Chapter 1
In a lush Cairo suburb, trees stood like exhausted sentries guarding the silence of the wealthy.
Outside, the city pulsed with a refusal to sleep—stray horns, a laugh leaping from a nearby balcony, the rhythmic shuffle of a vendor dragging his disappointment through the dust.
Inside the vast house, the silence was heavier than the marble beneath her feet.
The yellow light spilling from the crystal chandelier offered no warmth; it only sharpened the edges of the room’s sterility.
Everything was too orderly, too sharp, as if the house itself were holding its breath.
Lavine sat on the edge of the sofa, her morning hairstyle still pinned with a precision that felt like a cage.
Before her, a cup of coffee had long since gone cold, and design files lay open, unread.
She was a woman whose heart was not built for waiting.
She checked the clock for the thousandth time and snapped it shut.
Eleven-thirteen.
"Well done, hero,"
she whispered, the sarcasm a bitter coating on her tongue. "Still early."
Three years ago, she believed love could mend the world’s cracks.
Now, she knew the world didn’t mend; it simply dressed itself up while it crushed you.
The key turned.
Raed stepped inside, preceded by the suffocating cloud of his perfume.
His gray suit looked like it had been pulled straight from a dull bank advertisement.
He tossed his keys with an indifference that grated against the silence and unbuttoned his jacket, throwing a fleeting glance her way.
"What’s this? Still awake?"
She arched a brow, her expression a mask of ice.
"Not at all. Just my corpse waiting for you. I went to sleep a long time ago."
He exhaled a jagged breath.
"Can’t I come home once without this misery? Try a warmer welcome for a change."
"Try coming home first. Then we’ll see what kind of welcome you deserve."
He unfastened his watch slowly—the rhythmic tell of a man leashing his rage.
"Lavine, I’m dead tired. Not now."
She sat up, her eyes locking onto his with predatory focus. "I’ve been dead for two years, and you haven’t heard me complain once."
Silence stretched between them, the kind that precedes a storm.
Raed leaned in, his forearms resting on his knees.
"I came to talk about something important."
A pale, ghost-like smile touched her lips.
"You always say that. Either someone died, or I’m expected to live like I’m dead. Impress me, Raed. What else is there?"
He stared at her, then dropped the bomb with chilling detachment.
"I’ve decided to marry."
She didn’t blink.
The word traveled across the room, slow and heavy, settling on the table between them.
She tilted her head with a terrifying calmness. "Congratulations."
His brow furrowed.
"Congratulations? That’s it?"
"What did you expect? A celebration? Should I pour the sherbet?"
She stood, picking up the cold cup and stepping back, putting a safe distance between herself and the absurdity. "Honestly? I was expecting a real disaster. A financial scandal, a body in the basement. but a second wife? That’s so old, Raed. So incredibly boring."
He stood abruptly.
"I’m serious. I need you to understand."
"And I’m joking so the scenery doesn't rot."
"Lavine, the Law allows four!"
Her laugh was short and sharp as a slap.
"Ah, the Law. The white horse you men ride every time you want to legitimize a whim and frame it in a chic religious border."
His face flushed a dark, angry red.
"Watch your words. Don’t insult religion."
"No, you respect it first! Don't use it as a coat hanger. Every time you want a new desire, you remember 'two, three, and four.' And every time a woman opens her mouth, you say 'her rib is crooked' and she needs to be 'contained.' Contained? Or should she contain your greed and filth?"
He moved toward her, a shadow of a threat.
"Don’t bring God into your hysteria."
She pointed a finger at him, her strength unyielding. "You’re the one hiding behind it! There’s a difference between God’s law and the crutch of a lazy man who wants everything without paying the price."
The air seemed to stop.
She continued, her voice lower, sharper than a blade.
"I’m objecting to you, Raed, not the faith. You think marriage is a deed of ownership and obedience is a slave’s contract. You don’t want to marry; you want to prove you can still break me."
His jaw tightened.
"I certainly can."
"I know. Just like you can raise your hand, control, suffocate... and call all that filth 'manhood.'"
"You’re exaggerating,"
he said with icy coldness.
She laughed bitterly.
"Exaggerating? So the hitting is an exaggeration? The insults are a misunderstanding? The pathological jealousy is 'care'? And being trapped in a luxury house is 'protection'?"
He looked away.
"I’ve put up with a lot from you."
She smiled then, the smile of a woman who had reached the edge.
"No, Raed. I’m the one who put up with a man who covered his inadequacy with a loud voice or a heavy hand."
He stepped closer, his voice a muffled vow.
"Hold your tongue when you speak to me."
"No. You hold your hand."
Less than a step remained between them.
The house held its breath.
"This marriage will happen. With your consent or without it."
"And I’m telling you, if you do it, I will divorce you."
He exploded into a mocking, masculine laugh.
"Divorce me? You?"
"Yes, me. Why so surprised? Did you think I’d sit crying in the bathroom saying 'but I love him'?"
He leaned in with crude arrogance.
"No one will stand with you. Not your father, not the people, not the court. You’re my wife."
She lifted her head with pride.
"I actually love another man."
In a flash, his hand rose.
A slap echoed through the silence.
Her head tilted, but she didn’t cry or scream.
Slowly, she turned her face back to him, touching the heat under her skin with chilling detachment.
She looked at him with a gaze that, for the first time, made him shiver.
She turned to the side table.
The large crystal vase—chosen by his mother because "it suited the place"—she lifted it with both hands. Raed turned, a late realization dawning in his eyes.
"Lavine, wait—"
The vase came down on his head.
Once.
The chime of shattering crystal was a melody to her thirsty soul.
Raed staggered like a broken toy.
Twice.
A muffled cry.
Three times.
She wasn’t hitting him; she was hitting every night she slept hating herself for staying.
Raed fell.
Lavine didn’t scream.
She stood for seconds, the heavy base still in her hands, as blood began to crawl across the polished marble, branching out like red cracks in the face of a perfect house. Her breath was sharp and shallow.
Her fingers loosened, and a sliver of glass slid across her palm.
She didn’t feel it until a thin thread of red caught on her fingertip.
She touched her cheek again, feeling the heat blossoming, pulsing, insulting.
She looked around at the cushions, the table his mother wouldn't let the servants move a single centimeter, the expensive chandelier reflecting the blood like a stain on a jewel.
For the first time, the house looked real.
She leaned down to pick up her phone.
A shard crushed under her heel with a dry, brittle sound. She dialed, her bloodied fingers smudging the screen.
"Hello? Can you send an ambulance?"
She paused, her eyes on the man crumpled before her.
"Or a lawyer... depending on which option he prefers when he wakes."
She hung up and sat on the edge of the table, tucking a stray hair back into place.
Blood dripped from her finger to the floor with a rhythmic beat.
Outside, a distant siren began to cut through the night.
Blue lights flashed against the glass, passing over her pale face like a city taking a photograph of a crime.
The police station smelled of disinfectant and the sweat of the desperate; a sharp scent mingling with the groan of old fans and the frantic flipping of files.
Lavine sat on the hard wooden bench, one leg crossed over the other with a dignity that didn't suit a suspect.
Her black hair flowed carefully, and her kohl betrayed the long night, but she was unsettlingly composed.
Raed sat across from her with a massive white bandage that made him look like a defeated war hero.
His eyes promised hell; hers said: if I could go back, I’d choose a heavier vase.
The officer approached.
"Mrs. Lavine Fouad?"
"The fierce suspect herself... yes?"
He eyed her with suspicion.
"Step inside."
She stood, adjusted her collar, and leaned into Raed’s ear as she passed.
"When you complain, do it with style. Say I assaulted your dignity... it suits you better."
"You’ll regret this."
"I was certain you’d say that."
Inside the room—a metal desk, a dying fan, and harsh white light.
She sat before the officer, a man who looked like he had stopped being surprised centuries ago.
"You’re the one who broke your husband's head with a vase?"
"Three times. I value precision."
"And you don't regret it?"
"I regret not filming it. It would have been a lovely memory."
The officer sighed.
"Mrs. Lavine, this is a formal report. Why did you hit him?"
"Because he hit me."
"Are there previous reports?"
"No. I was still stupid enough to think 'endure for the house' was a useful sentence. Turns out the house itself needed an asylum."
Voices drifted from outside—quick footsteps, hushed murmurs. A single name slipped through the half-open door.
"Is Mr. Asr here yet?"
"Not yet, sir, but he personally requested the October University accident file."
Lavine’s fingers froze against the edge of the seat.
Asr.
It wasn’t just a name.
It was a hidden hand reaching into her chest, clawing at a scar she thought had healed long ago.
Her gaze dropped, a ghost of a smile touching her lips—the smile of a woman who suddenly remembered a grave she used to visit with a living heart.
Even you... you’re always late, Asr.
She closed her eyes for a second, then lifted her head.
Her features were once again rigid, solid.
Minutes later, the door opened.
A man entered carrying a file, speaking quickly to the officer.
Lavine didn't look at first, busy adjusting her ring, then she heard it. A voice that turned her blood to ice before she even realized why.
Her pulse went dead. She lifted her head slowly and saw him.
Standing at the door, white shirt, sleeves rolled up.
His features were exactly as she remembered.
Asr.
The Asr she buried with her own hands.
The Asr who died in a crash and left her to rot in a life that didn't resemble her.
He was there, alive, pointing at a paper in the file as if death were merely an appointment he had missed.
The color drained from her face.
She stood without realizing it, the chair screeching behind her.
Everyone turned, but she saw only him.
She walked toward him like a sleepwalker.
"Asr...?"
she whispered.
He turned with those hazel eyes.
God, his eyes! He looked at her with polite, cold interest—the look of a man trying to recall a face seen briefly on the road.
No shock.
No love.
Nothing.
"Yes?"
She swallowed her heartbreak and stepped closer, the woman who hadn't trembled for Raed now shaking.
"You... you’re alive?"
He knit his brows with impatience.
"As far as I know, yes. Thank God."
The officer chuckled quietly, but for her, the world was collapsing.
"Do you... do you remember me?"
The question left her as if she were tearing out her soul.
He looked at her with a cold, analytical stare, then delivered a bullet to her heart.
"Should I?"
In that moment, Lavine felt the crash hadn't just hit him—the car had run over her too.
She stood still for seconds, then... she smiled.
A painful smile, and she nodded.
"No."
She paused, looking directly into his eyes with a sudden return of strength.
"But you will."
She turned and went back to her seat with a calmness everyone envied.
She crossed her legs and spoke to the stunned officer. "What were we saying? Ah, the divorce. Write this down, officer... I'm in a great hurry. I have another life to start... after death."
