The warehouse felt like a warzone by sunrise.
Ayub Dervovic arrived as the first notes of the Fajr adhan echoed through Sarajevo. The call to prayer rose from minaret after minaret, overlapping across hills and rooftops in a chorus of surrender and serenity. He paused for a brief second beside his car, listening—letting the sound settle the storm in his chest. Then he stepped forward.
The morning air was crisp and biting, but fresh, promising spring. His boots crunched over gravel laced with dew as he unlocked the side door and stepped into the still-dark interior. Lights hadn’t yet flickered on. The building breathed quietly around him.
Before anything else, he made his way to the prayer room tucked between the dispatch offices and logistics hallway. The space was quiet, clean, with soft carpet underfoot and the scent of oud lingering faintly in the air. A framed ayah hung above the qibla line. No frills. No clutter. Just calm.
He performed wudu in the adjacent washroom and entered the prayer room as the final call tapered into silence. His forehead touched the floor with practiced ease, and in sujood, he whispered the one thing he hadn’t dared admit aloud:
"Ya Allah, guard my heart from what it can't survive."
When he finished, the notification was still on his phone.
Project Reassignment Confirmed. Lead: Lamija Begović.
He didn’t blink. Just stared. As if that might unwrite the words.
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He slipped his phone into his pocket, still heavy with dread, and stepped into the corridor.
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The hallway was quiet—just for a moment. Then the world began to crack.
A call came in. Then another. Voices rising. Radios flaring to life.
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The fire started at 5:43 a.m.
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"Load 277 is missing," a panicked call from receiving.
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"The manifests don’t match," from dispatch.
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"Customs is here. Early. Again."
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He didn’t blink.He grabbed his clipboard and moved—fast. Orders barked, forklifts redirected, manifests redrafted from scratch. He brokered peace with a half-asleep customs agent over bitter black coffee and a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
He didn’t stop moving. Because the second he did, his mind would catch up. And if his mind caught up, it would go straight back to her.
To Lamija Begović.
And the fact that someone—God help him, probably her father—had assigned him directly to her team.
For eight years, he’d stayed in Imran’s shadow. Loyal. Capable. Silent. The invisible man who made things work and never got in the way.
He liked it like that.
Because Lamija? Lamija was a damn thunderstorm.
She didn’t need attention. She commanded it.
She was the kind of woman men sent thoroughbreds to.
Literally.
Caesar had arrived when Ayub was nineteen. He remembered it vividly: some foreign investor trying to impress her on behave of his son, sent the stallion as a gift. Skinny, wild, impossible to tame. Every trainer gave up. Lamija didn’t. Three days later, she walked out of that ring with Caesar at her side like she was born for him.
Ayub had watched from a distance, shaking his head. Not at her.
At himself.
Because he felt something then. Something dangerous. Something he wasn't suppose to want.
The man never stood a chance. The horse, on the other hand—earned his place.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWYBxhoMDhP
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Ayub had laughed. Quietly. Bitterly.
Because Lamija Begović wasn’t a woman you won. You survived her.
And he—he was just the stray their mother took in.
His father, Ibrahim Dervović, had driven for Begović Industries his whole life. One of the best. Dependable. Quiet. The kind of man who never raised his voice but never missed a deadline. His palms were thick with calluses, his shirts always smelled faintly of diesel and mint. Ayub had adored him—fiercely, without question.
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Then came the accident.
A rainy night. A sharp curve. A missed brake. The truck flipped. Ibrahim was pinned beneath it. Crushed. Gone before the call ever came.
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Ayub was sixteen.
His mother remarried six months later. Her new husband didn’t want a teenager. Didn’t want baggage.
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Ayub was the baggage.
"You’re strong. You’ll manage," she told him at the door, barely meeting his eyes. As if he were a backpack she’d outgrown. As if everything she’d whispered into his hair when he was small had never existed.
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And then she left. Just like that.
His uncle took him in. Reluctantly. The kind of reluctant that hangs in the air like mildew. Meals were eaten in silence. Doors stayed closed. No one said his name unless it was to tell him to move. The house was warm, but the cold was everywhere. The kind that sat in your chest and never melted. Even in July.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUbHELs1aPf
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But then Zehira Begović appeared.
He heard whispers about her before he saw her. Around the neighborhood. At the masjid. People saying she was asking around. Not just generally. No, she was looking for him.
"Where is Ibrahim's son?"
"What happened to him?"
"Why isn’t he with his mother?"
She asked until someone answered. And then she came.
She stepped into that gray, bitter house like she owned it. Dressed in soft pastels, not a wrinkle on her scarf. She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t argue. She just looked at his uncle and said, "He’s coming with me."
That was it.
She didn’t ask Ayub if he wanted to go. She didn’t need to. She knew. And he followed her out the door with one bag over his shoulder and a heart still beating in disbelief.
When they pulled into the estate, Husein was already waiting at the top of the steps. Hands behind his back. Calm.
"You’ll stay across from Imran," he said. "There’s a spot at the table."
A spot.
Like there had always been one.
Imran took him under his wing. Amina and Adem treated him like another brother.
But Lamija?
Lamija ruined him.
She was kind when he arrived. Not soft. Not warm. But intentional. She spoke to him directly, asked if the food was to his liking as if his answer carried weight. She didn’t hover, but she noticed everything. A few days after he quietly mentioned that his shirts didn’t fit right, he came back from school to find three perfectly folded button-downs at the foot of his bed. No note. No explanation. Just quiet precision. And when he couldn’t sleep—when the silence of the house made it hard to breathe—she didn’t ask. She left a cup of tea outside his door. Still hot. Just once. Just enough.
And it destroyed him.
Because from that moment on, he felt it.
A pull. A spark. A quiet, gnawing ache that grew with every passing year.
She never mocked him for it. Never even acknowledged it. She simply existed—graceful, confident, impossible.
Sometimes, she looked right through him. And sometimes, she looked straight at him.
Both were unbearable.
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He made himself small. Respectful. Invisible. Pretending her presence didnt freeze his lungs.
Because she was Lamija Begovic. And he was the orphan her mother plucked from the gutters.
He learned her calendar. Avoided her meetings. Sent reports through Imran. He dodged, deflected, ran.
Because if he didn’t, he would start to hope. A man like him couldn’t afford hope—not in anything, and especially not in her.
And now? They had reassigned him. Directly beneath her.
He shoved open the side door and stepped into the cool morning. The sting on his face helped. Briefly.
He wasn’t going to survive this.
He was going to ask to be reassigned.
No email. No polite excuse.
He was going to walk into Imran’s office and make it clear.
Hell, he’d scrub bathrooms for a year, take night shifts, switch cities if he had to. Anything to keep himself out of her orbit.
Because he couldn’t do it. Not without losing something. Not without making a fool of himself.
And not without his heart getting ideas it had no business having. Ideas that would cost him everything—his place, his peace, maybe even her respect.
He turned away from the warehouse and headed straight across the gravel lot toward the main office building. The morning light was bright now, glinting off the windows of the executive wing like it knew where he was going.
He didn’t stop to plan. Didn’t give himself the chance to overthink it again.
He didn’t care if Imran was busy or buried in emails. He needed to fix this. Now.
Before he lost his grip.
Before it was too late.
He took the stairs two at a time.
And didn’t knock.
He just walked in.
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