As a newly appointed non-executive director and board member, her induction material was extensive. She was reviewing compliance protocols and internal policy briefs. There were reports detailing ongoing client portfolios, investment exposure summaries, minutes from previous board meetings,and briefing notes on decision-making structures within KW Capital Ventures. She read carefully, marking sections, absorbing the business terminology, and familiarising herself with how authority flowed within the organisation. This was not operational work, but it was foundational.
It was late afternoon when a soft knock interrupted her concentration.
“Ma’am,” her assistant, Shobha, said cautiously as she stepped inside, “Mr Daksh Goel is here to see you.”
Mishti looked up in surprise. Daksh bhai? Here?
“Please send him in,” she said after a moment, then rose from her chair and moved around the desk just as Daksh walked into the cabin.
For a brief second, she wondered if her eyes were deceiving her.
Her half-brother really stood there, impeccably dressed as always, holding a bouquet. The same brother who had never once thought it necessary to visit her, to check on her, to acknowledge her beyond obligation.
“Daksh bhai,” she said softly. “What brings you here?”
He returned her smile.
“How could I not come?” he replied. “My sister joins her husband’s company as a board member. The very company that was once prepared to crush the Goels.” He muttered angrily. “I wonder what madeyoudo it.”
Mishti did not miss the bitterness in his tone. But she met his eyes calmly. “This company was going to crush the Goels. That’s right. And yet you accepted the truce Karan offered. You agreed to marry your sister to him, to save your business.” She paused, then added quietly, “I wonder what madeyoudo that.”
Daksh was genuinely taken aback.
He stepped closer, studying her as if trying to believe what he heard. “You sound like him,” he said slowly. “This is not you. Idon’t remember you ever arguing with me, let alone questioning my decisions.” A faint mocking smirk tugged at his lips. “That Wadhwa has changed you. He has given you wings, hasn’t he? Made you brave.”
Mishti swallowed the ache tightening in her throat.
What could she tell him?
That her husband was no different from him? That Karan, too, withheld affection and warmth?
It was not Karan who had given her wings. It was the absence of love. The long-standing neglect from those who should have stood by her.
Love had been scarce in her life for so long that she had finally stopped waiting for it to arrive from others. She decided to build her own ground beneath her feet, because no one else would do it for her. And then this opportunity had come unexpectedly. A place on the company board. A chance to learn, to grow, to stand on her own merit. And she had taken it because she could not afford to let it slip away.
Before Mishti could respond, Daksh exhaled deeply, as if shedding the anger he had been carrying since the moment he walked in. He stepped forward and placed the bouquet gently on her table, the flowers looking almost out of place against the neat stacks of files and documents that marked her new professional life.
His voice softened when he spoke again.
“Look, Mishti,” he said. “Whatever happened between us, between the family, is all in the past. I did what I thought was right at the time.” He gestured lightly around the room, letting his gaze travel over her desk, the cabin, the view beyond the glass. “And look at you now. You are not in a bad place either. You married a wealthy man. Your husband has given you a seat on the board of his company. You have benefited too, haven’t you?”
He smiled faintly while she was still trying to understand his point.
“So let us not dig old graves,” he continued. “What is done is done.”
Before she could step back or even fully process the shift in his tone, Daksh reached out and cupped her face.
Mishti froze because that one gesture coming from him startled her more than his words ever could. She looked up at him, searching his face, caught off guard by the gentleness in his touch. This was not the brother she knew. This was not the man who had dismissed her presence for years.
“Even if we are not real siblings,” he continued, his thumb resting lightly against her cheek, “our father’s blood still runs in both of us.”
Her throat tightened.
“I do not remember him clearly,” Daksh went on. “But I remember what he used to say. A family should look after its own. I ignored those words for too long.” His eyes held hers now. “I ignoredyoufor too long.”
Mishti swallowed hard.
“But not anymore,” he said. “Let us put the past behind us. Let us be the kind of siblings our father would have wanted us to be, had he been alive.”
