The Heart of a Storm (The Il Cuore Heirs #1)

Prologue

Kabir stepped up to the mic, one hand coming up to cradle it.

"Hello New York," he crooned.

The crowd went crazy, the screams resounding through the open ground.

An irreverent grin graced his mobile mouth as he looked out at the controlled chaos of the crowds who had come to see him and his band perform.

A bra came flying through the air dropping on to the stage at the feet of his bass guitarist. Ayaan laughed, a wild burst of joy.

Kabir grinned. the mood was electric tonight and that always brought out the best in him.

"How are we doing tonight?"

More screaming ensued, the sound making his ears ring. He loved it. He lived for it. This was the high he'd spent his entire life chasing. A drug that swam through his veins and soothed the beast within.

Kabir looked over his shoulder at Malik, the drummer, and nodded.

Malik picked up his drumsticks and opened with a riff that had the screaming crescendo.

Kabir tipped his head back, closed his eyes and allowed the sound to wash over him.

David, his lead guitarist, joined in as did Amay on the keyboard.

He glanced over at Ayaan, his bass guitarist and best friend, and grinned, wild and electric.

And then, Kabir Kashyap, began to sing. If the mood in the stadium had been electric before, it now went supersonic.

His deep baritone rolled through the night making every woman there sigh and dream impossibly sexy dreams, filled with hot, steamy passion and the kind of frustrated desire that only existed in women’s hopes and in Kabir’s lyrics.

Kabir closed his eyes and opened the door to his heart.

He allowed every smile, every tear, every memory to stream through him as he raised his voice to hit a note of desperate yearning, plucked straight from the bruised strings of his heart.

Painted on the backs of his eyelids he saw her tangled curls, her pointy chin, her big eyes, and her sweet smile.

He saw her furious heart, her unshed tears, her whispered pleas, and her quiet adoration.

He sang of love, forbidden, taboo, and unmatched. He sang of hope, endless, poisoned, and unattainable. And he sang of despair, bottomless, familiar, and yet, unknown.

And when he felt like his heart could shatter no more, he opened his eyes, scanned the heaving masses of his rabid fans and swung into a song of sex, dark, intense, and desperate.

The screaming response he got had him grinning, a feral edge to the baring of his teeth.

He tossed his jacket, sweat pouring down his face and torso as he walked over to where Ayaan stood.

Their voices melded, a symphony as familiar to Kabir as his earliest memories of jamming in his bedroom with his friend.

By the time they’d finished their set, the mayhem in the grounds was only matched by the screams of ‘encore’ or ‘one more.’

Kabir ripped off his t-shirt, downing an entire bottle of water to replace everything he’d sweated out. He grabbed another bottle and emptied it over his head, shaking his head as droplets sprayed out of his overlong, shaggy hair. This time, the noise was deafening.

“Fucker.” David chuckled. “You’re setting them up for restless nights and wet dreams.”

Kabir laughed, his heart still pounding from the exertion.

“And what are you going to do for the men?” Amay asked, running his fingers over the keys, teasing out a melody that had more noise erupting even though they were on a short break.

Kabir winked. “I don’t discriminate,” he said, grabbing David’s guitar and slinging it over his neck. “Alright then New York!” He screamed into the microphone. They screamed right back.

He rolled his neck and launched into one of their earliest hits.

His band swung into action behind him with David taking a guitar one of their support staff ran out to give him.

Kabir knew he’d give him grief for taking his guitar later.

It was as bad as taking his woman. But David also knew that what Kabir wanted, Kabir took, and made no excuses for it.

And Kabir took everything.

Except for the one thing, the one person, he wanted from the bottom of his depraved heart. It was his only claim to virtue. Loving her so purely that he refused to soil her with his existence.

They ended the concert on a high, the last note seeming to quiver endlessly in the bated hush of the space before the crowd erupted in a final roar of sound, a tidal wave that crashed against the band standing on the stage, sweating, panting, trembling with exultation.

Kabir followed the others off the stage, taking a towel someone handed him and slinging it around his neck.

“Well done boys.” Varsha Vashisht, their manager smiled, her hard, assessing eyes, taking them all in behind her Prada glasses.

“Thanks VV. Feel free to thank us any which way you wish to.” David winked.

Varsha gave him a frosty stare, one that Kabir was sure would have frozen David’s dick off if he hadn’t been impervious to it. David’s campaign to win Varsha’s heart was as hopeless as it was endless.

Kabir ignored the chatter and went hunting for the bottle of Macallan his assistant always kept handy for him. He found it along with the glass placed beside it, on the table in the corner.

“Take it easy with the celebrating, Kashyap,” Varsha snapped, her judgy tone making his hackles rise.

“You manage my career,” Kabir reminded her, his tone bordering on insolence. “Not me, Vashisht.”

Her lips thinned with disapproval but she kept her thoughts to herself.

Kabir had just gotten the cap off, and taken a swig straight from the bottle, ignoring the glass placed beside it, when his assistant, Rahul Sethi, rushed into the room, Kabir’s phone in his hand.

“Kabir.” Rahul shoved his way through the crowded dressing room, waving the phone in the air.

Kabir swallowed another mouthful of some of the finest whiskey money could buy and eyed Rahul’s worried face. He lowered the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his sweaty hand.

“What is it?”

In reply, Rahul held the phone out. “It’s your mother.”

Kabir grabbed the phone in the next instant. “Ma?” he said, his voice softening instinctively.

“Kabir.” The relief in her voice had his instincts prickling. “Is your show over?”

“Yes. What’s wrong?” he asked, brusquely, his blood chilling. Her next words had it turning to ice.

“Did Tani come to your concert? She mentioned that Jay and she had passes.”

“No.” Kabir was already on his way out of the dressing room, his mother’s worried voice in his ear.

“She called Shikha a short while ago,” Aayushi Kashyap said. “She sounded incoherent and then the line cut out. We can’t reach her since then. We even tried calling Jay. But he isn’t answering either.”

Jay. The name left a sour taste in his mouth as he shouldered his way out of the building, his assistant opening the door to the limo that was waiting. Kabir got in, Rahul right behind him.

“Do you know where she was? At her place or Jay’s?”

“We think Jay’s,” his mother replied, after conferring with Shikha Maasi. Kabir could hear her anxious voice in the background.

“I’m just about ten minutes from there. I’ll call you when I know something.” He cut the call, dropping his head on to the backrest, shutting his eyes and trying to take deep breaths. If he didn’t get a grip before they reached, he didn’t think the night would end well for any of them.

Fury bubbled inside him, familiar and bright. His hand twitched at his side. His playing hand, he reminded himself. It wouldn’t help to hurt it.

“Kabir.” Rahul’s tentative voice reached him. “We’re here.”

He cranked an eye open and looked out. Jay Malhotra had a condominium in a swanky skyscraper in downtown Manhattan. Fucking hedge fund dickhead.

Kabir shoved the car door open before the driver could get to it.

Rahul scurried after him, mumbling Kabir’s name again.

By the time Rahul had dealt with the perplexed doorman, slipping him some money to ignore the presence of someone famous who was behaving irrationally, Kabir had already reached the elevators.

Kabir was on the list of people allowed to enter this building since Tani lived here too and she’d put his name down on the accepted list of visitors the day she moved in.

The flames in his chest burned higher as the memory of that day swam through him.

He’d helped her move boxes and boxes of clothes and shoes into a tiny apartment on the first floor.

Small enough to fit into her bathroom back home but large by New York standards.

She’d been ecstatic. A space of her own.

The start to her new, independent life. He hadn’t been blind to the fact that out of all the cities in the world, Tani had chosen to study and then work in New York, where he lived.

She’d been happy and he’d been happy for her. He hadn’t been blind but he’d pretended to be. For her sake.

“Kabir,” Rahul said again.

“What?” Kabir snapped, jamming his thumb against the elevator button.

“Do you want to put a shirt on?” He held out a black t-shirt with the band’s name on it.

Kabir ignored it and stepped into the elevator.

Rahul followed, glancing nervously at him from time to time.

They reached the highest floor in record time and before Rahul could stop him, Kabir was hammering on the door to Jay’s penthouse, forgoing the buzzer beside it.

The door was hauled open a moment later.

“What the fu-“

Kabir shouldered past the fucking douchebag, his gaze scanning the empty apartment. “Where is she?” he growled.

“Kabir! Dude! Bro!” Jay grabbed him in a bearhug. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

“Where. The. Fuck. Is. She?” Kabir shoved him away and advanced on him with every bitten off word.

“She’s in the restroom man. Sorry bro. We wanted to come to your concert but we got a little sidetracked.” Jay winked, a sleazy grin on his lips. “You know what I mean?”