Arranged By The Devil (Incest Romance) Prt 1

 

Chapter 1
Hasan Khalid POV
One year ago…

My butler gently placed the family photo album before me.
“Please choose, Ma'am.”

The displacement in my expression made him hesitate, as if reconsidering his decision to show it to me. He nearly pulled the album away, but I pressed a firm finger down on its leather cover. The pages weren’t filled with aunts, sisters, or cousins—they were filled with potential brides.

In this family, the man—anyone with the audacity of dominance—is expected to choose his bride. I’d avoided the tradition for years.

“Leave it. I’ll choose this time,” I said.

“Yes, Ma'am.” He bowed, straightened, and stepped back.

I turned my attention to the album. None of the girls stood out—at least, not enough to interest me. For the first time, I considered marrying outside our borders. The backlash would be ruthless. The fortune I might lose, immeasurable.

Still, my finger was covering a face. I slowly slid it down, revealing the photo beneath.

My brows stiffed in surprise. I stared at the young girl longer than I had anyone else. Without looking away, I reached into my desk drawer, fingers blindly searching until they found my magnifying glass—normally reserved for inspecting raw diamonds. Now, I used it to examine something rarer.

Her gaze held me captive. Through the lens, her soft, blue eyes became even more vivid. A quiet, composed smile touched her full lips. Her hair, black as coal, flowed down past her hips like it had a life of its own.

Perfection.

“Sakina Rayan,” I whispered.

I smirked. She was from the calmer side of the family.

Submissive. Humble.
So, she’s a good girl.

I licked my dry lips, instinctively raising the magnifying glass again to study her face more closely.

"I love her. I want her."

“Excuse me, Ma'am?” my butler asked stiffly, turning toward me.
I tapped her photo.

“Her.”

“I will get in contact—”

“I don’t want her yet.”

His brows drew together in confusion.
“I want her on September 8, 2034,” I said calmly. “I want her to meet me at exactly 10 a.m., sharp.”

His eyes widened.
“A year later?”

“I’m not ready for her just yet. But I want her. She’s mine.”

“Yes, Ma'am. I will inform the family that Sakina Rayan is spoken for—she will be yours to wed.”

“Thank you.”

***************

Sakina Rayan  POV
Present day…

They say wealth is like a river—it keeps flowing. And if you don’t find a way to contain it, it flows right out of your hands.
So how do you keep riches from drifting away?
You keep it in the family.
You marry within the bloodline.

The family’s ancient lore was kept hidden from me for years—buried, locked away in whispered warnings and dark glances. I never saw the truth of it until I was old enough to be caught in its current.

That dark legacy had watched me frolic barefoot in the grass as a child, my hem dancing above my knees. But those memories are foggy now—more like fragments than moments. It’s as if I woke up one day and never ran in the grass again.

The grass has snakes now.

That’s how I think—negatively. But that’s how most adults think, isn’t it? Especially in college. We don’t daydream anymore. We anticipate storms.

I always knew I was going to marry young. I had no problem with that. I’d already learned the valuable lessons of how to be a wife.

In my dreams, my husband was Omar. His eyes—blue, laced with flecks of gold—rested so naturally in his sockets. He’d stare blankly at the lecturer, looking uninterested, yet his eyes burned with color, brighter than anyone else’s in the room.

How we met isn’t really important. It was through Haram, but that doesn’t matter. I loved him. He was the one I wanted to marry.

What I failed to notice, though, was how my mother never said a word about whether Omar was really the one. For years, she kept quiet. And there I was, with my little cornflower blue eyes—eyes I never considered beautiful. Innocent, maybe, but not beautiful. Especially not beside Omar’s.

I glanced over at my parents, sitting together, their hands entwined. Both of them watching me, their matching blue eyes filled with something I couldn’t quite name. For the last two years, since I became an adult, they hadn’t stopped talking about the family lore—the stories, the rules, the villains, the legacy, the money.

The rules. That’s what got to me.

Rules for a family?

I understood rules for a household—curfews, manners, responsibilities. But family? Families weren’t supposed to have rules. Yet ours did. And not just any rules—rules meant to protect and preserve our wealth, to keep it flowing only within our bloodline.

The family's fortune had been growing for decades, so much so that we were seen as royalty in the business world. Titans. Gods, almost. I’m not trying to sound melodramatic, but it was overwhelming. All of it. And everyone just expected me to know the rules, to follow them without question.

"I marry my cousin?" I asked aloud, trying not to spill the scalding tea on my head scarf.
My heart stung, and my body wanted to move—run, dance, scream. And if I did, they’d probably mistake it for joy.

But the real question was still spinning in my mind like a loose screw.

Am I going to marry a cousin?
How would I even know which one? I couldn’t objectify a cousin... because I didn’t even know who they were supposed to be.

Am I really going to marry a cousin?

"Yes, sweetheart."

At present, my mother was calmly telling me that my father—yes, the man I called Baba—was also her brother. So, technically, he wasn’t just my father. He was also my uncle. But since he was the one who provided the sperm, he remained my father. Not my uncle. Biologically and legally, he was still my father.

“You’re set to meet tomorrow at 10 a.m. sharp, yes?”

“Mama, I think we skipped over some key information... like who exactly I’m supposed to be marrying?”

My mother’s face, framed elegantly by her head scarf, had a kind of striking beauty. It wasn’t her lips, and it definitely wasn’t her tired, sunken eyes. No—it was her nose. Perfectly shaped, refined, like a gift from her Syrian ancestors. My father looked at her with undeniable love, but all I could see were two siblings, not a husband and wife.

How did it come to this?

Oh, she explained it. At least, she tried. But I spent most of the hour nodding along like I was paying attention, pretending to care. All I really wanted was for them to give me the green light—to marry Omar. That’s it. That’s all I wanted. I thought we’d be meeting his side of the family tomorrow at 10 a.m. Not another side of ours, and certainly not to discuss marrying some cousin I couldn't even name.

“Are we missing anything?” she asked my father gently.
He shook his head.

“We haven’t missed a thing, dear,” he said, turning to me.

I let out a short screech when a bit of rosemary tea spilled onto my lap. I bit down hard on my lip, trying to keep from leaping off the couch and dancing from the sharp burn. Pain and disbelief battled in my chest.

“We’ve told you everything there is to know.”

Apparently, they hadn’t—because I couldn’t recall a single useful thing.

“Let’s get back on track, shall we?” I said, trying to pull the conversation into sanity.
“I already told you last year—on my eighteenth birthday—that I wanted to marry Omar.”

"We’re well aware," my mother said. "But we didn’t give you an answer because no decision had been made yet."

"What are you saying?" I asked,

"Every few years," she began, "The family reviews the album—the one filled with the faces of every family member."

I set my teacup down on the floral tray and glanced down, noticing the large wet stain soaking through my light pink, floor-length, long-sleeved dress.

I suddenly remembered the photo they took of me last year, just before my eighteenth birthday. They called it the last photo of childhood. I suppose it was intended for selection—like a family version of Tinder. So, what? Family members had been flipping through pictures, swiping left or right until some cousin stopped on my face and thought, That’s the one?

And now, just like that, I was set to marry a cousin. As if that was normal.

"So, you’re saying I can’t marry Omar?" I asked slowly.

"Yes," my mother confirmed.

"That’s not fair."

I looked between them—siblings pretending to be spouses, parents pretending this wasn’t insane.

"I’m practically being forced into an arranged marriage?"

"Yes," she said again, without blinking.

"What am I supposed to say to Omar?"

"You still have time to break off whatever plans the two of you made."

"How much time?"

"You and your cousin will be engaged for the first six months. You’ll live separately until the wedding date is set."

I sighed, sitting back against the couch.

"Do we even hear ourselves, Mama? Baba? We sound completely... backwards."

I let out a short, bitter laugh.

"I want to marry Omar."

"I understand," my mother said gently. "But your father's side of the family has had their eye on you since last year."

"Which side of the family?" I asked, my eyes shifting back and forth between them. I couldn’t unsee it—their connection as siblings. It haunted every word they spoke. My head felt like chopped liver at this point.

"Is there even a ‘side’ in this family?" I muttered. "Feels like one big circle."

"Your father’s side," she said.

There’s actually a side?

This whole family lore clearly ran deeper than I ever wanted to dig. And now, I regretted not paying closer attention when they first explained it all. Maybe I’d have to ask questions as I went—piece the puzzle together one fragment at a time.

Still, the mention of Dad’s side piqued my curiosity. His branch of the family was notoriously full of rich nutjobs—the kind of people who wore their insanity like designer cologne. They were the wealthier half of the tree, but with wealth came power, and with power came ego. So now I was being married off to someone from that side? A rich, probably narcissistic jerk?

But I always father was a stranger, my mom meets, that’s how a side of the family would be.

"So… who picked me?" I asked carefully.

"We’re not authorized to tell you just yet," My mother said. "You’ll find out tomorrow."

"Mother. Father. You really don’t expect me to just sit here, smile, and go along with this—right?"

"We know it’ll take time to accept," My father replied, calm and measured. "But in time, you’ll understand. It’ll become clearer."

"I’m curious," I said, barely above a whisper.

My thoughts drifted to Omar. A part of me wondered if I should pack my bags, disappear into the night, and just be with him. His family welcomed me with open arms. They’d even hoped—naively—that my family would approve. They were waiting for a yes.

But I couldn’t run. Could I?

"We figured you would be," my mother said gently, lifting her teacup. She sipped with a small smile, as if this were a conversation about weather, not the collapse of my autonomy.

Meanwhile, my tea had barely been touched—most of it was absorbed by my dress anyway.

"How did you and Dad...?" I asked cautiously.

"We have different mothers," she replied simply.

"What family was your mother from?" I asked.

A cousin? An aunt? A sister? The tangled family tree was making my head spin.

My father finally spoke, his voice deep and steady.

"Sweetheart, we don’t want you to think about this in terms of family."

He paused, watching my expression.

"We want you to think of it more like… fate. Like walking down, a street and bumping into your soulmate."

"Oh, you mean like me and Omar?" I shot back, lifting a brow.

"Like that," he said, then added, "but within the family."

His words held the kind of edge that reminded me—it wasn’t like meeting Omar at all.

I met Omar on Tinder. I told everyone we bumped into each other at the university, a romantic little lie to cover up the truth: I wasn’t supposed to be on Tinder in the first place. But that lie felt more real than this twisted idea of fate.

But we all lie.

We all keep secrets. Just like they’ve been keeping this from me my entire life.

"Why couldn’t you have told me all of this when I was younger? Why now?!" I demanded.

"Sakina, it’s the rules of the family," my father said.

My mother leaned forward slightly. "I hope you’re ready for tomorrow?"

"Hm."

That was all I could manage.

"You don’t need to worry," she added gently.

But worrying would be the only thing I’d be doing.

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