# Episode 11 — The Revenge I Promised Myself
*Narrated by Dilara*
> "They buried me like a shameful secret. Now, I rise as a beautiful curse."
Istanbul has many faces.
There's the Istanbul of postcards — blue mosques and endless markets, men selling roasted chestnuts to tourists who think they've seen the city.
Then there's my Istanbul — the alleys where secrets rot like dead fruit, where legacies are bought with blood and betrayal.
Where girls like me are taught to be silent, beautiful, obedient.
Well, I was never very good at following rules.
***
For weeks, I watched them from a distance.
Aylin Kaya Demir — the new saint of the city. The orphaned heiress. The girl who came from "nothing" and ended up with everything.
Her face was everywhere: magazines, news articles, foundation interviews.
They called her brave. They called her pure.
But I remember the girl who stood next to me in the school hallways and smiled with a lie behind her lips.
I remember the girl who let them throw me to the wolves.
And I made a promise the day I disappeared:
**She will pay. And she will pay with the thing she loves most.**
***
Aliha doesn't know the full plan yet. She's my shadow — always trailing behind, whispering doubts I pretend not to hear.
"Dilara… we've been gone for so long. Why not just start over?" she asked me the night we crossed back into Istanbul with fake IDs and dyed hair.
"Start over?" I laughed. "They started over without us. While we vanished, they rewrote the story."
She went quiet.
I knew she still had a soft spot for Aylin. But soft spots get people killed in this city.
***
Yesterday, I saw Yaman again.
Not in person — on a screen.
He was standing next to her at a charity event. Looking at her like she was the only star in the sky.
Funny, isn't it?
He used to look at me like that. Before he knew who he was.
Before he believed the story *they* told him.
He thinks he belongs to them now. That Aylin is his salvation.
He doesn't know that her salvation came at my ruin.
But he will.
Oh, he will.
***
Kadir Esendemir was waiting for me in the shadows of an abandoned library outside the city.
He wasn't what I expected — older, colder, sharper. A man who had lost everything… except his thirst for war.
"You're brave to come to me," he said.
"I'm not brave. I'm angry," I replied.
He poured himself a drink, neat and dark. "Anger can be useful. Or fatal."
I tossed a folder on the table. Inside: photos, foundation schematics, evidence of fraud — things only an insider would know.
"Consider this my offering," I said. "I don't want their money. I want to watch them burn."
He stared at me for a long time, then smiled — the kind of smile you'd expect from the devil offering you a throne.
"Welcome to the family, Dilara."
***
Aliha is growing nervous. Her TikTok is exploding after the cryptic video she posted.
No names. No faces. Just truths.
"You're sure it won't trace back to us?" she asked me tonight.
"No one remembers ghosts," I said. "They only fear them."
But I saw the way she looked at her phone. Aylin posted something — a picture of her and Yaman laughing on a rooftop.
Aliha stared for too long.
I grabbed her phone and threw it across the room.
"She doesn't love you. She never did."
Aliha flinched.
Maybe I was too harsh.
Maybe not harsh enough.
***
Back in the city, I paid a visit to the old Demir estate. The gates were locked, the lights off. But I still had the key.
Inside, everything smelled like dust and memory.
But buried beneath the floorboards of the main office, I found what I came for: a sealed letter.
It had my father's name on it.
And a second one… addressed to *Aylin*.
I didn't open hers. Not yet.
Some things are more valuable unopened.
Especially when you plan to use them as weapons.
***
Later that night, I stood on the rooftop of an abandoned hotel, watching the city burn with lights.
Yaman's apartment was visible from here.
I lifted my camera. Zoomed in.
He was with her. Of course.
He kissed her forehead like a lover.
Held her like she was fragile porcelain.
My heart didn't break. It turned to iron.
I sent the photo to Kadir with one line:
> "We strike tomorrow. Start with her name."
His reply came instantly:
> "Her name will be ash."
***
End of Episode 11