“And still,” he whispered, “I say nothing.” He stepped closer, the gentleness in his face suddenly overwhelming. “Because your mother and I are trying so hard, so damn hard, to be supportive.”
His hand came up, rough and warm, curling beneath her chin. He tilted her face toward him, forcing her tear-filled eyes to meethis. “Of you, Tani.” His thumb brushed a tear from her cheek. “Always of you.”
“Chachu-“
Karam holds a hand up and Kabir’s automatic defence of her dries up.
“But that ends now, Tani.”
His voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to. The quiet firmness in it made her stomach drop.
“Being a good father doesn’t just mean standing by you,” he went on, every word steady and deliberate. “It means knowing when to step in, when to pull you back. When to knock some goddamn sense into you because you can’t see straight.”
Her breath caught.
“And right now,” he said softly, heartbreakingly, “you need it. God knows you need it. Now, for the last time, get inside.”
Tani walked past him without another word, her defiance a thing of the past.
Kabir watched Karam tip his head back and look to the sky, his gaze seeming to look for something or someone he couldn’t find. Karam wasn’t angry. He was worried.Terrified, even.
And somehow, that hurt more to see. Kabir swallowed hard. “Chachu, it was just a harebrained plan that went a little overboard.”
Karam sighed. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “For tonight. For being there for them.”
Kabir grinned weakly. “Well, it’s not my first night at a police station.” He walked over to where Karam stood and slung an arm over his shoulders. “If I remember right, you were always my first call, the one who arrived to bail me out.”
Karam cuffed him on the back of his head. “You keep that information to yourself. The kids don’t need to know about it. I told Ved you would be nothing but trouble from the day you came home.”
Kabir’s smile faded. “Truer words have never been spoken.”
Karam’s perceptive gaze took in the lines of strain on Kabir’s face. “You are and always have been trouble, Kabir Kashyap. But you’re the best kind of trouble. Your stupid father did very few things right in his life. Adopting you sits right on top of that list along with marrying your mother and having your sister.”
Kabir managed a small smile. “I love you too,” he crooned, holding his arms out for a hug.
Karam smacked him on the back of his head in response. “Like I said, trouble with a capital t,” Karam grumbled as he marched into the house. Kabir followed, laughing to himself.
CHAPTER 30
TANISHA
“Drag racing on the highway.”Aakash’s voice was pure ice as his fiery gaze swept their little huddle. “What fun!”
“Maybe next time they could invite us,” Karam said, entering the room on the heels of that comment. “We could show them how it’s done.”
Rehan dropped his head into his hands with a pained groan. “It was me. It was all me.”
“Of course it was,” Karam said mildly, leaning against the wall and studying his son. “We didn’t need you to tell us that.”
“It wasn’t just him, Dad,” Tani interjected. “Sure, he organised it because he thought it would be fun. But,” she leaned forward in her chair, “I participated in the race. You want to be mad, be mad at me. I’m the oldest.”
“Tani didn’t know anything,” Advik muttered, avoiding his mother’s angry glare. “We planned it and set it up as a surprise for her. She’s just covering for us.”
“How sweet of her,” Shikha said softly, her voice grim.
Tani winced. If her father’s fury was ice, her mother was a dormant volcano. She erupted once in a while but when she did…well, it was best to run for cover.
“A police station.” Yash said now, another explosion just waiting to happen. “You were at a police station, all night, and not one of you thought to call us. Any of us.”
