Page 3 of Entangled Vows

Vikram ended the call before the silence swallowed him whole.

He stared at his phone for a second and felt a wave of frustration.

“Fuck!” he roared, grabbing a clay artifact and flinging it to the floor. It shattered into countless tiny fragments.

Vikram collapsed into a chair, gasping for air, the crushing burden of everything pressing down on him. Suraj was gone. His dad was on his deathbed. Everything he had left behind was now coming back at him, relentless and unavoidable.

He pushed the emotions down. His next move was already planned… to take control. He hated it, but still...

The day he left Dehradun, Vikram had made two promises to himself. First, he would never join the family business, as that was the very thing that had torn their happy family apart.

And second, he would never fail a woman after marrying her, never betray her trust and love the way his father had failed their mother.

And yet, here he was... caught between the new life he had built in Mumbai and the one he had walked away from.

He’d told Arjun, his business partner and his brother in every sense, about his dad’s diagnosis last week. As always, Arjun had stepped in and taken full charge of the startup while Vikram dealt with the family emergency. That was Arjun—solid, dependable, the only family that truly mattered to him.

Vikram was a man of his word. Once he made a decision, he followed through, no matter the cost. If it were up to him, he would have stayed in Mumbai, building the future he and Arjun had carved out. But tonight, he had no choice. Leavingthe city that had become his home wasn’t just painful… it was unavoidable.

He went into his bedroom, called Arjun to update him on the situation, and began packing. Once he was done, he quickly grabbed his bag and took the elevator down to the lobby.

A black SUV was waiting for him as he approached the entrance of his building. Arjun, Vaayu, and Adil leaned casually against it, while Kabir sat behind the wheel. For a moment, nobody said anything. The silence was heavy, charged with all the things they wanted to say but did not.

Adil broke it first. He stepped forward, silently grabbed Vikram’s bag, and tossed it into the trunk. “You pack light, as always,” he muttered.

“That’s how I like to travel. Excess baggage is not my thing,” Vikram replied dryly.

Arjun turned to Vikram, his expression softening as his gaze searched his best friend’s face. “You good?”

Vikram paused, then gave a half-shrug. “As good as I’ll ever be.”

One by one, the others settled into their seats. Vikram stood there for a moment longer and took a deep breath. He wasn’t a sentimental man. He never had been. Yet this moment left a mark on his heart. It felt as if he wasn’t just leaving a business behind, but a piece of his life. Somehow, this bunch of goofballs had become his family without him even realising it, and the thought of not seeing them often made his chest tighten.

Fuck, he was so lucky. Few people had friends this loyal. For him, they were like his brothers, closer than blood relatives ever could be.

“Vikram, are you coming or what?” Kabir’s voice cut through from the driver’s seat.

“Yeah,” Vikram muttered, finally pulling the door open and sliding into the passenger seat.

The SUV’s interior smelled faintly of leather, cigarette smoke, and friendship. He turned his head, meeting their eyes one by one. Arjun’s carried a quiet focus. Vaayu’s crooked grin was hiding his nerves. Adil’s quiet, sharp gaze was screaming more than words ever could, and Kabir’s tense jaw was the only sign that the super calm man he knew was really trying to hide his anxiousness. Still, not a single one of them asked for explanations. Not a single one passed judgment.

He wanted to fucking hug them. Just then, Vaayu leaned forward from the back seat. “Just so you know, we’re only a call away, Vicky. You say the word, and we’ll be there before you hang up the phone.”

“Don’t make it sound like some cheesy, sappy movie,” Adil muttered, but there was a faint tremor in his voice. “He’s just going to a different state, not to a different planet. Vicky fucking knows what he is to us.”

Arjun simply nodded. “We’ve got your back, brother. Always.”

Vikram looked at them, his throat tightening. “I know,” he said quietly.

And for once in his life, he let himself feel everything he was feeling right then. The car eased forward, rolling into the night. The silence inside was no longer heavy. It was something else. It was loyalty. It was trust.

What filled the space was quiet, pure, and unmatched love and support.

And for now, that was enough.

1

Six Months Later