6
Rihaan
TWO DAYS LATER, I still hadn’t told them.
The words had sat at the back of my throat ever since that conversation in the kitchen, heavy and unmoving, like if I tried to force them out, they’d tear something open on the way.
Something I was far too afraid to let come out.
Instead, I stayed sprawled across my bed while the first day of the second Test between Bangladesh and New Zealand played silently on the television, all bright stadium lights and commentators whose words never reached me.
Beyond the towering windows, London shimmered in fractured gold against the dark, the city looking distant enough to belong to somebody else entirely.
The room stretched long around me, all warm lighting, cream stone, and dark velvet shadows.
Past the sitting area near the fireplace, the space carried on toward the bathroom and the walk in closet.
Still, my gym bag sat half unpacked near the chair by the bed, training gear hanging over the side like I’d abandoned the task midway through remembering I didn’t care enough to finish it.
Because the truth was, I still hadn’t fully wrapped my head around what had happened, and the last forty eight hours had blurred together into one long, frozen day.
Knowing our father had a secret child was one thing. Brutal, sure, but distant enough at first to almost feel theoretical. Just another ugly confession dropped onto the pile of things he’d lied about over the years.
Meeting him changed it.
Meeting him and realising I had met him years ago?
That part sat differently in my chest…sharper somehow.
I scrubbed a hand down my face and stared up at the ceiling.
How could I forget meeting someone like that?
According to the internet, it was normal. That childhood amnesia was actually quite common. Most people forgot huge chunks of their early years unless something had been emotionally significant enough to stick.
But that logic didn’t sit right with me.
Surely I would’ve remembered meeting my half-brother. Playing cricket with him. Running around some park or sports hall together while our father watched from the sidelines?
Surely I would’ve noticed another kid calling my father Dad.
Unless he’d told him not to.
The thought landed heavily in my chest.
That’s fucked up.
But not impossible. Not for Vikram Patel.
If anything, it sounded exactly like something my father would do. Something he must have done.
Right?
My brain latched on the thought, slowly breathing life into the spiral I’d done my hardest to avoid.
Telling us about Ishaan’s existence had never been some grand attempt at clearing his conscience. He hadn’t suddenly decided honesty mattered to him after decades of lying.
No, the truth had only come out because Raina had a run in with our father almost seven years since he’d abandoned her. After he’d left her with our grandparents back in Delhi, lied to us about it and went on with his life, like it was something that would eventually smooth itself over with time.
How did she know?
My brows pulled together in a frown. The day Raina and Dev—who’d been present for their fight—told us about everything that had gone down, I’d been too taken aback with the rest of it…that I hadn’t even questioned it.
But more than that, I couldn’t help but wonder why Ishaan hadn’t reached out, either?
He wasn’t in another country like Raina had been.
He clearly knew about us, if his weekly lunches were to take into account.
He wasn’t hidden away in some distant life we were never meant to touch.
He was here. In Surrey. In London, maybe.
He could’ve been existing within the same city for years while the rest of us moved through our lives completely unaware of him.
That was the part my brain kept circling back to no matter how hard I tried to move past it.
London suddenly didn’t feel that big anymore.
There were only so many cricket grounds.
So many restaurants. So many train stations and cafés and random streets you passed through without thinking.
The chances of crossing paths had to have existed hundreds of times over the years.
Maybe we already had before. Maybe there had been moments where we’d stood feet away from each other without only one of us realising. He’d known what I looked like.
The thought made something in my chest ache strangely.
Because how did that happen accidentally?
How did someone know they had siblings living in the same city and never reach out once? Never say anything?
I turned my head against the pillow, jaw tightening.
Unless he’d been told not to.
The thought rang in me again, louder this time and instantly, without even meaning to, I could picture it too clearly.
Dad sitting across from him in his den back at the estate, speaking in that controlled, measured tone he used whenever he wanted to sound reasonable instead of cruel.
Making it seem noble somehow. Sensible. Like staying away was the kinder option for everyone involved.
The sick part was that it probably would’ve worked on me too at that age. At any age.
Because Vikram Patel had always known exactly how to frame things to get what he wanted. Never directly selfish. Never openly manipulative. Just enough concern woven into his words to make you question whether you were the unreasonable one for being upset in the first place.
A slow heaviness settled in my stomach.
Maybe that was why this whole thing felt so impossible to talk about out loud. Because every direction my thoughts turned in led back to the same ugly conclusion.
This hadn’t just happened to us.
Our strings had been pulled like we were in a goddamn play.
And somehow that hurt more than the affair itself ever could.
And now that I knew, every memory from that age suddenly felt suspicious. Like there were pieces missing from all of them.
I remembered random details instead. The smell of chlorine from the leisure centre pool. The cheap plastic bats they used during drills. The way Dad had actually seemed patient there, which should’ve stood out more considering how rarely patience existed in our house.
Maybe it had stood out. Maybe that was why the memory lingered at all.
Just not the part that mattered most.
I rolled onto my side with a quiet groan, pressing the heels of my palms briefly against my eyes.
It would’ve been easier if I could just hate the guy outright. The secret love child. Half-brother. Whatever term that felt least bizarre.
But I couldn’t even manage that properly because none of this was his fault.
While the four of us had been the obligation he felt bound to fulfil and repay; all because our Nanu had been a ruthless tycoon in his day—who in his own way was convinced he was securing the best future for his daughter, when he cornered a young cricketer into marriage and unknowingly created the domino effect that became the story of our lives—Ishaan had been the child our father actually wanted.
Somehow that settled in my chest even more painfully than any lie my father had ever told us.
And now, Dev my oldest brother was already working with him.
Which meant Vedant—Dev’s twin—also knew.
The two had been two peas in a pod their whole lives, so it wouldn’t exactly be a stretch.
And if the last couple days were to go by, Raina and Oliver were clearly hiding something.
Dad was clearly spiralling after losing control of the family narrative he’d spent years carefully curating. And me?
I was stuck somewhere in the middle of all of it, angry at everyone and somehow still mostly angry at myself for holding this grudge.
The sigh that escaped me was short and hollow.
Typical.
Even in family betrayal, apparently I still found a way to make myself the problem.
A knock against my door cut through the static in my head.
Three quick taps.
I blinked hard and sat up a little straighter, rubbing a hand over my face once before answering. “Yeah.”
The door creaked open just enough for my sister to slip through first, followed by the soft thump of paws against hardwood.
Lilli lingered near the doorway like a tiny, furry bodyguard deciding whether Raina would need emotional support around me or not.
My guess was Milo was around Oliver, just like he always was.
“You look like shit,” she said flatly. Her eyes flicked toward the TV screen, and her lips pursed as she stepped farther into the room.
“Maybe I’m dying,” I replied, sinking further against the headboard.
She raised a brow. “From what exactly? Acting like a toddler who didn’t get what he wanted?”
“Sure, let’s go with that.” I shrugged. “You really gonna deny a dying man his final wish?”
My sister ignored that entirely. She carried a tiny plate balanced carefully in one hand, and the second I saw it, my stomach betrayed me with interest.
Majas.
Once she’d finished making them, instead of giving me any, she’d tucked the whole tray out of reach like she already knew I’d try stealing some.
The second I did, she smacked my hand away and told me I wasn’t getting a single piece unless I explained what happened after seeing Dad.
Which made the fact she’d brought me a couple pieces now even stranger.
Suspicious, even. My sister was nice—nicer than the rest of us in the clan—sure, but she was still a journalist at heart. She knew exactly how to bait answers out of people, and apparently warm pastries counted as a valid interrogation technique.
“…Did you poison them?” I asked, just as she placed the plate on my bed.
“I debated it.” She replied dryly, before dropping on the bed. “To speed up the dying process and all, you know?”
“Ha-Ha.”
“You started it.” She raised a brow.
Fine.
“Two days, and I only get four pieces?” I asked. “I thought you made them for me.”
“And if you had come clean two days ago, you could’ve had half a slab.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Oliver wiped them clean, huh?”