After the Last Call

The Call

The phone rang at 11:47 p.m.

I remember the time because everything after that moment stopped making sense.
I was still at my desk, heels kicked off under the table, city lights bleeding through the glass wall of my apartment.

Another day of pretending to be normal - emails, meetings, polite smiles. Another night waiting for the part of my life that actually mattered.

By day, I sat in glass offices and answered emails like a white-collar professional because that’s what the agency needed the world to see.

Karan never called this late.

I stared at my phone as it buzzed again, his name lighting up the screen.

Karan.

Something tightened in my chest. Not fear. Instinct.

I answered.

"Karan?"

Static crackled on the line. His breathing was uneven, rushed, like he'd been running.

"Kia..." My name sounded different.

Broken. Urgent. "Listen to me carefully."

My spine went rigid. Training kicked in before emotion could. "Where are you?"

"I don't have much time." His voice dropped. "If anything happens to me-"

"Stop." I stood up so fast my chair skidded back. "What do you mean if?"

There was movement in the background. Footsteps. Too many. Too close.

"Karan," I whispered. "Talk to me."

"I shouldn't have dug this deep," he said.

"They know about you. About us."
Cold flooded my veins.

"Who is they?" I demanded.

A sharp sound cut through the call - a metallic click I recognized far too well.

My breath hitched. "Karan... run."

He exhaled, slow and shaky. "I love you, Kia."

The gunshot exploded through the speaker.

The line went dead.

I stood there, phone pressed to my ear, waiting for his voice to come back.

Waiting for anything. The city outside kept breathing. Cars moved. Lights flickered. The world didn't pause the way it should have.

"Karan?" I said softly.

Nothing.

I lowered the phone and stared at it, my hands trembling for the first time in years. I had been trained to kill. To lie. To survive.

But nothing prepares you for the moment when the person you love dies on the other end of a call.

Whoever pulled that trigger thought it would end there.

They were wrong.

Because after the last call, I wasn't a girlfriend anymore.

I was coming for them.