𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐭 : 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐡

꧁༺𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 -25༻꧂

~The Faces They Were Given~

Apex looked at Sia, but the certainty that had remained in his voice moments earlier was gone. Something close to fear had entered his eyes, as though even he was afraid of the truth he was about to place in front of her.

His fingers tightened around the edge of the old frame. "Because they are not the real Raze, Kael, and Evren, Sia."

For several seconds, Sia didn't react. Her mind seemed to have stopped functioning, unable to decide whether she had heard him correctly or whether exhaustion and everything that had happened tonight had finally broken something inside her.

She stared at him, her lips parting slightly. "Who are they, then?" she finally asked. Her voice was almost painfully quiet. "And do they know that they aren't the people everyone believes them to be?"

Apex slowly shook his head. "No. They don't know anything. They have no idea who they were before I gave them those identities."

"How the fucking hell is that possible?" Her voice suddenly rose through the abandoned mansion. "People don't just wake up one day without remembering who they are and suddenly start living as someone else! You can't erase a person's entire existence and replace it with another one!"

Apex remained silent.

Sia moved toward him, anger overpowering the fear that had been holding her together. She grabbed his wrist and turned him toward her with trembling hands. "Fucking answer me! What did you do to them? Who are they?"

Apex stared at her for several seconds. His expression tightened, and when he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

"They are..." He stopped, as though the words physically hurt him to say. His eyes lowered for a moment before returning to hers.

"Rudra, Veer, and Eklavya."

Everything inside Sia went still. Her fingers loosened around his wrist. She slowly released him, her hand falling uselessly beside her as the name Rudra echoed through her mind again and again.

"Wha.t ? How?..." she whispered.

Apex didn't move silently looked at her.

Sia shook her head violently. "Are you making fun of my situation?. Everyone saw what happened. You can't tell me that the man I've been calling Raze all these time is Rudra."

"I know," Apex said quietly. "That's why I was afraid to tell you."

Sia's eyes filled with tears. "Then how?"

Apex inhaled deeply and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, the exhaustion in his face seemed older than the mansion surrounding them.

"You already know what happened in the past," he began. "You all believed Arav was responsible for everything. The attacks, the stalking, Rudra's cousin entering his life, the constant threats. But Arav wasn't the person controlling the entire game."

Sia's breathing became uneven.

"Markhov was," Apex continued. "The man you knew as Rajat Raichand. He created every situation carefully. He never truly intended to kill Rudra. His intention was far more complicated."

Sia wiped her tears roughly. "Then what did he want?"

"He wanted Rudra to understand that he didn't belong in that world," Apex answered. "Markhov made him believed that if he stayed close to the people he loved, those people would always become targets. So he never needed to attack Rudra directly."