Written In Rizq, Argued In Fate

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

Zaryaab Azad

Some people save lives for a living.
Some people are expected to sacrifice theirs for family dinners and emotional speeches.

Zaryaab Azad had cracked open human skulls with hands steady enough to quiet a room full of fear. The world called him a miracle. Patients called him a second chance. His mother called him beta, ab bas shaadi kar lo.

At twenty-six, he had everything that could be measured.
Awards framed like trophies.
A bungalow that echoed when he came home too late.
Cars that purred beneath his feet like loyal beasts.

And still, every conversation at the Azad dining table ended the same way.

“You’re the only one left,” Sayra Shafiq Azad would say softly, like a prayer sharpened into guilt.
“Your brother is settled. Your sister is settled. Do you want to see me sick with worry?”

Zaryaab didn’t believe in destiny. He believed in anatomy, precision, and control.
Which is why the girl he collided with on the road that morning felt like a personal insult from the universe.

She had been standing there, sunlight catching in her hair, phone pressed to her ear, fury already written into her posture.
And when she turned to him, eyes blazing, voice sharp enough to cut—

He knew two things immediately.

One. She was impossible.
Two. He would never willingly see her again.

The universe, unfortunately, had a sense of humor.

---

Raaina Sikandar

Raaina Sikandar did not build an empire by being patient with idiots.

She ran a global business before breakfast, signed deals that moved markets, and commanded rooms where men twice her age learned to listen. Her name sat on magazine covers. Her company stretched across continents. Her life was timed in minutes and power moves.

And still, at twenty-four, her mother looked at her like she was unfinished.

“Success doesn’t warm a home,” Rahmeen Omar Sikandar would say, stirring tea she didn’t drink.
“You need a husband. A family. Someone to carry you when you’re tired.”

Raaina had learned early that love, in her world, came with conditions.
Be grateful.
Be obedient.
Be smaller.

So when the man on the road yelled back at her instead of apologizing, when his arrogance met her temper head-on, something feral sparked between them.

Their argument was brief. Violent. Electric.

She walked away shaking, heart pounding, telling herself he was irrelevant.
Just another stranger.
Just another man who thought the world bent for him.

She was wrong.

A week later, she sat in her parents’ living room, hands clenched in her lap, listening to familiar words turn into a trap.

“He’s perfect for you.”
“Respectable family.”
“Highly educated.”
“Don’t be selfish.”

And when she saw him again, sitting across from her with the same infuriating calm, the same unreadable eyes—

Raaina understood something terrifying.

This marriage was not a coincidence.
It was a collision.

Two empires.
Two egos.
Two people who did not believe in love.

And yet, fate had already signed the contract.
.