Chapter 27 Kabir
KABIR
They drove in silence for a long time. This silence had the teeth of a rabid dog. It gnawed at the space between them, filled with all the things they refused to say, all the truths they’d killed and buried and kept resurrecting every time they saw each other.
Kabir’s hands strangled the steering wheel, knuckles white, veins standing out against the skin.
He pulled on to the highway that led back to Il Cuore, his jaw clenched as he stared out into the lightening sky, the empty road stretching endlessly into the horizon.
Rage pounded through him, a steady ticking in his brain.
He kept his gaze fixed on the horizon as if staring hard enough could stop the storm of emotion punching its way up his throat.
The silence ballooned, expanding dangerously until Tani decided to pop it.
“Vik shouldn’t have called you.”
The calm words detonated him. Kabir’s rage surged hot and vicious, snapping through his remaining control, exploding it, and shattering it to smithereens.
He wrenched the wheel, pulling the car onto the shoulder of the road.
The tyres shrieked against the asphalt, the seat belts bit into their bodies as the car jolted to a violent stop.
For a moment they just sat there, the air between them thick and breathless. He tore his seatbelt off with a single jerky movement, shoved the door open so hard it nearly rebounded on him, and stumbled out into the clean morning air.
Breathing deeply didn’t help. Nothing helped.
He dragged both hands into his hair, gripping hard, tugging until pain zigzagged across his scalp. His chest heaved like he’d sprinted miles, the cool, dawn wind scraping against the raw edges inside him.
Behind him, Tani’s door opened quietly. He heard her step out, shut the door behind…calm, controlled movements that set his teeth on edge.
“Vik shouldn’t have called me,” he repeated, the words sounding bitter on his tongue. He whirled around to face her. “Who the fuck should he have called?” He waited a moment for her to say something but when she didn’t, he added, “Jay?” The name was little more than a sneer.
Tani shrugged. “I was actually thinking the parents, my dad maybe.”
“So,” he said, his voice cold as ice. “Anybody but me?”
“Yes, Kabir,” she snapped, her fury flaring to match his. “Anybody but you.”
Her voice rose, sharp and shaking, echoing across the empty fields stretching on either side of them. “You left me.”
The words sliced through the air. Through him.
“I told you I loved you,” she shouted, chest heaving, “and you pushed me away.”
He stiffened but she wasn’t done. She was just getting started.
“I kissed you,” she spat out, voice breaking, “and you acted like I’d poisoned you. Like touching me was a mistake you couldn’t wait to scrub off.”
Kabir flinched, each word landing like a fist to his ribs.
Tani’s breath hitched as she kept going, pain spilling over anger, her voice cracking around it.
“You shut me out. You ran. You disappeared for months, Kabir. And when I finally stopped chasing you, when I finally tried to put the pieces of myself back together…” She jabbed a trembling finger at him. “You come back into my life claiming my boyfriend drugged me.”
Kabir opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His throat worked but it hurt too much to talk. It felt like he was swallowing glass and he welcomed it, every second of pain. It was nothing less than what he deserved.
Tani shook her head violently, tears streaking down her cheeks, her voice a raw rasp.
“You think you’re the only one hurting? You think walking away from me was some noble sacrifice?
You think you did something great?” She let out a harsh, broken laugh.
“I don’t know what you achieved but you didn’t just ruin my life, Kabir… you ruined me.”
She took a shaky step closer, anger giving way to devastation. “And you know the worst part of it all?”
Her eyes met his, bruised and shattered. “I would’ve forgiven you. I loved you so much I… I would’ve forgiven anything.” Her voice cracked completely. “But you didn’t even ask for forgiveness. You just wanted to be gone, as far away from me as possible.”
Kabir’s chest caved in like she’d driven a blade straight into him.
He stumbled back a step, breath ragged, hands trembling at his sides. Whatever he’d been holding together inside himself, whatever flimsy, stubborn, survivalist wall he’d built, began to crumble in the face of her agony.
“Tani…” he breathed, voice wrecked. “Bug-”
“Don’t,” she whispered fiercely, cutting him off. “Don’t call me that. You don’t get to call me that anymore.”
“You don’t get to be my emergency call anymore, Kabir.
You can’t be both the hero and the villain in my story.
You have to choose and we both know what you chose.
” Chest heaving, she faced him, her hands clenched at her sides.
“So, what difference does it make to you if I’m locked up in a police station or drugged out of my mind, or lying dead in a ditch somewhere-“
Whatever else she’d been about to say, disappeared into the ether as his mouth found hers.
Desperate, unforgiving, and harsh, his lips devoured hers like she was the last breath of air available to him, the broken song of his soul, the frantic beat of his heart.
He kissed her like he loved her and he kissed her like he hated himself for it.
He broke away, his heart pounding as he stared into her eyes, those beautiful, hazel eyes that stalked his dreams and haunted his hopes.
“I’m sorry, I-“
This time he was the one who was cut off. Tani surged forward with a sound that was half-rage, half-sob, her fingers fisting in his hair. She yanked him down, dragging him to her like she’d stopped caring about caution or consequences or the ruin waiting for both of them on the other side.
Her mouth crashed into his, her soft lips meeting his hard fury.
The salt from her tears mingled with the desperate fire of their desire for each other, only, ever for each other.
Her lips moved over his like she wanted to brand him, rewrite their history, undo every moment he’d tried to push her away.
She kissed him with years of precious memories, with the ache of what they could have been, and with the heartbreak of what they never were and what they never would be.
He froze for a second, just a second, caught between instinct and agony.
And then he was kissing her back, hands gripping her waist like he was drowning, like she was oxygen and he had no business breathing without her.
Her breath mingled with his, hot and trembling.
She tasted like fury and heartbreak and forever.
She promised him eternity with every desperate press of her mouth.
An eternity in heaven or hell, he didn’t know…
for him, when it came to Tani, it was always both.
Because loving her felt like salvation. And losing her felt like damnation. And kissing her…God…kissing her felt like willingly stepping into the fire in the pits of hell itself tinged with the promise of heaven.
And for the first time in months, Kabir didn’t stop himself. He didn’t want to. This time he let himself burn.