Aarya had always been the protector.
After their parents died in a car crash, he stepped into the role of guardian for his younger brother, Riyan. He gave up his own dreams to raise him. On the surface, Aarya ran a successful logistics business. People respected him. He dressed sharp, smiled often, and handled life like a responsible elder brother should.
But behind all that… he was hiding something.
Something Riyan was never supposed to find.
At eighteen, Riyan studied at the city's most elite school—a place of marble floors, massive libraries, and children who wore designer shoes to gym class. But beneath the prestige was something darker. Drug trafficking, underground parties, violence, sex. Everyone pretended not to see it. The school had rules, yes, but they didn't apply to the rich. The powerful.
Riyan had stayed out of that world. Until Lucy.
She was electric. Wild. She lit cigarettes in the bathroom, drank vodka out of water bottles, skipped class and still passed every test. Riyan was drawn to her unpredictability. Their relationship was no secret. They kissed in the hallways. Disappeared together during lunch breaks. Everyone in school knew about them—some admired them, others whispered.
One night, everything changed.
Riyan was looking for a phone charger in Aarya's drawer. That's when he saw it—a small piece of paper with a six-digit number written in Aarya's handwriting. It felt out of place.
And then he remembered the tall, always-locked metal locker in Aarya's room.
When Aarya stepped away to take a call, curiosity overcame him.
He approached the locker. Entered the code.
Click.
It opened.
His heart stopped.
Inside were rows of packets—carefully wrapped, organized, and hidden behind a false panel. Powders. Pills. Capsules. Drugs.
Riyan stood frozen.
His throat dried. His legs felt weak.
He couldn't believe it.
Aarya?
My brother… he raised me. Protected me. Taught me right from wrong. And this…?
Memories flooded him. Every late night. Every business trip. Every excuse. It all fell into place like puzzle pieces finally clicking.
He closed the locker, hands shaking. Locked it again like nothing had happened.
But the truth couldn't be locked away.
That night, lying next to Lucy on her bed, he whispered, "I think my brother's into drugs. He hides them in our house."
Lucy laughed. "You serious?"
"I saw it with my own eyes."
"You're cute when you lie," she smirked, lighting a cigarette.
"I'm not lying."
"Then prove it."
The next day, Riyan returned to the locker. He stole a small packet—just enough to show her.
He handed it to her like it burned his fingers.
Lucy held it up to the light and grinned. "Well well... guess you're full of surprises."
Riyan said nothing.
She leaned closer. "Do you know how much this stuff is worth around here?"
"I don't want to sell it."
"Oh, come on," she whispered, brushing his arm. "Everyone's already doing it. No one cares. We could make a lot of money."
"Lucy—"
"We could rule the school."
And so it began.
One packet turned into three. Then five. Lucy sold them discreetly, knew which students had the money and the hunger. Riyan stood by her side, quiet, conflicted, but caught in the feeling of being seen—of being wanted.
He told himself it was temporary.
He told himself he was in control.
But something in him had already begun to shift.
Two months passed.
What began as small whispers in shadowed hallways became a silent empire. Riyan was making money, but it wasn't huge amounts. Enough to feel dangerous, enough to feel alive. He had started using the drugs, just a little—to stay focused, to sleep, to feel like he belonged in the chaos of his own life.
But as anyone who's ever fallen into darkness knows—small fires burn everything.
It all came crashing down one afternoon.
Riyan was having a normal day until the argument. A group of boys from his class had started picking on him. One made a joke about Riyan's low profile at school. Another said something crude about his family. Riyan had enough.
Without thinking, he punched one of them.
The moment he swung, everything spiraled.
The other boys didn't hold back. They ganged up on him. He was knocked to the ground, kicked, punched. Riyan fought back, but the force of their blows pushed him further into the black abyss of pain. His vision blurred, and he felt his body go limp as his head cracked against the hard floor.
He didn't even hear the bell ring for the end of lunch. He didn't feel the blood pooling on the cold bathroom tiles.
When the teacher found him, he was barely conscious.
By then, panic had already spread across the school. The boys who'd beaten him feared the worst—expulsion. In a panic, they did the one thing that would save their own skin: they pointed their fingers at Riyan.
"He's been selling drugs!" one of them blurted out.
"We saw him pass stuff to other students," another added, trembling.
"He's the one who brings it to school!"
The accusations were like gasoline to a fire.
The school contacted the police, and by the time Riyan had regained consciousness, there were two officers standing over him, their hands digging through his bag. One of them pulled out the small packets of drugs he had hidden in a side pocket.
He didn't resist. Didn't lie.
"Yes," he muttered, his voice hoarse, "I've been selling drugs… please don't tell my brother please..
The officers said nothing as they handcuffed him.
Aarya's world shattered the moment he picked up the phone.
His knees buckled. His breath caught in his throat. His head spun.
"Riyan... no. No!" His voice cracked, his hands trembling as he heard the officer's cold, distant tone. He didn't even hear the rest of the words. Just the name—Riyan.
He went to the police station, but his world was already breaking apart.
Inside the station, Riyan sat behind the glass, bruised and quiet. His eyes avoided Aarya's gaze.
Aarya's heart clenched. "Why, Riyan? Why did you do this?"
Riyan lifted his eyes slowly, the pain clear in them. "I found the locker, bhaiya. I saw what you were hiding."
Aarya froze. The locker? The one Riyan had never been allowed to open. The one with the secret Aarya had hidden from him for years.
Silence stretched between them like a thick rope.
"I trusted you!" Aarya's voice broke as he slammed his fist on the glass. "Why didn't you come to me, Riyan? Why didn't you—"
"I didn't want to drag you into it," Riyan whispered, his voice almost too soft to hear. "I didn't want you to be ashamed of me."
Tears welled up in Aarya's eyes. Ashamed? He had raised Riyan to be better than this, to stay away from the dangers of the world.
Aarya stormed out of the station, his anger replaced by a deep, gnawing emptiness. He called his contacts, his old friends—the ones who used to be his support network. But there were no answers. No one would help him. No one cared. His connections, his reputation, his business—everything was crumbling.
He stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. His body felt like it was suffocating under the weight of guilt. This was his fault. He had led Riyan down this path without even realizing it. The locker. The drugs. The lie. It was all connected.
And then, came the phone call that shattered what was left of his heart.
Riyan was dead.
An overdose.