The silence in Dakshin's house was a heavy, living thing. It had been three days since the library. Three days since Anaya's voice had gone flat and her eyes had lost their light. Dakshin moved through the rooms like a ghost, the echo of his own words—"I have to do this the right way"—haunting him.
His father, David, broke the silence. His phone rang, sharp and insistent. He answered, his greeting calm. But the calm did not last.
Dakshin watched from the doorway of the living room as his father's posture stiffened. He couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, but he saw the color drain from David's face.
"Sam? Slow down. What do you mean, life or death?" David's voice was low, controlled, but a vein pulsed in his temple. "Kill who? ...Ben? Sam, listen to me. Do not do anything foolish."
A cold dread, entirely separate from his heartache over Anaya, began to coil in Dakshin's stomach. Ben. Anaya's father.
"I'm coming," David said finally, his voice dropping into a tone of grim authority that brooked no argument. "Do not move. Do not touch anyone. I will handle this."
He ended the call and looked up, his eyes meeting Dakshin's for a fractured second before sweeping past him to where his wife, Clara, stood wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, her expression worried.
"Get your sisters and their husbands on the phone," David commanded, his voice like iron. "Tell them to come now. It's about the property dispute with Ben's family. It has gone too far."
Within the hour, the house was full. Dakshin sat in the corner, a silent spectator as his aunts and uncles filled the sofas. The air was thick with tension and the scent of untouched tea. David stood before them, a general addressing his war council.
"You all know the situation with Ben and his brothers," David began, his voice echoing in the hushed room. "The resentment over the house has been boiling for years. It has now exploded. Sam just called me. He threatened to kill Ben."
A collective gasp rippled through the room. Clara brought a hand to her mouth.
"I am going there now. I will resolve this. I will force a division of the property because it is the only way to prevent bloodshed." David paused, letting the gravity of his words sink in. "But you all know where this is going. Ben respects me. But after this, after I go in and tear his home apart for his own good, he will see me not as a brother, but as a betrayer. The bond between our families will be severed."
He looked at each face in the room, his gaze hard.
"So, I am saying this to all of you. If we have to go against him, we must all stand together. We become a single, unbreakable wall. Then, when the time comes—when he has to marry his daughters or his son—he will have to reconcile with us. He will need our collective approval, our presence, our honor." His eyes narrowed. "But if he tries to reconcile with any one of you separately, it will shatter our unity. What will happen to my authority then? What will happen to our family's standing if he can divide us?"
Dakshin listened, a sick feeling growing in his gut. This was no longer about preventing a crime. This was a cold, calculated move for dominance. They were strategizing how to use a future wedding—Anaya's wedding—as a bargaining chip. They were turning his personal tragedy into a political tool.
One by one, the family members nodded their agreement. The wall was being built, brick by brick.
Armed with this unified mandate, David and Clara left for the scene. Dakshin stood at the window, watching their car disappear. He felt the walls of his world, once defined by textbooks and a future with Anaya, closing in, rebuilt now from the cold, hard stone of family strategy. The division was beginning, and he was powerless to stop it.