The Fall

I should’ve known.

The moment Kamal smiled at me and slid the brown package across the table, I should have known something was off. But I was too desperate, too blinded by the promise of a new beginning—ten lakh taka and a way out of this life.

I did exactly what they told me. I walked through the crowded streets, past vendors shouting out their prices, past kids playing cricket in the alley, gripping the package like my life depended on it. Because it did.

The delivery point was easy—an old, rundown café near Motijheel. I handed the package to the guy waiting there, a man in a blue jacket with dark sunglasses. He barely looked at me before taking it and vanishing into the sea of people.

I should’ve left right then. I should’ve run. But I was stupid enough to believe I was finally in control.

That night, the news shattered everything. A bomb explosion. The Police Commissioner dead. Reports flashing images of the very café where I had handed off the package. And then—my face.

I stopped breathing.

They called me a terrorist, a criminal, a mastermind behind an assassination plot. The footage was clear: me, handing over the package. My name, repeated over and over on the news like a curse.

And then Kamal. That bastard. He was on live TV, sitting in an office, wearing a crisp shirt, looking every bit the respectable businessman. He called me a traitor, a man he once "trusted" who had betrayed his organization. He said I had done it on my own, that I had "turned radical."

I wanted to scream. I was the scapegoat.

I ran.

I packed what little money I had and left through the back alleys, my heart hammering against my ribs. The police were everywhere. The streets had eyes. I wasn’t just some small-time guy anymore—I was a national fugitive.

There was no turning back. I had to disappear.

And so, Ashique died that night.