Become A Football Legend-Chapter 264: Familia (5)

The words hung in the air.

"I’m sixteen."

Javi’s head turned slowly toward his son.

For a split second—just one—something cold and irrational flashed through him.

Twenty years.

Sixteen years.

His mind did the math before he consciously processed it.

A sharp, silent jolt hit his chest.

He looked at Lukas. At the line of his jaw. The familiar greenish-brown eyes. The shape of his mouth. The way his fingers curled when he was thinking.

For one dangerous heartbeat, doubt tried to creep in.

Then logic crushed it.

He had taken a DNA test.

He had insisted on it back then—not because he doubted her, but because when Jane signed over her parental rights, the legal process required it. Paternity had to be confirmed beyond dispute.

He remembered sitting in a sterile office, holding a newborn in his arms while swabs were taken. He remembered the official letter weeks later.

99.99%.

There had never been a question.

He forced himself to breathe evenly.

Lukas had noticed the flicker in his father’s eyes.

They looked at each other.

The same shape around the eyes. The same intensity when something didn’t add up. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Before either of them could voice what was silently circling—

Roger cut in.

"You shouldn’t misunderstand," he said quickly, leaning forward slightly. "You’re definitely related."

His gaze shifted between them.

"And frankly, just looking at you... you’re almost copies of each other."

Javi didn’t respond.

Roger continued, his tone careful but firm.

"MJ and I met at university. She was a freshman. I was a sophomore."

He paused, choosing his words with precision.

"We dated for two years. Properly dated. We were serious."

Lukas felt his throat tighten slightly.

Roger went on.

"After I graduated, I got a job in London. A good job. An opportunity I couldn’t ignore."

His jaw tightened faintly.

"I didn’t tell her immediately."

Javi’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"I didn’t know how to tell her," Roger admitted. "I was moving seven hours away. I thought... maybe I could figure something out before bringing it up."

He gave a small, bitter smile.

"She found out before I told her."

The room remained utterly still.

"She confronted me. We had a massive fight." His fingers intertwined tighter. "We didn’t technically break up. But I left for London with things unresolved. We weren’t speaking. Everything was... suspended."

Roger’s gaze dropped briefly to the carpet.

"About two years later, there was a knock on my door in London."

He swallowed once.

"She was there. Crying."

Silence.

"One thing led to another. We talked. We started over. We got married a year later."

He looked up again.

"It was during that two-year period... between me leaving and her showing up at my door... that she met you."

He directed the last sentence at Javi.

"And that’s when Lukas was born."

The air in the room felt heavier.

Javi didn’t move.

But inside him, something shifted violently.

Technically.

She had cheated.

He had never once considered that possibility.

Back then, he had believed she was free. He had believed she had chosen him. He remembered chasing her—relentlessly—for about a month. Remembered how she had resisted at first. Not fully rejecting him. Not fully accepting him either.

He remembered how she had seemed distracted. Burdened. Like she was carrying something invisible on her shoulders.

He had thought it was stress. Family issues. Studies.

Now, fragments rearranged themselves.

She hadn’t told him she was in a relationship.

But she hadn’t told him she wasn’t.

He had loved her fiercely. Completely.

And she had been someone else’s girlfriend.

The realization landed not with rage—but with something far more uncomfortable.

Embarrassment.

And a quiet sting of humiliation that he hadn’t seen it.

He glanced at Lukas.

His son was staring straight ahead, eyes unfocused.

Lukas’s world was unraveling in layers.

All his life, the story had been simple.

His parents had been together.

Something tragic had happened.

Maybe she had died. Maybe she had left because she couldn’t cope.

He had built entire narratives in his head as a child.

Then the truth had shifted.

She was alive.

She had left.

Now—

Now the story twisted again.

She hadn’t just left.

She had been in another relationship when she was with his father.

Which meant—

He might have been a mistake.

An accident in a messy in-between.

A product of confusion.

Of revenge.

Of unresolved anger.

The thought came uninvited.

Rebound.

Revenge sex.

An accident she never planned.

It would explain why she disappeared.

Why she signed everything away.

Why she didn’t fight.

His chest tightened, but his face remained eerily calm.

He looked sideways at Javi.

His father’s gaze was fixed somewhere beyond the wall. Present physically. Elsewhere mentally.

Lukas understood.

He understood too well.

He turned back toward Roger.

Roger had finished speaking.

He sat there now, posture straight but heavy, as if he had just laid down a weight he had carried for years.

No one spoke for several seconds.

The only sound was the faint hum of the hotel ventilation.

Lukas swallowed.

Then he asked, his voice steady despite everything shifting inside him—

"Do I have any half-siblings?"

Roger didn’t answer immediately.

He looked at Lukas—really looked at him—for a long moment. Not as a footballer. Not as the boy who had just torn through Old Trafford. But as a young man sitting on the edge of a hotel bed, trying to piece together his own origin story in real time.

Then he nodded once.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Kind of."

Javi’s brow furrowed immediately. "Kind of?"

Roger exhaled slowly. "We have a child together."

Lukas didn’t move.

"A girl," Roger continued. "Lexi."

The name landed softly, but it hit hard.

"She’s nineteen."

This time, it was Javi who reacted first.

"Nineteen?" His voice sharpened slightly. "You already had a kid before Lukas was born?"

Roger shook his head quickly.

"No. No." He met Javi’s eyes. "Lukas was MJ’s first child."

The room stilled again.

Roger held Lukas’s gaze now.

"He was her first."

He paused—just long enough for the weight of that to settle.

"...And her last."

Javi’s brow tightened.

Javi’s brow tightened slightly.

"What do you mean... her last?"

Roger didn’t answer immediately this time. He shifted in his seat, fingers pressing together as though he were arranging the words in his mind before letting them out.

"She had some... complications during childbirth," he said carefully. "With Lukas."

The name hung in the air.

"There were issues. Severe ones. I don’t know every medical detail, and I won’t pretend I do. But whatever happened during that delivery..." He exhaled slowly. "It caused damage."

Lukas felt something cold settle in his stomach.

Roger continued, voice steady but lower now. "She was unable to conceive again."

Javi’s jaw flexed faintly.

"They found out 13 years ago," Roger went on. "We had been trying for a child together. Properly trying. Month after month. Nothing happened. At first we thought it was stress, timing, work... all the usual excuses people tell themselves."

He gave a faint, humorless smile.

"Then we went to a specialist. Tests were done. That’s when we found out."

He paused for a brief second, eyes lowering.

"It wasn’t temporary. It wasn’t something that could be treated."

The weight of that settled over the room.

Roger looked back at Lukas now, not unkindly.

"She never had another biological child."

A breath passed.

"Lexi was adopted when she was 7."