Page 77 of BounBound By Scars

“Why do you even wanna know?” Kabir smiled—cool, careless, like the mention of her didn’t slice down the middle of an old scar.

I narrowed my eyes. “Because I’d like to know if she’s going to show up out of nowhere, claim you as the love of her life, and just… paddle away with you.”

He blinked. “Paddle?”

“Yeah. She’s kayaking. In slow motion. Off a waterfall. Now can you answer?”

His smile didn’t waver, but his eyes darkened as he stepped closer—deliberate, grounded, dangerous.

“Namrata was my best friend,” he said, voice low. “I thought I loved her. Thought she was the one who saw the boy trying to claw his way into NASA. The one who stood beside that boy while he stumbled through the start of his career. I gave her everything I had… back then.”

He was in front of me now. Close. Close enough to make my pulse forget its job.

“She left,” he continued, “because I wasn’t what she wanted. But what she never saw—what she didn’t wait long enough to realize—is that the boy she left behind became a man.”

His hand lifted. Not touching, just hovering—like he didn’t trust himself to make contact yet.

“A man who knew his worth. Who didn’t want to be a placeholder. A man who looked at a woman and forgot how to breathe. Who’d strive hard to be enough. Forher.”

He tilted his head. The glint in his eyes could cut glass.

“For the woman who once called him a softie.”

Fuck, he knew about that?

He continued. “She left the boy who loved—to become a manin love.”

My throat locked up. Becauseholy shit.

His next breath was a whisper. “That man… isn’t looking back. So no, she won’t be paddling back into anything. I’m quite hard to find.”

God help me,I was the one who couldn’t breathe now.

My heart was still rattling in my chest. “Well, I still don’t like her.”

Kabir raised a brow. “That’s fair.”

“I mean it. I don’t like what she did to the boy version of you. So…” I stepped closer, squinting. “What’s her full name?”

He snorted, actually had the audacity to laugh. “Absolutely not.”

“Okay.” I shrugged casually, knowing damn well the chaos I was about to unleash. “Then I guess I’ll just ask Zane, find her location, deploy Chariot, and show up at her doorstep.”

Kabir blinked.

I tilted my head and smiled sweetly. “And we both know my drone doesn’t knock.”

That got him.

He stilled, completely stilled.

His eyes widened, not in fear, not in offense—no, this was different. Like something in that mess of circuits and weaponized sentiment just triggered a memory.

“Come with me,” he muttered.

Before I could so much as blink, he grabbed my wrist—gently, but firm—and started walking.

“What? Where are we going?” I asked, my feet scrambling to keep up with his long-ass strides.