was him.
Rohan’s lips parted, but no sound came out.
He looked at the old photograph again.
His mother.
The baby.
Him.
Then his eyes moved to the man standing beside his mother in the picture.
The man’s face was younger, thinner, almost unrecognizable at first.
But the eyes…
Rohan slowly looked up at Vikram.
His hands turned ice-cold.
— “Why do you have a picture of my mother?”
Vikram’s jaw tightened.
For the first time that night, his calm expression finally cracked.
He looked away, as if the answer itself was too painful to say out loud.
Rohan’s voice rose:
— “Answer me!”
Vikram closed his eyes for a second.
Then he whispered:
— “Because I was there the night you were born.”
Rohan stopped breathing.
The room seemed to tilt around him.
The blinking red light on the recorder suddenly felt louder than his heartbeat.
— “What are you talking about?”
Vikram reached back into the folder and pulled out one final document.
An old hospital birth record.
At the bottom of the page was Rohan’s name.
And beneath it…
was a signature.
His mother’s signature.
Rohan grabbed the paper with shaking hands.
Then he saw one line that made his knees nearly give out.
Father’s name: Unknown.
But under “emergency contact,” there was another name written clearly.
Vikram Rao.
Rohan looked up slowly, his eyes filling with terror and confusion.
— “Who are you to me?”
Vikram’s face went pale.
