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“You had every reason to hide from the world that Ayaan is Tej’s son, but how could you hide such a crucial fact from me? Why didn’t you tell me this when we met at Antop Hill to discuss Tej?” he bellows.
“I was afraid that if I revealed that Ayaan is not my son but Tej’s, you would have called off the wedding. I didn’t want to break our children’s hearts again. They had already suffered so much. If you had cancelled the wedding, it would have been another devastating blow for them,” Dad replies.
“That’s right,” Pratap Walia shouts again. “I would never allow my daughter to marry the son of a criminal. I would rather choose her heartbreak than have her associate with a mafia figure like Tej.”
I tightly clench my fingers to contain my anger. Pratap Walia is known for his volatile nature, but I won’t tolerate it if he directs his anger towards us for something that is beyond our control.
“Did you know that Kailash was not Ayaan’s father?” Pratap Walia asks Meher, who is standing next to me. “Did Ayaan ever tell you that before the wedding?”
Meher releases my hand and takes a step forward towards her father.
“How does it even matter whose son Ayaan is? I married him because I love him,” Meher responds heatedly.
“Love is secondary, Meher,” Pratap Walia fumes. “Trust and transparency in a relationship comes first. Even though Ayaan didn’t know his biological father’s identity until now, he still knew that he was not Kailash’s son. Then why didn’t he tell you that? Why did he have to hide it from his life partner?”
The reply to that is on the tip of my tongue, but before I can respond, Meher does.
“Your outburst is as unreasonable as most of your recent decisions, Dad. You should be the last person to talk about being transparent with your life partner when you yourself had hidden the fact from my mother that you had a son from another woman you loved. Why didn’t you build the foundation of your marriage by being transparent with my mom then?”
Pratap Walia is rendered speechless by Meher’s words.
“I don’t care whose son Ayaan is,” she continues. “He is everything I seek in a life partner and embodies the very values I hold dear, and that’s enough for me.”
Pratap Walia seethes at his daughter’s determination before turning to Dad again.
“You have no idea what you have done, Kailash. Tej now knows Ayaan is his son. Do you think he is going to take this lightly?”
“What else did you want me to do then?” Dad argues back. “We all thought Tej and his family were dead. And even if I’d known back then that Tej had fled, I would still raise Ayaan as my son, not his. Because Tej doesn’t deserve to be a father.”
While they continue to argue about it, my mind grapples to connect the dots of the past.
“Tej Khurana’s wife had delivered twin babies that day,” I murmur, and a hush falls over everyone once again. “He probably fled before the roof of that hospital room collapsed. Just like Dad saved me from the neonatal ICU, it is possible that Tej Khurana might have saved the other baby before escaping?”
I rub my temples, trying hard to connect the dots. Once again, my intuitions come into play, guiding me to this conclusion, and I have a strong feeling that this is what had transpired.
“Yeah,” I nod, affirming to myself. Every pair of eyes is fixed on me as they hear me unravel the mystery of that night. “He saved his other son that day.”
“How can you be so sure of that?” Dad questions.
“Because I met his son today,” I say slowly, looking at all of them in the eye.
A collective gasp echoes from them, but it doesn’t deter me from making my point.
“He helms every mission for Tej Khurana. He is the CEO of their diamond company in Cape Town. A man like Tej Khurana will never trust anyone so easily, let alone allow them to rule his kingdom unless that person is close to him. That’s why it’s highly probable that Raghav is Tej Khurana’s son. And...and my twin brother.”
Words choke in my throat as I declare this. The room falls silent, and all eyes are on me as I drop this bombshell and explain why I feel this way. Aksh and Vishnu exchange glances, trying to process this sudden turn of events. Krish listens intently, his gaze fixed on me.
“You’re right,” Krish interjects sharply, having listened carefully to my theory so far. “Only Raghav can be your twin. How did we miss such a striking resemblance between the two of you? When we received Raghav’s sketch from the sketch artist, I, for a moment, thought it was you and that the artist had made a mistake in their drawing. Now that I recall, while you and Raghav may not be identical, you do share an uncanny resemblance regarding your physical and facial features.”
Yes, I felt it, too. An innate, weird connection of sorts whenever I met Raghav. And now, when Dad revealed that my mother had delivered twins, and he is indeed my brother, it all became clear.
“Raghav?” Dad asks in confusion.
I realise that no one here knows about Raghav. Apart from me, only Krish and Meher know about him. So, I tell them what we know so far.
“Raghav gate-crashed our wedding reception and gave Meher and me some shocking information. Meher got evidence that Vishnu is Pratap Walia’s son, and my gift contained a note revealing that you, Dad, are not my real father,” I say, looking at Dad.
Shock registers on their faces. Pratap Walia, who has been silent for the last few minutes, scowls again.
