The alpine night had folded itself around Luzern like a velvet cloak when Romy's phone buzzed twice in his pocket. He and Monty were still on the quay, the violinist's final notes hanging in the air between them. Monty's cheeks were pink from laughter, amber lights reflecting in his eyes. Whatever he'd wanted to confess earlier hovered, fragile, on his tongue.
Then the screen lit up.
DAD CALLING read the false contact name Romy had created years ago to keep certain ghosts hidden.
Romy's stomach dropped, he recognized the Swiss country code immediately. Suresh. Not now… He forced a placid smile for Monty. "It's my father," he lied, slipping the device from Monty's line of sight. "He probably wants the latest on the evidence."
"Take it," Monty said, stepping aside. "Tell him good news is coming." His voice was warm, trusting, and it lanced Romy with guilt.
Romy nodded, throat dry. He moved toward a bank of shadowed cypress trees, heart pounding, and answered.
"Romy?" Suresh Mehra's voice crackled through the speaker, husky, intimate, a sound that once meant midnight secrets in dorm-room darkness. Now it made Romy's skin crawl.
"What do you want?" Romy kept his tone clipped. "It's late."
A humorless chuckle. "Regretting time zones already? I thought you'd be pleased to hear from me."
"Spare me." Romy leaned against the cold stone balustrade. "You forfeited the right to please me the day you sold our story for a down payment on a chain of gyms."
"That's not fair," Suresh protested. "Your father's money"
"Was a bribe," Romy cut in. "You took it, disappeared, then showed up in tabloids with a bride on your arm six months later."
Suresh exhaled a hiss. "I made mistakes. We were twenty-two and stupid. The business flopped; the marriage is a sham. I think about you every day."
Romy gripped the stone until his knuckles bleached. Don't believe him. "Get to the point."
"I'm in Switzerland on a 'wellness retreat'." Romy could almost see the crooked smile. "Fate, right? I spotted you at the lakeside market, holding hands with a pretty brunette. Handsome boy"
Romy's pulse hammered. "You stay away from him."
"Relax. I'm not interested in your… brother-in-law. I'm interested in you." Suresh's tone softened, oily and persuasive. "We were electric together."
"We were naïve," Romy corrected. "And you were greedy."
A pause. Then: "If I'd been greedy, I would have kept the pictures."
Romy's blood froze. "Pictures?"
"Come on, Romeo. Those nights in Cambridge, the rooftop of Fenton Hall, the art studio shower. You loved the camera."
Romy's vision tunneled. He hadn't thought about those files in years, playful Polaroids that became late-night phone wallpaper, then data buried on an old laptop.
"I deleted everything," he whispered.
"I didn't."
Silence crackled like static.
"Here's the deal," Suresh said, voice silk over knives. "Meet me. Room 367, Park Bellevue. Tonight. One drink, one conversation, no strings." His breath hitched, as if the next words cost him shame. "Maybe this evening. I need closure."
"And if I refuse?"
"I send the photos and videos to every gossip desk on the subcontinent, plus a cut to your sweet traditional-values in-laws." Suresh's voice turned cruel. "Imagine the headlines: ROY HEIR A CLOSETED FRAUD—SECRET HOMOEROTIC TAPES LEAKED."
Romy's mouth tasted of copper. He pictured his mother's guarded smile, his father's ironclad composure; pictured Monty, already bleeding from the media circus, now impaled by Romy's past.
"You think blackmail will win me back?" he asked, voice low.
"I think desperation makes people forgiving," Suresh replied. "Midnight, Romy. Don't be late."
The line went dead.
Romy stared at the darkened screen, breaths coming in harsh bursts. The lake lapped against stone like a ticking clock. How many times could one man atone for the same sin?
Slow footsteps crunched gravel behind him. "Everything okay?" Monty's soft baritone. He stopped a few feet away, worry clouding his features.
Romy schooled his face. "Dad's furious we haven't flown back yet," he lied again, his voice a hollow echo. "Wants minute-by-minute updates."