Page 160 of Safe Word

‘What kind of workshop?’

‘Bikes. But he’ll fix anything. He’s got golden hands, like Dad.’

Cain didn’t react in the way people usually did. But his stillness had weight. It felt as if he were folding the information into a drawer I wasn’t allowed to touch.

The quiet stretched.

‘Leo and Dante work with him. Dante’s the youngest – twenty-three. Got kicked out of MIT for hacking, but I never found out what or why.’

That earned me another raised brow, just before his eyes turned back to the table where the smooth glass surface reflecting a sliver of the city from beyond the tall windows.

But there was something about that look that unsettled me. As though he were reading more into it than I’d actually said.

I kept going, words filling the space that suddenly felt too charged. ‘Dante had always followed Matteo like a shadow. I’d assume he likes bikes too.’

Cain tilted his head. ‘You don’t know what your own brother likes?’

I tried for a smile but it landed wrong. ‘He’s the quiet one. After Dad died, he just… faded. For a while we thought he’d broken completely – he stopped talking entirely. Wouldn’t even look at us.’

Cain shifted, draping one solid arm over the backrest of the couch, finally looking at me with open curiosity, as if he’d filed everything so far and was ready for an opinion. But the sharpness on his face told me I wasn’t going to like it.

My chest constricted.

‘Where were they when he was beating you?’ The question dropped like a hammer.

My mouth closed, jaw locking. The air felt tighter, pressing in on me as though it, too, needed the answer. But none came. It was hard to speak past the stone in my throat.

‘People always think that – where was everyone, why don’t women say anything – as though survival’s some neat equation. But when it’s happening, you’re not thinking about others. You’re just trying to get through the next five minutes. And then the next.’

He didn’t like my answer.

We both looked away, the topic closed but not finished. The silence wasn’t empty – it pulsed with everything we’d both experienced and didn’t say. His fingers drummed once against his thigh, then stilled.

Needing the breathing space, I headed into the kitchen, picking up my mug from the counter and pouring more coffee into it.

Some truths didn’t need to be picked apart to be understood. Some wounds didn’t need tending right away – some couldn’t be tended at all. And Cain knew that.

I was grateful when he let me sip my coffee in silence. We let the moment settle, frayed but there – like a thread of trust stretched between two soldiers who’d seen too much – and were still learning how to share the weight of it.

‘I don’t want you to keep things from me,’ he said quietly, but with the kind of firmness that had my spine realigning.

I turned to face him, caught off guard. The severity in his tone wasn’t accusation, just… weight. History.

‘I won’t,’ I said, and meant it. Even if a part of me wasn’t sure how to let someone in like that yet.

He gave a small nod, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the skyline, that grim set to his jaw carved rough. As though holding something back through clenched teeth.

‘What about your dad?’ I asked softly, flipping the board.

His jaw flexed, his eyes cutting to mine, a glint of something raw passing over them. Not anger, exactly. Resistance.

‘We still have time before the interview,’ I added gently.

A beat passed. Another.

Then, quietly: ‘We?’ he echoed, as if the idea surprised him.

I offered a faint smile.