Dark thoughts crept in, thoughts I'd push away because I didn't want to believe my father was the bad guy. Because he was all I had. If I let myself believe the worst, what did that leave me with? So I told myself boarding school was for the best. That his silence was grief, not guilt. That the walls he built were to keep pain out, not to keep me at a distance.
However, finding out about the expiring lease he hid from me, those dark thoughts flooded back in. It was proof that maybe my suspicions weren't paranoia. That maybe there was something fundamentally wrong I'd been too afraid to acknowledge. Boarding school ensured his secrets were kept. Keeping his secrets was easier if I wasn't around to unearth them.
I hand the picture back to Rohan. "That's it?" He takes the frame, his brow furrowing. "No comment? No questions?"
"I'm not sure what you want me to say."
He plants both hands on his hips. "You're either just as surprised as I am by this coincidence, or it's not a coincidence at all, and you knew exactly who my mother is." His eyes search mine, hard and assessing. "And you're here trying to hurt her."
The accusation snaps me back to the present. "Hurt her?" I take a step back. "Why the hell would I want to hurt your mother?"
"Because of your father." He sets the photo down with deliberate care. "Because of what he believes happened. What he blames her for."
A cold weight settles in my stomach. "You think my father hates his own sister?"
I don't even know if that's true. How could I? Her existence was news to me ten minutes ago.
"Yes." Rohan's voice is flat, certain. "He hates what he believes happened when they were kids. That their parents chose to save my mother over him."
The words don't make sense. I shake my head, trying to piece it together. "What are you talking about?"
His eyes search mine, and I watch something shift in his expression. Recognition. Understanding. "You really don't know, do you?"
I keep my face impassive, drawing on years of practice hiding my feelings from my father. From everyone.
"Of course you don't." He lets out a breath, and the suspicion in his posture eases slightly. "You can drop the act, Asha. I could tell last night that you had no idea who we are, but I had to ask. I had to be sure you weren't here to—" He stops himself and idly spins the watch on his wrist. "I had to be sure."
Rohan picks up the photo again, his thumb tracing the edge of the frame. "When our parents were kids, there was a flood." His voice is quieter. "The waters rose quickly. Unexpectedly. Our grandmother was feeding my mother when your father started crying in his crib down the hall. She called for help, and our grandfather tried to save him." He pauses, his throat working. "He didn't get to him in time and lost his own life trying."
My breath catches.
"The floods separated them. Your father's crib was swept away." Rohan looks up at me, and there's genuine sadness in his eyes now. "He was believed to be among the dead. They held a funeral. Mourned him. My mother was just a baby, but she grew up knowing she'd had a twin brother who died and that her father died trying to save him."
"But he didn't die." The words feel thick in my mouth.
"No. However, it wasn't until your mother sent us that photo that we found that out." Rohan's voice is careful. "She reached out to my mother years ago. Said she'd been doing research into your father's adoption, wanted to know if we might be family. That photo was proof."
My mother knew. She knew about the Aroras, about Dar, about all of it.
"When?" my voice cracks. "When did she send it?"
"A few months before she..." Rohan stops, his expression shifting to something gentler.
The room tilts again. My mother spent her final months trying to connect my father to the family he'd lost. Trying to heal something he refused to acknowledge was broken, and he never told me.
"Asha?"
I turn at the sound of my name, and Trigger is standing in the doorway of the study. His hair is windswept, his shirt dusty from the ranch tour, and there's dirt on his jeans. His hat is clutchedin one hand, and his eyes are locked on me with an intensity that makes my chest tighten.
He takes one look at my face and goes still. "What happened?"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TRIGGER
“Where is she?” I mumble to myself, the sharp clicks of my boots echoing my rising frustration against the terracotta floors as I search yet another room and come up empty.
I checked the stables first after Dar got called away, ending our tour. Then the main barn, our room, and still nothing. It isn't until I start heading toward the kitchen that the sound of hushed voices coming from the study catches my ear. One of them is unmistakably Asha's, low and strained in a way that makes my jaw clench.
