on calls because they weren’t close.

Zayan had taken Rüya with him two years ago and left. He left the gang which caused a chaos among everyone, people were after him thinking that now that he didn’t have the support of his gang, he was weak. After he resigned, he got in to two accidents so he thought it’d be better to leave. And he left. For all she knew, Zayan had never wanted to be a part of gang and after he killed Faris, it was over for him.

And what happened to gang? Slade took over it happily. The man was a walking killing machine who enjoyed torturing people just because he could, he was violent and ruthless so he was ever so excited when he became the boss. He didn’t have an easy life— which she didn’t know what happened but he had been Zayan’s friend for as long as she could remember and they both knew each other like the back of their hands. The guy was made of steel.