Page 223 of Safe Word

His jaw flexed. ‘That he was hurting her.’

I let that hang in the air for a moment, let it curdle between us. Then let out a low, but utterly humourless laugh.

‘You expect me to believe that?’

I really did not want to strangle my woman’s brother tonight.

He didn’t even need to answer me. The truth was already there, in the rigid way he sat, in the muscle ticking in his jaw like he was hiding something.

‘You didn’t see the bruises, then.’ It was a question more than a statement.

‘There were none.’

‘Visible,’ I corrected, shifting gears harder than necessary.

A flash of my mother’s wrists took my vision, shades of purple mottling her beautiful face.

The car jerked forward, earning us an angry yell from a cyclist, but I barely noticed. The streets of Rome blurred past in streaks of gold and shadow, the neon-lit storefronts casting fractured reflections in the puddles.

A long silence stretched between us, heavy as a noose.

‘She never said a word,’ he muttered finally, and I felt the weight in his voice.

‘Yeah. Because women in love with their monsters usually do.’

Suddenly, the words turned on me. I didn’t look at him when I said it for fear of revealing how much of a monster I was.

The city moved around us. A city that had watched men live and die over blood feuds, power struggles, betrayals.

I had a feeling it was watching us now.

Two devils out to catch another one.

‘There was nothing to say she wasn’t happy,’ he said on a sigh.

The words landed wrong. Too neat. Too easy. Like someone tying a bow on a box filled with something rotten.

My fingers clenched around the wheel. The memories rushed in again – my mother, smiling through the split in her lip. Back then it had been just another thing I’d got used to: like bad weather, hunger… pain.

It had felt normal.

I gripped the wheel tighter, strangling it, as if the sensation would banish the memories.

He noticed.

‘You’re very invested for someone who’s been fucking my sister for only a few days,’ he said cooly.

I let it sit for a moment, let it crawl under my skin and settle there. I should’ve had a quick answer, something detached, something easy. But the truth was – he wasn’t wrong.

It wasn’t like me to get invested at all.

I knew what I was. Something twisted. Something missing a few key pieces. My mind didn’t work like other people’s; things took different paths with me – steeper drops, sharper turns. I didn’t let things in, didn’t let things matter.

But with her, it was as though it had never been a choice.

The thought slithered up my spine, entirely unwelcome. Maybe that was why it had happened so quickly. Maybe – and I almost swallowed that thought – she was the one? Maybe it wasn’t my mind deciding to be invested, as Matt so casually put it. Maybe it was something deeper – every fibre of me locking onto her, every breath tilting in her direction, as if gravity had changed the rules and hadn’t bothered to warn.

Natural. Like the moon rising after the sun fell. Like blood rushing to a wound.