Page 151 of Safe Word

Maybe he’d made me in his image after all.

This wasn’t about the past, though. This was about Paula – the only person who had managed to slip past my walls, make me feel something other than numbness and anger.

I would be damned if I let someone like Travis touch her. Hurt her.

If that made me a monster, so fucking be it. I’d embrace it.

For her.

I reached her building in what felt like both seconds and hours. Time bent under the weight of my rage, the urgency burning in my lungs as I sprinted up the stairs. The fractured memories of my father’s violence blurred with the fear of what awaited at the top. My mind replayed old scenes I’d tried to bury – my mother’s broken sobs, the sickening thud of a body hitting the floor, my small hands pounding helplessly against a man who was supposed to protect us. Those memories blurred with the present, with Paula’s voice cracking over the phone, trembling and desperate.

Her door hung ajar like a wound torn in the fabric of a home. A red hallway cam blinked above it, catching the mess like a silent witness. I shoved the door, muscles coiled tight. The scene inside froze me: overturned furniture, shattered glass – and then…

He stood over her, hand raised for a blow. Paula was crumpled against the wall, tears streaking her face, her cheek swollen and flushed where he’d already struck her.

For a moment, her face morphed into my mother’s, curled up on the kitchen floor, clutching her stomach as my father loomed over her. The room tilted, my vision narrowing until all I could see was pure… fucking… red.

The monster inside me roared to life.

And I let it loose.

In a blind haze, I surged forward, my fist connecting with Travis’ spine with a force that vibrated through me. The crack of bone on bone was deafening, my already bruised knuckles exploding with new pain.

He staggered back, his eyes wide with shock.

I didn’t let him recover. Grabbing him by the collar, I slammed his head into the wall, the plaster splintering beneath his forehead.

He tried to swing at me, but his movements were sluggish, uncoordinated. I dodged easily, my body moving on instinct. My fist drove into his ribs, each impact sharp and solid. I was bigger than him, but he moved swiftly – too quick to give in. The sound of fist meeting flesh was a sick sort of symphony, and a part of me craved the next note.

I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Even when he landed a hit on my wounded chest, it fuelled me. Every punch was a purge – of cowering in my room, of watching my mother cry, of the guilt I’d buried for year, and of Paula’s tears, Paula’s panic, Paula’s hurt.

‘Piece of shit!’ I snarled, levelling his spine with the floor. The back of his head struck the hardwood with a dull thud.

I climbed over him, pinning him with my knee, watching blood bubble at his lips.

‘What gives you the right to touch her?’

His face was now bloodied, his mouth twisting into a grimace, but I barely saw him any more. I saw my father. I saw every moment I’d been too small, too weak to stop the cycle. And for the first time, I wasn’t helpless. I could do something.

‘She’s my fiancée,’ the fucker spat defiantly. That word was the final insult, a claim I couldn’t let stand.

My knee pushed harder into his chest as I leaned in, voice low – meant for him alone.

‘Wrong,’ I growled, in the tone only beasts like us understood. ‘She’s mine.’

‘Cain!’ Paula’s voice shattered the frenzy, cutting through the fury like a blade. ‘Stop! Please! You’re killing him!’

Like a punch to the gut, her plea sobered me. I froze – fist mid-air, chest heaving – and turned to look at her. She was clutching her cheek, her tear-stained face pale and bruised, but her eyes – God… her eyes – were on me. Not on Travis. Not on the arsehole.

On me.

And what I saw there nearly brought me to my knees.

Fear. She was afraid. Of me.

For a damning second, the sound dropped out. The breath in my chest turned to fire, and everything Ezio had ever screamed at me echoed back – that this was who I really was.

I released Travis, shoving him aside with a snarl, and I stumbled back, the room spinning around me.