Aradhya : bound by blood

Prologue: The Price of Stardom

The water was always too cold, and Ahaan's patience was always too thin.

"Again," Ahaan said, his voice dropping into that familiar, terrifyingly gentle register that never once matched the violence of his actions.

"I'm tired," Aradhya begged, her voice raw, trembling against the sterile, soundproofed walls of the recording studio.

"Sing, Aradhya. I don't have the whole day," he replied smoothly.

She cried, a silent, helpless slipping of tears that she had learned never to wipe away. It only prolonged the waiting.

He didn't hesitate. He slapped her-precise, heavy, designed to shock the system rather than bruise the face that the world would soon worship.

"I. Am. Not. Paying. For. Tantrums," he said coldly.

With practiced indifference, he grabbed her by the back of the neck and dunked her face straight down into the ice-filled bucket of water kept beside the console. The shock tore the breath from her lungs. When he pulled her back up, gasping and shivering, he offered no towel, only a command.

"Sing."

She took a ragged, desperate breath, swallowed the panic clawing at her throat, and sang. Her pitch was flawless. Her tone was haunting.

And that was how Aradhya Kashyap recorded her first song.