“I am tired of holding secrets. I am taking retirement.” 

A sob cracks the silence of the room, few unstable breaths only there as sound. 

“We need you, Mom; Mayank is struggling with injuries. Can’t you see the tears of Vanika? We need you; you can’t leave us alone!” Ulrika screams the words out of lungs while wiping the tears with rage.

Nirjara looks at Ulrika with hurt eyes, “No one in this room has ever witnessed the blood and tears, the much I did in my whole life. Quitting from it, just to save you all, and let you all stay as normal as possible.” 

Ulrika growls again, “Are you serious? Mom! What if they attack us again? We don’t even know whether we are safe or not! Based on your information, we are all locked up in the under-construction building, just so you say so!!”

“Can you calm down a bit! Before you argue with your mom, she is my wife. And at this age, what she is suffering for, I only know that. The underworld is now in a dangerous state. Can you imagine the empire without a king? You or Mayank should be the one taking the throne. But you both already saw the consequences. And you must understand, if Nirjara is retiring, the connection between us and the underworld would be dissolved.” 

“And how can you confirm that, Mr. Jihan?”

A sad chuckle escapes from his throat, “Mr. Arnit Mallick Rathore, I like the way you gave me respect, but if you don’t forget I am your father-in-law.”

Arnit lights up the cigarette, “As if you are the father of Ulrika.” 

Ulrika calmly looks at him and whispers, “Maybe they aren’t my real parents, Arnit, but they are. According to you, who gave birth to me, you call her mom even when she adopted you, too. And you asked me to call him father with respect when you aren’t their son either, or look at the figure in the corner of the room.”

The uneasiness creeps up in his figure, but he still stays calm, “At least they adopted me, but you. They didn’t even adopt you, didn’t give you the surname.”

With the sudden thud sound, everyone is alerted and turns their head to focus on the huge wooden box Jihan carried and puts it down, “I guess here most of us are confused about our origin of bloodline. But we aren’t here to solve that mystery or fight for that. We have our own reasons to not adopt Ulrika, Ena, or Suryansh.” 

Nirjara holds his shoulder with a tight grip, “They are all young blood. It’s fine that they will have questions, and they deserve answers too. But right now, I only worry about saving Mayank.”

One soft voice cut through the air from outside the door, “Ma’am, the situation is critical. They are sure, you are trying to disconnect just because of Mayank.” 

Nirjara wipes her tears and looks at the room with the open door, where Mayank is sleeping with a high dose of painkillers, “Are they asking for him?” 
She examines the whole room, everyone’s face, before uttering the next words, “Yes, ma’am, dead or alive, they don’t care.”

One stern voice spoke up from the corner, “I would prefer the same if Vanika isn’t in love with him.” 

Vanika sobs, “Uncle, don’t say that, please. He isn’t the culprit. His dad was, and he took his dad down.”, The loud sobs escaped instead of words. 

She steps inside the room to hug Vanika tightly, “Sir, he isn’t bad, that you are assuming. The situation made him a villain. Sadvik was your best friend. And you can see what Mayank did to end all our battles.” 

Chandra’s jaw clenched in anger, “I don’t believe Sadvik reincarnated as the son of Arjun. I can’t believe it!”

She hums softly, “He reincarnated as the son of Dhoritri Ma’am.” Chandra leaves the chair and kicks it before leaving the room. 

Ulrika confusedly asks her, “Labonyo! What do you mean by reincarnation? Who is Sadvik? What the hell is going on?” 

She runs her fingers through Vanika’s hair to calm her down, “It’s not about the story of us. Two generations are involved here.” Looking at Nirjara, “And ma’am is there from start to end. For the last 40 years. That’s why we have to understand how heavy it is on her shoulders, with the duty of hiding all the secrets.”

Suryansh takes everyone’s attention, “What if we prove to them that Mayank is no more. And give him a new life!”

Nirjara sighs, “It’s not easy. Changing the facial identity and leading a normal life is difficult.” 

He takes a few steps and hugs Labonyo and Vanika both, “I can do it. We just need everyone’s support and to do their part successfully. Arnit, please convince your dad.”

Arnit moves his shoulder in denial, “As if he listens to me! Only his daughter can convince him. But!” 

Ena hesitates before saying anything, “I know, maybe I am the least important person to speak up. However, I have worked with Mayank sir for the last seven years. If needed, I can try to explain to him, after all, my mother was his good friend.”

Arnit exhales the smoke, “I don’t think so, it will work, I will call her. But she doesn't know anything about this mess. First, solve this out. Dividing the job needs to be done by everyone.” 

Sharan smiles stupidly, “But I am still confused who is whose friend, whose son, whose daughter. I never read any confusing bloodline hierarchy in any story.” 

Everyone in the room looks at him with anger, and Sharan scratches his head with hesitation, “I am just trying to make the mood light, don’t look at me like this.” 

Ena growls, “Sharan, I know I love you, but I will forget if you crack a joke like this.” He puts both his palms on his mouth and nods his head. 

Suryansh sighs, “I know from where I can create documents of a new identity.” Arnit shrugs his shoulders, “I thought you used to catch people who create fake identities.” With the corner of his eye, he wants to burn Arnit, but calmly says, “And that’s why I know who can do which work. Anyway, you must manage a dead body that can look like Mayank.”

Arnit lit up another cigarette, “But what about face?” Ulrika chimes in between with courage, “We can put on a burnt body, then we just have to care about height and body structure, that’s it.” 

Jihan nods, “And for proof, we can burn down this building.” 

Aranyo was silent in the whole chaos, seeing his daughter, his sweetheart, Vanika, crying, breaking his heart. He says, “I can manage this fake accident, but before that, we must hide Mayank properly, and we must go to our own places. We can’t stay together at all.” 

Vanika whispers, “Then dad, who will stay with Mayank?” 

Nirjara speaks up, “First, change the identity of Mayank. Then Aranyo and Ragini both create fake chaos, so that you find out a guy to marry your daughter. We will execute the accident. And marriage will happen with Mayank, but with the new identity. And till then, with a fake identity, create fake parents too.” 

Arnit chuckles, “My respected mother-in-law, from where we are going to arrange fake parents now!?” 

Sharan whispers cautiously, “Arav uncle and Yashika Aunty may agree with this deal. Anyway, they thought of adopting it for a longer time, but with the crime records, it was never possible. So why not?”

Arnit again chuckles with a mocking smile, “Because of crime records, they couldn’t adopt, so now they are going to adopt one criminal. Very funny.”

Vanika stares at him with angry eyes, “Bhaiya, control your tongue when you are talking about him.”

Arnit threw the butt of the cigarette and left the place with thumping feet.

Suryansh also goes outside to contact his people to come up with fake identity cards and properties under his name. Afterall that new person is going to be Aranyo Sen’s son-in-law. 

And Sharan got the responsibility of convincing Arav and Yashika. But again, his confused innocent face came up with the question, “I mean, how will I explain who Mayank is, and why he needs to change identity, and why he needs to get adopted? And the whole relationship hierarchy is kind of confusing for me.”

And this time, instead of anger, everyone starts laughing, cause it’s true, for a long time they didn’t even know who their parents were. No name of parents, no images, no memories, nothing. Maybe painful, but his confusion made them laugh. 

Jihan pats his back and asks his wife, “I guess you should tell them all about their parents.” 

Nirjara looks at Ragini and Aranyo, the only existing couple with them, “I guess they should know the history, the love stories, not only the parents’ names. What do you say?”

Ragini whispers, “They should, they should know how each of them holds the symbol of love with their existence in the world. How they were happy, celebrating when they heard about their appearance.”

Arnit leans on the door, while smiling silently, “And what about me?” Ragini takes slow steps and hugs his head to put on her shoulder, “Don’t you know how much I love you? Araddhya loves you!” 

Nirjara wipes out the dried tears, “Don’t know where I should start, maybe I will collect my old diaries and let you all know. And Arnit, we are going to start with you. Do you want to know why? For the person you started the fight with, Araddhya, not only your stepmother, not only Ulrika’s mother, she is the bravest girl I ever seen, who faced Arjun with so much dignity. And being the wife of our toughest dude, Chandra, was a tricky job we had to accept.”

Arnit genuinely smiles this time, “Yeah, my mom was so sweet, and he is always the hitler. My mom was a rose, and he is just like an unnecessary throne, how she fell in love with him, god knows.”

Aranyo laughs, “I agree with this point. By the way, if you plan to tell us the love story between Chandra and Aradhya, then make sure you can handle the fight between Chandra and Arnit.”

Jihan starts laughing with Ragini and Nirjara, “Actually, when I heard from her, I was like, how can one fall in love with him. But the only person who made him on his knees was only for her.”

Arnit can say anything before. Suryansh quickly sneaks into the room to ask, “What name should we keep for Mayank, Vanika?” 

She examined everyone’s face before answering, “Sadvik.” And as he came, the same way, he quickly went outside to continue his conversation.

Sharan raises his hand like in school, “By the way, still we don’t know about surnames, how are we going to fix the full name in the identity card?”

Everyone laughs again, and he grins. Ena pinches his cheek, saying, “My golden retriever.” He gives her a side eye with the questioning look; is it insult or praise?

Nirjara sits down and asks everyone to sit down quietly before she starts. 

“Okay, as everyone knows, Vanika and Sharan are the twins of Aranyo and Ragini. And Aranyo’s two best friends, Chandra and Agastya. Chandra’s wife is Aradhya, who isn’t with us anymore. They adopted Arnit, and later she gave birth to Durbika. And ...” She waits with painful eyes before whispering, “Ulrika is the daughter of Aradhya, but she was forced, I mean… She died after giving birth to her. We don’t know whether she suicided or if Ulrika's father killed her.” 

The pin-drop silence made everyone choke on their saliva. In the meantime, Suryansh and Chandra also came into the room. The only vase-breaking sound from behind was made by Chandra. No one can complain about it, it’s more than natural, who is living all their life with the guilt that they couldn’t save their wife. And now, Arnit and Ulrika are in love. Irony of his life. 

Nirjara starts again after a long pause, “Chandra’s father adopted Agastya to protect Chandra. Agastya was also an orphan at that time, but how so a long story at all. But he fell in love with Nilalohita, another close friend of ours. And Suryansh is their son. And not like brother by blood relation, but she used to call him brother, Dwaipayan, who worked for her, a secret agent, who fell in love with Rishima, again another close friend of ours. Ena is the daughter of Dwaipayan and Rishima. And Jihan, my husband, is the brother of Rishima.”

Suryansh sighs, “So, no one is alive in my bloodline.” Arnit chimes in, “Us bro, I call him dad, but anyway.” 

Ena confusedly utters, “So, Jihan uncle is my mom’s brother, so I am connected with you by blood.” Jihan nods. 

Ulrika calmly says, just opposite of her character, “I am the only one who was unwanted from the beginning. I can’t blame her though, but …”, she tightened her fist, “I wanted to kill him myself, but Mayank killed him before I could reach out. Why did you inform me so late, Mom!”

Nirjara doesn’t know what to say at the moment. It’s true, she was an unwanted one, even though they thought about what to do with the baby. No one wanted to keep her and give her in an orphanage home, equals to killing her with their own hands. Arjun wouldn’t leave a trace to save his reputation in the so-called society. That’s why they kept her, hid her, but with time, she started involving herself in drugs. Maybe the blood of Arjun worked here; even when she was just 15 years old, she didn’t consume drugs, she started selling them. They wanted to stop her a lot, but she escaped from the house and started doing business with drugs and then guns illegally. And that’s where she met Arnit. And at that moment, Nirjara had to interrupt. It is okay because they weren’t having blood relations, but Arnit would kill her if he got to know she was the reason that his mother isn’t in this world. 

Anyway, what are we to decide? Now Arnit protects her from the rage of Chandra. 

Maybe that’s what we call love. Love never has a particular definition, but something there can make your heartbeat pause, or faster than usual, or can be the cause of living life. No one defines love in words; it must be felt through eyes and heart. 

Everyone was speechless for a moment when Chandra calmly tries to say, but as usual his rough tone, “I guess it’s fine if we don’t show more grief in this fact. Mayank and Ulrika share the same blood as father. But my bad luck, his mother was like my sister, and her mother was…”, his voice breaks. 

Vanika takes quick steps and hugs him tightly, “Uncle, don’t cry. We all know how much you love Aunty. Aunty tried to escape from him, just to come back to you. She tried her best. And I love Mayank. Please forgive him, please.” 

Chandra put his hand on her head with care and love, “I know, my girl, I know. He is still alive cause he killed his dad, and he looks like Sadvik. But I can’t tolerate it whenever I think he is the son of Arjun.” 

Ulrika takes very slow steps and then comes on her knees in front of him, “Can’t we get the identity of being a child of the mother?”

Chandra closes his eyes in rage; he can’t accept, or maybe it will take much more time. His words come out like poison, “Maybe you are the daughter of my wife. But not made from love, made out of revenge, just to hurt my ego, just to destroy her dignity. Maybe I was an emotionally unavailable person because of the surrounding situations, I couldn’t express my love every time, but I kept her as a blooming rose, and he wanted to destroy that softness, by you. When you were in her body, every moment she had to go through insecurity, the hate of your presence!! How should I accept you as the daughter of my wife? How?” 

The silent tears roll down her face. Arnit calls out with a broken voice, “Dad! You know how much I love ma, then please try to listen to me!”

Chandra comes out of the hug of Vanika and speaks with rage before leading the building, “You couldn’t think of her as a mother as much as she thought you as her own son. She put you before me, cared for you, cherished you as her own blood. Do whatever, but don’t expect anything from me; leave me with my wife.” 

Sharon quietly whispers, “Uncle is right from his side. We never heard about their love story; we never got a chance to see his wife, other than his eyes full of love for her. Vanika, don’t worry, he wouldn’t kill Mayank. I am contacting Arav uncle.”

Jihan also nods, “He is right, Arnit, don’t get angry. You all should know their part of the story, then you all realize, it’s not easy to accept Mayank or Ulrika for him. If it ever happened with me, I would do the same.”

“Their love story was poetic, dangerous, risky, fragile, but with an unreachable depth, the immense pull towards each other. Like they didn’t only love each other, but craved for each other’s presence.”

Ragini adds to Nirjara, “Not only him, all his personalities, but all inner demons are in love with her. He used to know her presence by her fragrance or the subtle sound of footsteps from afar. And she! Her love was devotional; she submitted herself to him, but controlled every cell of him with her beautiful eyes. He used to lower his voice just by one look at her. And she knew how to control his anger. He used to show all his anger issues in front of her, knowing she could handle all of it and would never leave him alone like others. He preferred his alone space before, and after her, and when she was with us, he loved his space alone with her.”

Aranyo put his hand around Ragini’s shoulder, “I used to feel that he is suffocating with his type of obsessive possessive love, but later I realized Araddhya craved for that kind of love, when she mentioned once, Love is itself a cage, and Chandra made their cage pretty with all his love. She used to find romantic his possessive gestures.”

Ena speaks up with a grin, “After seeing uncle’s rage, I am invested too much to know how she made him fall in love with her this much!”

Arnit sighs, “Dad’s room has a bookshelf of all her written books, diaries. One day, Durbika went there to find out her mom’s pic in those books; she was just a bratty teenager at that time. To save her, I went and saw a few diaries, felt like she wrote about them. I kept an image of the first page, as it was her handwriting.” 

He opens his phone to find out that image. 

Ulrika wipes her tears with both hands, “Damn! Her words! Then we have to visit that room to find out their love story!”

Sharon shrugs his shoulders, “I guess, only Durbika can dare to do that. Vanika, call her.” 

Vanika nods, and with that twins go out to call accordingly.