Right. He’d been kicked from his modest middle-class loving family to a too-rich famous extended family without any therapy and he’d turned out fine. If one could call an emotionally repressed and lonely man fine.
He was not a ringing endorsement for no therapy, that was for sure.
“Go talk to her, Dev. Or you’re going to be left with more questions than answers. Luna?” Adil yelled.
“Yes?” The faint voice came from the living room.
Adil gestured with his chin. “Go.”
Dev sighed. He found Luna ensconced in front of the TV, her ever-present phone in her hands. “What are you doing?”
Luna shrugged but didn’t look up. “Playing on my phone.”
He stiffened. “Mmm. Talking to your friends?”Or talking to strangers, pretending to be me?
Her short curls bobbed as she nodded.
Dev sat down on the coffee table in front of her. The therapist had told him it would help for him to get down to her level whenever possible. “Can we talk for a minute?”
She glanced up. “Okay. About school?”
“No.” He hesitated. “Luna, do you remember when I gave you your father’s phone?”
Now she looked wary, and Dev hoped it wasn’t for the reason he suspected. “Yeah. I thought it might have photos of me and him on it. Or maybe him and my mom.” She fiddled with her sweatshirt. “It didn’t.”
Damn it, Rohan.Dev didn’t know who Luna’s mother even was. Rohan had simply shown up with a baby one day and announced that he was a father and that he’d paid off the mother.
That was how the Dixit family handled things. When in doubt, pay them off. “And that’s all you did with the phone? Went through the photos?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where the phone is now? Do you still have it?”
“Arjun Kaka said he wanted to look through the photos, too, so I gave it to him.”
Dev’s eyes slowly closed. Oh no.
Arjun was his first cousin. He was successful in his career, but he had nowhere near the star power of his latefather, his grandparents... or Rohan.
Dev didn’t disbelieve that Arjun might have wanted to have a memento of Rohan’s. The two had been around the same age and close, partners in debauchery. It had been Arjun who had taught Rohan how to drink and do drugs and sneak women in.
Dev was about as close to his cousin as he’d been to his brother, which was to say, not very. They had nothing in common and tended to butt heads as soon as they were in each other’s vicinity.
He could very well imagine the man being delighted to find a way to mess with Dev from afar.
“I-I’m sorry. Was I not supposed to?” Luna’s hands clenched in her lap. “Am I in trouble? I don’t know what I did.”
“No, you’re not in trouble,” Dev said, hurrying to reassure her. “I’m having a problem, and I’m trying to figure out who could be behind it.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Don’t worry about it.” But the lines on her face told him she would worry. “It’s truly nothing. I merely wanted to get a phone number off of it.”
“Oh.” Luna’s shoulder’s relaxed. “Arjun Kaka should be able to help you with that.”
He rose to his feet. “I’m sure he will. I’ll go call him right now. I have to go meet a friend”—friendwasn’t the right word, butyour father and/or uncle’s victimdidn’t sound right—“tonight, why don’t you get cleaned up for dinner soon.”
“Okay.”
