In the Rizvi house, no one says a girl is being given away.
They say the guests are respectable. They say the tea is ready. They say a father knows what he is doing.
Maham Rizvi believed them once.
Then Salman Rizvi, the father she loved more than anyone, let Haroon Malik enter their home as the answer to debts, rumors, and family shame. By the time Maham understood she was the answer, everyone else had already learned what not to say.
Haroon did not need to be cruel in public. That was the worst part.
He was calm. Older. Patient. Generous in the way men are praised for generosity when no one asks what the gift costs. In his house, keys became kindness. Locked gates became protection. Gold bangles became proof that Maham had been looked after.
She learned how a woman survives when leaving is possible somewhere on paper but impossible inside the rooms that raised her.
Then Aayat's sleeves are measured.
Same house. Same careful women. Same sweet tea. Same father looking away from the girl who still trusts him.
This time, Maham knows what is being prepared.
And this time, when the men lower their voices, she interrupts.
Not because she is fearless.
Because the first man who treated her like property was not her husband.
It was her father.