Chapter Twenty-Five
The surprises kept coming. Krish sat forward. “You . . . you strangled me? In the hotel.”
Isha inclined her head. “Guilty, yes.”
“Jesus Christ,” Sejal muttered.
“I was trying to protect you!” Isha protested. “Krish, you are far better at combat than I thought a librarian would be. Your
mother taught you well.”
“You know my mom?”
Isha’s eyes gleamed. “I know of her. I know of everything, Krish.”
Sejal was eyeing Isha like one might eye a friendly shark. “If you know everything, then you know what happened to Avi.”
“Why do you care? I just told you he sold you out.”
“I already know that.” Sejal’s gaze flickered to Krish, and Isha tracked it.
“Ah,” the former nanny said. “Got it. For what it’s worth, I did advise him to face the investigation and throw his supervisor and partner under the bus, but he said that that wasn’t possible.
Apparently, he was quite nervous about you and your mother finding out that he did anything corrupt.
He said you were stern people, not very forgiving of errors, that you’d disown him immediately. ”
Fuck. Krish sat back. Is that how Avi had seen him? Their mother, yes, but him?
Isha glanced at him from under her lashes, and Krish spotted a hint of Sejal in that look.
“I don’t see it. You look harmless to me.”
He thought of all the times he’d had to bail Avi out of trouble when they were kids. Had he been cold and annoyed? Probably.
But he’d still helped Avi, hadn’t he? Avi had been Krish’s responsibility. He’d held him as a baby. Vowed to protect him.
Except now. He’d failed him now, when he needed Krish the most.
Being the eldest doesn’t mean you have to solve everyone’s problems. And not solving everyone’s problems doesn’t mean that
you’ve failed at being the eldest.
A cough from a diner in one of the other booths brought him out of his musings.
“Anyway,” Isha was saying, “I looked into it after I saw you, Krish. All I know is that Avi booked a ticket south of the border
after he received the wire transfer from Ivanovitch. He could be anywhere by now.”
“Anywhere, yes.” The world was big. Avi wasn’t only a trained federal agent, he was their mother’s son.
Sejal leaned forward. “Isha, you could find him, surely.”
“Find him for what? To come back here to face being fired and jail time?”
Krish cupped his cooling chai to try to absorb some of its heat.
So his brother was guilty of a lot of stuff.
That didn’t mean there weren’t more guilty people.
He’d operate in the gray and drag Avi back into the light.
“His partner and supervisor worked for Rushali. There’s no way she didn’t keep a paper trail.
She must have had insurance on everyone at the Bureau who worked for Cobra.
If Avi comes back home, with a good attorney, he could—”
“Cut a deal,” Isha finished. She looked up at the ceiling. “Is this what having a sibling is? Having to rescue them?”
Sejal grimaced. “In my experience, occasionally.”
“Consider it an apology for strangling me, Isha.”
“Okay, okay.” Isha pulled a phone out of her pocket. “I’ll get someone on locating your brother, and I’ll pull together some
intel for you. Names, dates, account numbers.”
“Thank you.”
“I would say it’s no problem, but since I’m losing informants, it is.”
Sejal gave an impatient noise. “We both know you’re not going to throw anyone under the bus who’s loyal to you. I’m betting
anyone you give up is a holdover from when our mom was in charge.”
Isha flashed her teeth. “You are smart, Sejal Didi.”
“Mira is not going to believe this.”
“Tell her I truly love Ananya, and no one will ever harm a hair on her head.” Her face softened. “I’m actually sad I won’t
see her and our niece anymore. It was only a few months, but I found I grew attached, though I was playacting.”
Sejal took a drink of her chai. “Who says you can’t see them?”
Isha scoffed. “Mira won’t want to see me. Not once you tell her who I am.”
“I thought that, too. But . . . Mira might surprise you. I think I would like to see you again.”
Krish knew Sejal didn’t like being vulnerable. This was quite the stretch for her. He tensed, ready to intervene if it looked like Isha might slap her down.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Our mother would hate that.”
Sejal raised her glass in a toast. “All the more reason to keep in touch, then.”
“Okay.” Isha’s smile was slow, but broad. She tapped her glass against Sejal’s and drained the chai. “I’ll be in touch, Krish.”
“You don’t have my number.”
“I have everyone’s number.” Isha stood and peered at them. “A librarian and a magician. Weird, but cute.”
“I’m not a magician.”
“You sure? Because our parents are gone, friend. We can be whatever we want to be.”
Sejal opened her mouth after Isha left, but Krish put his finger over his lips. Not yet. They could speak freely in a moment.
He raised his voice slightly. “Mother. Would you like to join us?”
Sejal’s mouth formed the word What?
A deep sigh came from the booth next to them. Then the woman sitting there stood and came to sit with them, in Isha’s spot.
His mother removed her floppy hat, taking off her long black wig with it. Her prosthetic nose and chin were next to go. Krish
dipped a napkin in his water and handed it to her so she could wipe off the lighter-colored makeup she’d applied.
“I think I might be fucking in love with your mother,” Sejal muttered.
His mom didn’t smile, but she did shoot Sejal a quick glance. “How did you know I was here, Krish?”
That cough. He’d heard it often enough, especially when they’d first moved to America.
During those long nights, if Avi woke up too, Krish had cuddled his toddler brother so their mom could be left alone to her grief.
“I recognized the way you clear your throat when you’re trying to hide your tears. ”
Her eyes were still wet. “I’m not going to apologize for following you.”
“You put a tracker on us?” Sejal answered her own question right away. “Of course you did.”
Aarthi pushed Isha’s empty cup away. “So. You’re a daughter of the old Cobra? Sister of the current one.”
“I guess I am.”
“Krish, you brought Cobra’s daughter to my safe house?”
Krish squeezed Sejal’s thigh when she tensed. No, they were not going to do this. “I told you before. Sejal is not her parents.
She compromised nothing.”
Aarthi looked like she wanted to argue that point, but she must have heard the finality in Krish’s voice. “Was the Ivanovitch
drama even true?”
“Yes. But we handled it.” Krish crushed a napkin between his fingers. “He’s no longer a threat.”
“But you were together so you could get to Cobra and get information on your brother. So I was right, that she wasn’t your
girlfriend.”
Sejal leaned forward, like she was sharing a secret. “He thought us posing as girlfriend and boyfriend would make you ask
fewer questions.”
His mother gaped at him. “You thought springing a girlfriend on me would result in less questions?”
Krish pinched the bridge of his nose. Yes, obviously, in hindsight, he’d made a lot of foolish choices on this trip. “We were not dating when we first saw you.”
“And now?”
They looked at each other. “It’s . . .”
“Complicated,” Krish finished. Complicated only because they hadn’t discussed what was going to happen once this was all over.
He knew what he wanted.
Or at least, he knew what he was going to ask for. Sejal might shoot him down, but he hadn’t come all the way across the country,
impersonating an FBI agent, to get cold feet now.
Aarthi dug her fingers into her eye sockets. “Wonderful. One of my sons ran off to God knows where, and the other one is in
something complicated with a Cobra spawn.”
“Yeah, I definitely don’t like that description,” Sejal remarked.
“Nor do I. Watch it, Mother.”
“You cannot blame me for being dismayed. I came all the way to this country, spent my whole life teaching you everything you
needed to know so you and your brother could have bright futures. Imagine how I feel right now.”
Krish understood his mom’s anger. She’d given up everything after his dad’s death—her country, her family, her career—for
them to be able to thrive, and his brother had gone and done something wildly reckless. A little perspective was needed, though,
some shades of gray, but he’d only been able to find that after Sejal had prompted him to open his eyes.
I love you, Avi. I need to come to terms with you not being who I thought you were, but I love you, and I want you back. “You were so proud of Avi once. You never failed to remind me of that.”
“I was proud of you, too. I told you all the time. When you got your master’s—”
“When I got my master’s, you told me it was nice, safe work, even if it wouldn’t change the world.” Those words had haunted him throughout his career.
God. It felt good to get this off his chest.
“Krish, I didn’t mean it like that. I love you both.”
“Yes. You love us fiercely, but you don’t love us unconditionally. Because you can’t love yourself unconditionally. You said
it yourself. My face is your failure. How could you love me or yourself if you think of failure when you look at me?”
Aarthi drew back. He knew he was skating the thin line of berating his mother in this Indian restaurant, but his emotions
were overwhelming him. All of the stress and tension since his brother had disappeared, since he’d fought with his mother,
since he’d essentially dragged an innocent woman into his quest, all came together in a fiery, passionate ball. “I appreciate
that you had high standards for us. But what I don’t appreciate is how you always pitted Avi and me against each other. Every
insecurity I have is tied to how I can’t measure up to him, and here it turns out he ran because he feared he couldn’t measure
up to me.” Krish gave a hollow laugh. “Isn’t that irony?”
Sejal scooted closer so she was pressed up against him. He welcomed her presence, silent and encouraging.