"Some wounds don't bleed.They sing."
The first time she heard him, he wasn't singing.
He was screaming.
Not with his voice — with his guitar. The strings were almost snapping under the weight of his rage, the sound loud, distorted, violent. It poured out of the rehearsal room and flooded the corridor like a warning:Don't come close.
But Nandini Murthy had never been good at obeying rules. Especially when they were unspoken.
Her fingers itched to tune the chaos. Not because she pitied him — but because she understood it. The noise. The unrest. The madness that lives just beneath your skin when life hands you trauma and demands you smile.
She walked past the crowd, eyes down, violin case tight in hand. No one stopped her — not even the girl crying in the corner, not even the guy leaning back with amusement, watching her walk straight into fire.
Behind the door, the noise stopped.
So did her heartbeat.
And then… him.
He was taller than she expected. Leaner. Angrier. Shirt half-unbuttoned, knuckles bleeding, eyes void. Not the romantic kind of broken. The kind that should come with a warning sign.
"You're in the wrong room," he said, voice low. Lethal.
Nandini blinked. "I'm here for the audition."
He didn't smirk. He didn't move.
He just stared.
Until the silence turned sharp enough to cut bone.
Then, without warning, he stepped aside.
"Then play."
That was the beginning.
Of her unraveling.Of his obsession.Of something far more dangerous than love.
Because this wasn't a romance.
It was a war.
And music was their battlefield.