Chapter 32
TANISHA
Jay’s words were still ringing in her ears, ugly and hateful, when the door slammed open.
Kabir stood there.
For a split second he didn’t move, just stared at Jay with a stillness that made every hair on Tani’s body stand on end. She’d seen Kabir angry before, snappish, annoyed, furious even but she had never seen this.
Not the silence. Not the dead calm. Not the violence simmering behind his eyes like a fuse burning down.
“Kabs,” she began.
Too late.
Kabir exploded into motion. One heartbeat he was at the door, the next he was across the room, crashing into Jay with the full force of a man who’d finally reached the edge of what he could endure. The sound of their bodies colliding cracked through the room like an explosion.
Tani gasped, stumbling back as Jay toppled to the ground under the impact. He went down hard, Kabir driving him into the floor with a snarl that didn’t sound human.
“Kabir!” she choked, but he didn’t hear her.
He straddled Jay’s chest, fist slamming into his jaw once, twice and then once again, the blows heavy, sickening, fuelled by every ounce of venom Jay had just unleashed into the world, their world. Jay’s head snapped to the side, blood blooming along his lip.
Tani’s hands flew to her mouth as she looked frantically around the room for something to break them up with.
Kabir grabbed Jay’s collar and hauled him up, eyes blazing, breath heaving, muscles trembling with barely contained fury.
“You don’t talk about her like that,” Kabir growled, voice low and shaking. “You don’t even breathe in her direction after what you just said.”
Jay coughed, choking on blood, trying to twist away. “She’s…she’s mine-”
Kabir slammed him back down so hard the floor seemed to shudder beneath them.
“Say it again,” Kabir hissed. “I dare you.”
Tani’s heart hammered against her ribs, breath coming in quick, uneven bursts. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Could only watch as the man she used to trust with her heartbeat turned into something fierce and unrecognizable.
Except…he wasn’t unrecognizable. She knew exactly what this was. This was Kabir with his walls gone, his restraint shattered, his need to protect her so deep it stole the air from the room.
This was the boy who once fought anyone who made her cry. This was the man who had walked away from her to keep from ruining her life. This was the love he’d never admitted, burning him alive right in front of her.
“Kabir,” she whispered, voice trembling, “stop. Please. Please.”
He froze.
Just a fraction. Just enough for a breath, for sanity.
And then, slowly, like he was dragging himself out of a nightmare, his head turned toward her.
The look in his eyes nearly brought her to her knees. In his dark gaze she saw rage, fear, regret, and something else…something raw and aching and impossibly familiar. She saw love.
Her heart stuttered.
“Please,” she said again, reaching one trembling hand to him.
Only then did Kabir release Jay’s collar. His fist hovered in the air for a long, suspended second before he let it fall to his side, knuckles split and bleeding.
But the damage was done. The truth, their truth, was out. She wasn’t sure what scared her the most…Jay’s words, Kabir’s reaction to them or her own trembling realization that she had never felt safer than she did in the moment Kabir lost control for her.
The door slammed open for a second time, in minutes and her father stood there.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he demanded, his dark gaze skimming the damage to the room before landing on Jay’s prone form, Kabir standing over him.
“Dad,” Tani rasped, her voice hoarse with emotion. “The wedding’s off.”
Karam’s gaze flicked to where Jay was struggling into a sitting position, to Kabir and then back to Tani who met his gaze unflinchingly. “Kind of figured that bit out,” he murmured.
“I’m going to have this bastard arrested,” Jay seethed, getting to his feet, one hand clutching his aching jaw.
“Do it,” Tani said quietly, her words laced with venomous rage. “And I’ll counter file.”
“For what?”
If Tani’s voice was deathly quiet, if Kabir’s rage was a silent scream in the room, Karam’s question was an unsheathed blade.
“For drugging me,” Tani replied, keeping her gaze on Jay and watching him pale, a tremor of fear working its way through his body. “He slipped something in my drink the night he proposed to me, apparently to make me more amenable to the question. He just admitted to it. Kabir heard him and –“
Karam took a step forward and Jay scrambled back. “It was nothing,” he sputtered, “Nothing dangerous. It’s done her no harm. Look at her. She’s fine!”
“The vines at Il Cuore always need more fertiliser,” Aakash said from the doorway where no one had seen him appear. “If we bury his body there, it’s a win-win.”
“Dad.” Tani’s voice halted Karam’s steady walk towards Jay. “I want him gone from here. But not,” she added hastily, “buried in the vineyards.”
“Yeah,” Yash murmured, as Ved and he stepped up beside Aakash. “I kind of like the grapes here. Let’s not poison it.”
“Get out.” Karam told Jay, his ice cold eyes on the younger man.
Jay shuffled to one side, sidestepping Karam and a still silent Kabir, before walking to the doorway where the others still stood.
“One word about Kabir,” Aakash warned, “And I’ll bury you alive myself.”
Jay nodded, looking shaken. He was almost to the door when Tani said, “Oh and Jay?”
He paused, turning to look at her.
She let her rage fill her words, liquid ice in her veins. “I wasn’t waiting for marriage. I was waiting for Kabir.”
She saw Kabir still, his entire body seeming to turn to stone, but other than there was no reaction from him or anyone else in the family.
Jay, on the other hand, turned an alarming shade of red. He took a step towards her but Karam turned slightly to block him and he stopped.
“You fucking deserve each other,” he spat before leaving the room, almost tripping over his own feet in haste.
“Kabs,” Tani said, “Are you okay?”
“Am I-“ Kabir laughed, a broken sound. “Am I okay?”
“Show me your hands-“
He whirled on her. “I told you, didn’t I?
I told you we should get you tested. I told you that you didn’t look right.
I told you that that fucker had done something!
” He was shouting now, his voice shaking with fear and rage.
“For fuck’s sake, Bug, was hating me more important than listening to me? ”
“I don’t hate you!” She screamed back. “I love you! I have always loved you, you dumbass!”
Kabir froze and for the first time, Tani realised they had a very interested audience. Everyone, and by that she meant everyone, had gathered.
“Oh no,” Kanak drawled from where she leaned against a wall. “Don’t stop now. Please keep going, the two of you.”
Kabir stared at Tani, one last burning glare, and then he pushed through the crowd and left. Without a single word to anyone. Without a backward glance at her.