CHAPTER TEN

In a switch of events, I was engaged without any previous notification. Though my relationship with Selim was just starting, he was ready to take things to the next level, moving on a bit too quickly. But then again, he was a man of commitment, and whatever goal he set his mind to, he was to achieve without wasting time. With a diamond ring around my finger, I promised myself to love Selim the way he loved me and to make him happy forever.

On that same night, I returned home with a smile on my face and better hopes for the near future. I sat by the fireplace watching the flames of time slowly fade away, as I gathered some old pieces of history to set free. I wanted no connection to my past whatsoever, but rather a fresh start of trust and love with a man who showed me respect and support from day one.

Wedding plans were officially on and all invitations were sent as we planned to tie the knot on July 10. Selim’s bachelor apartment was soon to be vacant. Luckily, and with the help of his father, we found a place of our own, located on the Bosphorus shore of glamorous Istanbul. It was a mid-sized villa with plenty of room to entertain and welcome overnight guests. I did most of my wedding shopping with my mother, while Nuran was overly busy with the institute. I hardly saw her. We were a month away from the official opening.

My fiancé was away for a few weeks, too. He had a job offer at a future hospital in Izmir, which led him to stay out of town longer than expected, leaving me to plan the finest of wedding details and trusting my taste of choices. Though it was fun browsing the stores of colorful fabric and fancy furniture, as well as the freshly picked flower arrangements and delicious cake options, I’d missed his presence around. His fun perspective and comments made everything more pleasant.

Meanwhile, Kenan and Nuran’s friendship seemed normal. She often spoke of him with enthusiasm and expectancy, raising a future flag of letdown. Kenan was handsome and charming, indeed no one could deny his attractiveness but on a deeper level, I understood his intentions better than she ever did. He had a tough background of police work, but his heart was weak, not capable of understanding a woman’s true love.

At the beginning of their relationship, I was trying to keep my distance and not get involved, but the more I saw her drowning in his fake world of faithfulness, the more eager I became to step in and stop his obvious plot before it was too late.

One random morning, I picked up the phone and called his old number. It was still in my contact page, as if it belonged there all along. I asked to see him and for us to talk. The subject was important to me, and so he agreed to meet me on that same afternoon. At a café near the police station, I went to see him. He was already waiting for me when I got there.

“Hello.” He stood up to greet me without shaking hands.

“Hi. Thank you for agreeing to see me.” I sat across from him.

“Of course. You said it was important.”

“Yes. Very important.” I took a deep breath as the waiter came by to take my order. “I’ll have a cup of lemonade, please.” Kenan was already sipping his plain coffee.

“Please, continue. You were saying?”

“Yes. It’s about Nuran.”

“What about her?”

“Although I’ve known her for a short time, all I can tell you is that she’s a dreamer. She has many hopes for a bright future and wild adventures, and somehow she thinks that you are the man to fit the description of her fairytale hero.”

“Are you saying that I am not?” he questioned with a smile, as if he meant to tease me.

“We both know the answer to that question, Kenan.”

“With all honesty, I don’t think I do. Would you care to share your thoughts, Miss Yilmaz?”

“Why can’t you be honest, just for once, and admit that you are using Nuran?”

“I am sorry to disappoint you, Bahar, but you have no clue what I feel for Nuran, nor what she feels for me. Therefore, you have no right to get involved between us.”

“Look, Kenan, if you truly care for Nuran’s well-being, then stay the hell away from her. You can’t possibly love anyone. Why would she be any different?”

“What I don’t seem to understand is why you care so much about what’s between me and Nuran. You’re engaged to Selim, and you are soon to get married. You have your own love life to worry about, so why can’t I have mine?” He stared at me with innocent eyes. Maybe, for once, he was trying to convince me of his true intentions.

“Frankly, I could care less about your love life, Kenan. It’s Nuran that I am worried about. Sooner or later, you will break her heart. I can’t just sit around and watch you destroy her dreams.”

“She’s your friend, isn’t she? Why don’t you advise her to stay away from me, then? Are you afraid she’d connect the dots of our past together and tell Selim?”

“I don’t care if she knows or not. There’s nothing left to tie us together anymore, anyway. All I am asking you is not to bring her eyes to tears the way you did mine. She will never recover from such a wound. Believe me.” A single glimpse between us brought us to remember our own past of concealed pain and emotional injuries. I stood up to leave, and he stood before me.

“I never got a chance to redeem myself for the huge mistake I made on our behalf,” he confessed unexpectedly. “Please, Bahar.”

“Don’t make this about us right now, because it’s not. Nothing you say or do will redeem your weakness, Kenan. It’s too late.”

“It’s never too late, Bahar. It’s never too late to admit to our mistakes and ask for forgiveness.”

“To me it is.” I took one last breath, walking away. There was a tense chemistry between us.

“I’ll break things off with Nuran under one condition!” he shouted. “You must break off your engagement with Selim!” He announced his explosive demand with full confidence. Perhaps he thought his proposition was a fair trade, but to me it was mostly ridiculous. Though to my benefit, I had the opportunity to spin the ball back into my court and direct the events my way.

“Deal.” I smiled, shaking his hand and agreeing to his plot, only to get him to do what I wanted. I was not planning to break up with Selim, I only wanted him to think that I was.

Soon after my deal with the devil, and just as I was ready to leave, Kenan’s phone rang with distressful news, urging him to run off like a lunatic and leave me behind. His facial color disappeared. Quickly, I rushed after him, trying to figure out what had happened. Perhaps some member of his family was suddenly ill or even worse, I thought. When he failed to speak his troubled mind, I jumped into the car with him, and off to the unknown we rode.

“What’s going on, Kenan? What happened? Is everything okay?” I couldn’t help but think the worst while he was a total wreck, speeding his way through the rush-hour traffic. “Kenan, please say something. You are scaring me.”

“It’s my sister.” He looked my way with worried eyes.

“Elif? You found her?” I’d known about his missing sister since we were together. I knew how much he cared for her, too, and how badly he wanted to find her.

“Yes, I did.”

“That’s great news! When did that happen?”

“A couple of weeks ago.”

“Where is she? Why isn’t she home with you and your family?”

“It’s a long story, Bahar….” He paused, as I sensed the hesitation in his voice. “She is crippled and has been living in a special care facility for several years. They just called to inform me of her recent nervous breakdown. Apparently, she tried to walk on her own but failed.”

“Oh, no!” Suddenly, I forgot all about our tense history and awkwardness, while connecting with a more sincere topic I never thought we’d discuss. I felt so sorry for his family. After the reunion they had dreamed of for endless times, they were going through an even more difficult situation. Sadly, I could not be there for them the way they were for me, and for my mother once before. “I am sorry to hear that. Time is capable of healing her, you just have to stay optimistic.”

“Yes, I am trying.”

“Is there anything I can do to help? Anything at all?”

“As a matter of a fact, yes, there is.”

“What is it? I’ll do my best.”

“Your visit to Elif will be a good start, trust me.”

“How?”

“Because she loves you already.”

“She loves me? How? She doesn’t even know me.”

“Of course she does.” He smiled for the first time in a long time. “I talk to her about you all the time.” Suddenly, the heat of the moment burned my cheeks with disruption, reminding me of our first meeting. Back then, life was so much simpler; now, we were both fighting our own shadows in order to survive.

Soon we pulled up outside the crowded medical facility and rushed to see Elif. Mrs. Almas was there, too. She was in a bad state, fearful of losing her daughter all over again. As it turned out, Elif’s attempt to walk on her own was triggered by her mother’s confession. She was no longer able to hold in the secret.

Together, we walked out to the cafeteria for a quick break and a warm distraction of freshly brewed coffee. We sat for a few minutes exchanging words of comfort and support when Iskender joined us to take over my position. His wife needed him more than she needed me. Meanwhile, Kenan was looking over Elif, watching her through the glass window while she was resting.

As much as I wanted to stick around to meet Kenan’s stepsister and wish her well, I had to go. Though her breakdown episode was the first step toward a future recovery, the time was not right for our introduction. Standing in the hallway alone with Kenan, I approached him to say goodbye. We looked more closely into each other’s hearts only to have found a lost passion calling aloud. In a split second, he reached to hold my hand, as I kept so still that my eyelashes did not flicker.

Not realizing how dangerous our moment of seclusion was, we kissed passionately, making up for lost time. I had a hard time pulling myself away, but once I did, I regretted falling into his attractive web. Not wanting to admit my resurfaced feelings in his presence, I left in a hurry without looking back. 

The following day, I woke up feeling sick, unable to get out of bed. For days I remained home within my private world, incapable of confronting Kenan with our infidelity, least of all Selim, yet I felt Kenan’s spirit in close contact with mine watching me plan my wedding.

On the day I went to pick up my custom-made gown, my life turned upside down in a flash, leaving me praying for a miracle and wishing for Kenan’s protective soul. While waiting around to finalize my special order, I walked over to the ladies’ room to freshen up. Inside the private restroom, I encountered the cleaning lady, who approached me presumably to ask a quick question. All of a sudden, her intoxicating cloth covered up my face. Slowly, I drifted into a deep sleep of unconsciousness while millions of tiny lights flickered and then disappeared.

Minutes or perhaps hours later, I woke up in an old house of ancient wood, tied up to a chair and surrounded by a bunch of lighted candles near the window. My mouth was covered with tape, preventing me from screaming for help. I was scared to death like never before. Fearful to spend the last moments of my life in such a dingy place, I shook my body left and right, trying to move the chair from the center of the room to the nearest exit. Sadly, my attempt to escape was cut short when I fell to the floor in a very uncomfortable position.

My arm then fell asleep as I continued to kick my feet, creeping my way around the place. A little while later, the door opened, revealing a man’s solid footsteps approaching my head. The very same man of wicked authority stood before me, fearless of any consequences yet reminding me of what it was like to object. The scary man was my father, Fikret Yilmaz.

For a reason I did not expect, my father was a free man with no prison bars surrounding him, but with his own men of power. “Fix her up!” He ordered his bodyguards to lift me off the floor. I stared at him, feeling confused yet ashamed of our genetic bond. He should have never been liberated of his endless crimes. “Surprised to see me?” He smiled with sarcasm. “Long time no see, darling.” He was the one to shut me out of his life the day I walked out on Orhan. He never wanted to see me or my mother after his conviction, so what the hell was he complaining for?

“You know something, Bahar? I couldn’t have planned our reunion any better. For you and me to get together again, and just the two of us. It’s priceless.” He placed his phone on a nearby table as he continued to walk around me in circles. I had never seen him this cruel before, ignoring my screams to break free. His eyes were loaded with an old revenge. He obviously never forgave me.

“Bahar and her father. Together at last.” He laughed with an evil tone. I could hardly recognize the man I grew up with and called father. What had happened to his mind, I thought, while screaming my head off for him to allow me to breathe again, yet it was all useless. He ignored me altogether and went on explaining his inner dilemma before revealing his gun from inside his jacket, waving it around as if it were a toy.

“I am here to tell you a little secret, my dear, and you will listen carefully. My beloved brother Hakan and I never got along, and it’s all his fault. After he was released from prison a year ago, he changed his life dramatically and appeared to you as the good guy.” The look in his eyes was scary while he spelled out his darkest of secrets. His hate for his brother was obvious yet unreasonable. Uncle Hakan was not a bad man, not to me or to my mother, and not to my knowledge was he ever in prison. “Perhaps he never told you of his dusky past, but allow me to retell our family story. Your grandfather Berkay always favored him over me. He wanted him to inherit all his money and power, leaving me nothing! Meanwhile, Hakan already had everything he wanted. A beautiful home and a lovely wife, and he was soon to be a father, too.” 

Suddenly, I lost track of what he was saying. I had never known or even heard of another Yilmaz family, which twisted my thoughts in different directions.

“That’s right…Hakan was secretly married to an intelligent woman who hated me as much as she loved him. I’ve tried for years to win her heart, but I gained nothing but resentment. She too favored him over me to be her lawfully wedded husband. Would you care to know who that woman is? Would you?” He yelled at me, leaving me to suffocate with terror. I was afraid of everything he was saying and doing.

“Of all people, you should be the one to know who she is. Her name is Leila Yilmaz!” My heart stopped and my body shivered with a great anxiety. “You heard me right. Your mother and Hakan are husband and wife. You were their bundle of joy at one point in time, but I managed to steal you away. After I framed your father for murder, your mother was afraid for your safety despite my authority, and so she did everything I asked for.” Tears of pain escaped my trapped soul. For many years, my life turned out not to be my own. Suddenly, I had mixed feelings about everything I learned. As I ran these thoughts through my head, the door suddenly burst open and Hakan joined in the broken picture.

“Bahar! Are you okay, sweetheart?” He rushed to my side to free me. His genuine actions spoke of his loving heart all along. I should have sensed our biological connection.

“Stay away from her, Hakan!” Fikret yelled, waving his gun at both of us.

“Let her go, Fikret. Let her go!”

“We were just talking about you.” He smiled. “You’re right on time.”

“What have you done, Fikret? This is between you and me. Let Bahar go!”

“You know, I was just telling her the story of her beloved parents. You just missed it. Shall I repeat?”

“Enough! I will not allow you to torture her anymore. She suffered enough because of you.”

“Come on, Hakan, she already knows. She knows that you’re her father. Just hug your daughter, for God’s sake.” He waved his gun at me back and forth, threatening to pull the trigger; meanwhile, I was a total mess, let alone a hopeless hostage stuck in the middle of a family revenge that seemed to have grown vicious over the past years. I was trapped inside a prison of damaged history.

“Enough, Fikret! Enough! Your revenge is set against me. It has nothing to do with Bahar. I’ve come to you alone, just like you asked. Now let her go!”

“You think it’s that easy, Hakan? You think that I am just going to let her walk out of here as if nothing happened? No. Guess again.”

“Don’t you dare test my patience, Fikret. I will make you suffer.”

“Speaking of suffering, I remember the day you got arrested. Leila was nine months pregnant with Bahar. I brought her to this very house and told her everything that I’ve done to you. I gave her a choice, Hakan. She was either to follow in your footsteps and have her baby in prison, or to come with me and allow me to raise her child as my own. Ironically, she gave birth that same night, and her decision was your biggest punishment. For me to raise your daughter away from you and for her to call me father. I didn’t wish death upon you, my brother. All I wanted was for you to suffer, knowing that what was once yours is now mine.”

“Leila chose to live for me, and never for you, Fikret. She made the ultimate sacrifice for Bahar’s sake. She kept this secret in order to keep our daughter safe…You are nothing but a despicable person. You took everything you had for granted and made yourself a fortune from smuggling weapons and drugs. Both our parents are ashamed of you. Even beneath the earthy rubble, their soul is not rested.”

“Perhaps you’re right, Hakan, yet your words of morality mean nothing to me. It’s time you pay the real price of freedom.”

“Enough! Enough, already!” I screamed with agony. My voice was still restricted, and I could no longer breathe the poisoned air surrounding me.

“Careful what you wish for, Fikret. Sooner or later, you will get what you truly deserve.”

“Never…I am always the one in charge, Hakan. I decide my own path. They don’t call me Stone for nothing.”

“It was you?” Hakan yelled with rage. He lost his temper at last. “You stole my family away from me. Everyone I knew and loved. I’ll never forgive you for the pain you’ve caused us all. You killed our father and you almost killed my daughter too. You are a dead man!” Suddenly, the men started fighting over the deadly weapon in Fikret’s hand. During their violent struggle, they knocked down the candles by the window, setting the place on fire. The smoke was quickly rising when the heat escalated inside the home, beginning to burn us alive.

I could feel the lack of oxygen taking over my body and mind. Gunshots were soon fired. I looked over to find both men lying on the floor without moving. Struggling to take another breath, I closed my eyes, surrendering to the wicked nightmare of mine, when I heard Kenan’s voice from a nearby distance.

“Bahar? Bahar?” His voice of relief rang in my ears, awakening me from choking to death. Soon, his shadow appeared from behind the smoky flames. “Bahar? Can you hear me?” He reached out to find me, but I could not speak. In a blink of an eye, he swooped in to shield me from burning.

Outside, he released the tape from my mouth so I could cough away the inhaled smoke. I turned around to thank him, but he had gone inside to save the rest. The men in black were there trying to put out the fire, but it was already too late. The rising flames were beyond control, and Kenan was still inside.

“Kenan! Kenan!” I yelled, hoping for his response, yet I heard nothing but my echo sound along with the blazing fire. I started to panic. “Get everyone out!” Not only was Kenan trapped inside the burning house, so was my father, my birth father Hakan, and his evil brother, Fikret who tried to kill us all. “Get everyone out, now!” I yelled again for the bodyguards to save them, when Kenan walked out with my father Hakan, who was bleeding from a bullet shot in his chest. Just as Kenan was about to go back in for a third time, the place blew up and broken glass shattered all around us.

The incident of revenge and family secrets almost killed me and many others. Yet sadly, the one victim who paid the highest price was my uncle, Fikret Yilmaz, the one I thought was my father, rather the fugitive who escaped prison on a mission to avenge his life’s ongoing disappointment. He was an angry man with no boundaries.

Once the truth was uncovered, a lot of things made sense. The way he treated my mother and me, for instance. The arranged marriage of mine, and all the power that surrounded him for years. I then realized that I had nothing in common with him. I was my father’s daughter. My father Hakan. Though despite everything, I thought that Fikret loved me, in his own way, of course.

Meanwhile, my family and I officially reunited and under very unusual circumstances. The reality of my parents’ marriage was exposed to the whole world at last, without having to hide their feelings for one another. We were all very grateful to Kenan for saving our lives at the last minute. He was my hero once again.

After spending two long weeks at the hospital, my father was back home where he belonged, surrounded by people who loved him and cared to protect him at all times. Quickly, I became used to calling him Dad, as if I had known and loved him my whole life. Over the past years, both he and my mother had made many painful sacrifices in order to keep me safe, sacrifices that I never knew about until now. I was in fact their precious princess, and I was extremely happy for them to be together in the end. After all the misery and difficult times, they were granted to live in peace.

Though Kenan’s arrival at the scene of the crime saved the day and my life, I was not allowed to sink back into his romantic world just because I was thankful. I ended up breaking my end of the deal instead of breaking up with Selim. Neither promise we made to each other was of a true purpose, rather a selfish game played by the two of us.

Just as the wedding date was approaching, I decided to come clean with Selim and tell him of my past relationship with Kenan. I owed him full honesty prior to committing my life to his. He was surprised, of course, yet very understanding. He did not see Kenan as a threat to our relationship and all because of his intimate relationship with Nuran. Though deep inside my heart I was hoping he’d keep his end of the deal and break up with her, I didn’t see it happening anytime soon.

Weeks later, my father made a full recovery, and everything was back to normal. Minimal security remained in the picture to guarantee our safety. The night before the wedding, Kenan called me and asked me to meet with him. He said he had important information to tell me, something that would change my view of Selim and prevent me from marrying the wrong man. How convenient for him to come up with such a story just to ruin my wedding. 

I agreed to meet him at the Galata Bridge, but once I got there, I was hesitant to proceed. As I stood from far away watching him walk back and forth, I settled behind the scenes, not moving a single step forward. He waited and waited for an endless time, just like I did the day he left me. That day at the hospital when he left me helpless, he walked out without looking. I waited for him to come back to me, to say that he was sorry and that he loved me, but he never came. 

Within my broken heart, I wanted him to suffer the pain of waiting, the nonstop agony of being alone and not finding the person he claimed to love by his side the moment he needed her the most. It was Kenan’s turn to bide the lonely hours of his destiny, not mine.

The choice between life and death is a predictable answer waiting to happen. No one’s first instinct is to walk the path of doom, but rather the way of life and its happily-ever-after. When trapped in a dangerous situation, however, counting the clock of survival while surrounded by a physical terror or an emotional torture, we are left with no chance of redemption. Even death became an only option.

  *The final chapter will be posted next Saturday.