It was a slow Saturday afternoon, the kind that settled like warmth in the bones of the house. The garden had gone quiet after the earlier tension. The lunch table sat cleared, only a few glasses forgotten beneath the shade of the neem tree.
Inside, Loira Darien had disappeared into her study, phone pressed to her ear as she flipped through old architectural drafts. Keal Darien was on the back porch, quietly tinkering with a broken part of the fence, headphones in, voice occasionally murmuring into a call. Neither had said a word about Rivan Elisar's visit.
And the kids?
The kids couldn't forget it.
In their shared bedroom, the air hung heavy with unspoken questions. Sahir Darien sat cross-legged on the floor, his jaw clenched, arms folded. Beside him, his twin Eliya Darien leaned back against the bed, chewing the inside of her cheek. Rivan Elisar Jr., the youngest, sat with his back against the dresser, eyes lost in thought.
No one had spoken since the garden. But silence couldn't hold back curiosity forever.
Sahir broke it.
"We need to find the truth"
Eliya looked down. "They will not tell us."
"But we need to find out," Rivan Jr. added quietly.
Sahir's brows furrowed. "If they still care… why not tell us the truth?"
"They never lied about him," Eliya said, thoughtful. "They always told us Rivan was our dad. They just… never told us why he is not with us."
Rivan Jr. crawled over to the corner and pulled out Eliya's tablet from under the dresser.
"I want to know what happened," he said. "They won't tell us. Maybe… the internet will."
Eliya raised an eyebrow. "You think we'll find something there?"
"I don't know," he said, switching it on. "But I have to try."
He typed slowly: Rivan Elisar.
Dozens of results popped up. Articles. Business profiles. Older news coverage.
Rivan Jr. squinted and clicked on a headline dated almost exactly ten years ago.
> "CEO Rivan Elisar Allegedly Betrays Business Partners in Private Takeover"
Eliya leaned over his shoulder. Sahir crawled closer.
The article began:
> "Tech innovator Rivan Elisar stunned the business world after a sudden and ruthless move to seize full control of Elisar Solutions. Anonymous sources claim internal betrayal, altered contracts, and the silencing of original co-founders. What began as one of the most promising tech partnerships of the decade has now ended in scandal and silence."
A photo of Rivan appeared beside the text — younger, eyes sharp, jaw set, dressed in black. Cold.
Sahir stared.
"That doesn't even look like him."
Rivan Jr. looked away. "But it is."
"Did he really do this?" Eliya's voice trembled. "Betray people like that?"
"Was that why we left?" Sahir asked. "To protect us from all this?"
Eliya shook her head, unsure. "If it was true, why would he come back now?"
"Because he misses us," Rivan Jr. said. "I saw it in his eyes."
"He looked like he wanted to say something," Eliya whispered. "But couldn't."
Sahir sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Mom said he took everything. Papa said he left. But if he really hurt them… why do they still cry over him?"
The three sat in silence, the weight of the article sinking into their bones.
"I think… we don't know everything," Rivan Jr. finally said. "Maybe they're scared to tell us. Or maybe… they're still hurting too much to talk."
Eliya nodded slowly. "But we deserve to know. We're not little kids anymore."
"We need the truth," Sahir agreed.
Rivan Jr. refreshed the search page, scrolling past the headlines and finding archived interviews, business documents, even a few speculative blog posts. But nothing answered why the family broke apart. Nothing explained why love shattered.
They were raised by three people who shared one love, one home, one life. And then… silence.
"What if they think we'll hate him?" Eliya asked suddenly. "What if that's why they never explain?"
"I don't want to hate him," Sahir whispered.
"I just want to understand," Rivan Jr. added.
The screen glowed quietly in the dimming room.
They didn't have the full story.
But they were ready to find it.
---
The morning crept in with grey light and brittle silence.
Rivan Elisar stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of his villa, a coffee cup cooling in his hand, untouched. Outside, the sprawling lawn looked polished, trimmed by hired hands. The house was beautiful, modern, everything the world expected a billionaire to live in.
But it felt hollow.
He bought this place for comfort for his family. He had bought it before they left — after Loira and Keal packed up the children and vanished without a word.
A home no one knew. A place untouched by their laughter, or their absence.
But today, even this carefully crafted loneliness couldn't protect him.
The image of Sahir's guarded stare. Eliya's trembling voice. Rivan Jr.'s eyes filled with a hope he didn't deserve.
They echoed in his mind like thunder.
He hadn't slept. The clock on the far wall blinked past 6:00 a.m., and he was still standing, still trying to feel something besides the ache behind his ribs.
He left the coffee untouched and walked barefoot through the marble-floored hallway. It was too clean. Too silent. A house without fingerprints, without drawings taped to the fridge, without mismatched socks in corners or crayon streaks across the lower walls.
It wasn't a home.
It never had been.
He stepped into his office — walls lined with legal files, business blueprints, investment reports. His empire was still intact. His reputation, stained as it had been, had rebuilt itself in the eyes of the market.
But not in the eyes of the ones that mattered.
He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a photo frame turned face-down. Slowly, he turned it over. It was the only picture he had taken with him from the past — a quiet evening snapshot: Loira asleep on the couch, Keal smiling at the camera, and both children piled on top of them, tangled in blankets and popcorn.
Rivan had taken it just a week before everything fell apart.
He traced the edge of the frame with a fingertip.
That family... that love... it hadn't been perfect. But it had been real.
And now, even his own son — the one who still carried his name — had to guess what kind of man he was from headlines on a screen.
By noon, Rivan sat out on the back patio, a book open in his lap and unread. He stared at the garden — designed by someone else, planted with flowers he didn't recognize.
A dragonfly skimmed the surface of the water fountain, and something tight twisted in his chest. Loira used to point out insects to the kids, telling them stories about each one. Sahir had believed every word she said. Eliya used to collect fallen petals in her pockets.
He ran a hand down his face.
They had been his world.
And now they were a memory visiting him through glass.
His phone buzzed on the table beside him. A business notification. He silenced it without looking.
He didn't care about meetings today.
Didn't care about earnings.
All he could think about was the look on Keal's face — not angry, not cold. Just... disappointed. And that hurt more than anything else.
He had been many things in the public eye: a genius, a traitor, a success.
But to Keal, to Loira… he used to be something softer.
Something good.
He wasn't sure if that man still existed.
As the sun began to dip behind the villa walls, he reached for a pen and blank paper — something he hadn't done in years.
And without knowing what would come of it, he began to write.
---