Chapter 13
KABIR
There was a new family group that had appeared on his messaging app.
Kabir stared at the title. The Shit Stirrers.
He didn’t even need to ask anyone to know that Rehan had created it.
His finger hovered over the ‘Exit Group’ icon.
His gaze scrolled a few inches above to the list of contacts on the group. And there she was…Tani Bug.
Before he could tap and exit the group, someone cleared their voice behind him. Kabir glanced over his shoulder to see his manager, Varsha, standing there.
“Is it done?”
“Not really.” Varsha looked uncomfortable, which was saying something. Varsha, on her worst day, was the shark the other sharks feared. Nothing made her uncomfortable but mostly because she didn’t believe anything comfortable was worth having.
“What does that mean?” he asked, dropping his phone on the table and facing her, his heart starting a dull throb in his chest, anxiety flaring in a burst of heat.
“She wants to meet you.”
His heart stuttered. “That’s not going to happen.” He turned away from her and walked towards the window of his hotel suite.
Plush, luxurious, opulent…empty, soulless, cold. How had everything he’d ever wanted become the cage he couldn’t escape.
“Kabir.” Varsha sounded disquieted as she came up behind him. “I think you need to meet her.”
“No.” He kept his gaze on the ocean in the distance, the only saving grace of this hotel room.
“She’s dying, Kabir.”
He watched a ship on the distant horizon, lights winking in the approaching dusk.
“Is she?” he asked, his voice cold and cruel.
“Is that all you’re going to say?”
“You’re right,” he said brightly, turning to smile at his confused manager. “I should say more. How about good riddance to bad rubbish?”
He walked past her to the stocked bar and pulled out a bottle of scotch. “This calls for a celebration.” He cracked the bottle open and held it over a glass. “Two fingers?” he asked, a cocky grin gracing his lips.
Varsha just watched him, clearly unimpressed by his little performance. “She’s your aunt, Kabir,” she said finally. “Your father’s sister. Surely you feel something for her?”
“She tried to kill me,” he told her, holding her gaze as he poured himself a lot more than two fingers of scotch. “On my fifteenth birthday. I won’t bore you with the details but I will say, you’re right. I do feel something for her.”
He bared his teeth, a savage grin that had her taking a step back.
“I loathe her. If she really is dying, then I hope it’s the most vile, painful death any human could suffer from, and I do mean suffer.
I want her to die screaming in agony and then, when she reaches hell to take her place there, I hope she relives that death for eternity. ”
A brief, shocked silence fell before Varsha recovered from it. “And yet, you’ve been paying her off for years, buying her silence.”
He drained his glass and placed it down on the table, the gentle clink resounding in the quiet of the room.
“Her silence was worth it,” he said quietly.
“If her silence was worth the crores you’ve shelled out, then maybe what she has to say has value too.”
The words landed with weight that felt like it would drag him under. His world closing in around him, suffocating and terrifying.
“Maybe,” Varsha said now, hesitantly, “it’s time to bring in your family.”
“No.” The refusal was immediate. “My family must never know.” Panic clawed at his throat.
“Kabir,” Varsha sighed. “They can help.”
“They’ve done enough.” The words snapped out of him like a whip cracking. They had done more, much more than enough. They had done everything to shield him from his past. Now, it was his turn, to shield, to protect.
His phone pinged. The new group was active.
Reh: The old people are saying we need to get wedding ready soon.
Adi: If they hear you calling them ‘the old people,’ we’ll be getting ready for your funeral.
Tani Bug: Why am I on this group? Can I leave?
His heart clenched at the sight of her words.
Vik: If I can’t leave, you can’t leave.
Vedu: Why can’t you leave?
Kimi: Cos we are familyyyyy. And we stay together always!! In good, in bad, in torture, in freedom…in shitty groups, online and offline.
Reh: Shut up Kimi. Now listen up people…wedding ready also means a bachelor party right?
Vik: Did you switch to the groom’s side, Reh?
Reh: WTF? Why would I do that?
Adi: Because they have the bachelor party. I think our side is a bachelorette party for the women.
Reh: Only the women??? How is that fair?
Vik: I’ll make you a deal. When you get married, we’ll throw the mother of all bachelor parties. For now, will you shut up?
Kimi: He has a point @Tani Bug. Bachelorette? You, me, Vedu…and your friends?
Tani Bug: I have no friends.
Reh: I’ll be your friend. Take me along.
Kimi: Shut up Reh.
Kabir’s heart ached even as he smiled reluctantly at the idiots who were his family, his true family.
I have no friends.
It hurt more than he could say to read those words. She was his best friend as he’d been hers but she was right…there was no one now. She’d left them all behind to come back to India. She’d left them behind in a bid to leave him behind.
A knock on the door drew his attention and he glanced up to watch his band stroll in. Noise crashed into the room, loud and unapologetic. They walked over, making themselves at home, and irritating even Varsha into a smile.
“I have a studio booked for you guys. I’ll text you the details. Be there at nine in the morning. David,” she snapped suddenly. He jumped, almost dropping the TV remote he had been fumbling with. “Don’t be late or I’ll come to your room and drag your lazy arse out of bed.”
David grinned, his eyes lighting up with mischief. “Promise?”
Varsha rolled her eyes, ignoring him and looking at the others. “Nine,” she said again. “AM not PM.”
She stepped closer to Kabir, lowering her voice. “Think about what I said. She refuses to take the latest payment until you speak to her.”
“Good. Let her die in squalor then.” Kabir lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. The nicotine filtered into his lungs, centring him.
“Kabir.” Something in Varsha’s voice that sounded an awful lot like worry had him glancing at her sharply.
“I think it’s better to know what we’re dealing with than stay in the dark like this.
I know it’s hard for you but please, think about it.
One conversation and we know what we’re fighting.
Or maybe there is nothing to fight and she just wants to reconcile?
I don’t know…but we will not know until you speak to her. She refuses to talk to anyone else.”
Reconcile…a strangled laugh stuck in his throat. Reconcile with the only blood relative he had? The one who’d tried to stab him in the throat?
His phone pinged again. The Shit Stirrers were busy, he thought, watching the unread messages piling up.
“I have nothing to say to or hear from her,” he said briefly, dismissing Varsha and picking up his phone. He tapped the group open. His breath caught in his chest as he saw what they’d sent.
Pictures.
Pictures of everyone at the farmhouse, pictures of his family laughing, talking, dancing, swimming…living.
Pictures of Tani.
His thumb traced her smiling face, lingering on the sweet curve of her lips, her sad but steady eyes, her wild, glorious, explosion of curly hair…
His Tani. His Bug.
He took a deep breath, locked his phone and shoved it into his pocket and then he turned to face his band.
“Welcome to Mumbai, boys. Shall we make some music?”