Page 46 of Safe Word

Grabbing my phone and car keys from the edge of the table, I said, ‘I have a booking with a photographer in an hour. No idea how long the session will last.’

The lie slipped out too easily, but the dread coiling up my spine made it necessary. That cold, creeping feeling folded around me like an old blanket; the same one that had haunted me when I was a boy. It had stayed with me well into my forties, a reminder that some things never left you, no matter how deep you buried them.

‘I’ll lock up,’ Paula offered, raising the set of keys Vinnie had left for her.

I nodded, unable to meet her eyes, and headed out the door.

With every step I took, Scarlett’s soft, red, sinful lips faded from the forefront of my mind. Every intake of breath pushed the good memories, the satisfaction, and even pride into a black pot where I briefly stored my thoughts to protect them until the rain passed. I lidded it and shoved it into the corner of my mind where it would live for the next couple of hours.

And then I let the dark clouds loose.

By the time I sank into the driver’s seat of my car, the shadows inside me had taken full control.

The engine roared to life.

The hospice was in Tivoli, about an hour outside Rome. I’d chosen its location deliberately – far enough to give me time to stew, to feel my sins pick harder through my brain with every mile.

It was a ritual I’d endured once a month, a form of self-punishment that I’d forced myself to uphold all these years. Usually, it came at the end of the month, a conscious choice to cap off my weeks with something sombre, something grounding. But Scarlett had disrupted everything – her allure, her dominance over my thoughts, the hunger she awakened in me that left no space for penance.

And then there were my two books, both demanding my focus, both pulling me into worlds of darkness and depravity. They’d left little time for anything else, much less this monthly reckoning.

But today, the drive to Tivoli was non-negotiable – the hospice kept calling, and I had a bad feeling what would come out the other end of the line. Sometimes, things needed to be done in person.

The memories I sought to suppress had been clawing at the edges of my mind, begging to be faced. It wasn’t just guilt – it was something deeper. A reminder of the man I’d become. A villain wearing the mask of a professional.

As the city blurred past and the road yawned open ahead, the storm bank in my mind swelled, ready to break and drown me.

I gripped the wheel tighter, my knuckles whitening.

A flashback slammed into me as I navigated the traffic: my mother’s bloodied nose – crimson smearing across her pale skin, tears streaking down her cheeks. They burned in my mind. The sound of her choked sobs echoed in my ears, louder than the hum of the engine or the faint murmur of the city outside.

The pristine marble tiles of our family home had never looked so defiled as when it glistened with droplets of her blood. Now any kind of marble was a permanent reminder of what I was: a shitty brat with no right to be loved.

I gritted my teeth, gripping the wheel tighter as the memory clawed its way to the forefront.

I was nineteen. Her face hardly looked human that night.

He’d been beating her for as long as I could remember, but that night, something in me had torn loose. I’d been bigger than him by then, and when I saw her crumpled on the tiles, I lost control.

I’d broken his face. His ribs. His goddamn spine, maybe. I hadn’t stopped until he was a mess of wet breath and shattered bone.

A boy – turned monster.

Mum had whispered one word through a mouthful of blood: ‘Run.’

So I did.

When I’d come back, she was gone. But Ezio – he lived. Told everyone loan sharks had jumped him. Every drunken night after that, he’d found me instead of her. And the beatings soon turned into something worse.

Words.

He’d gutted me not just with his fists, but with silence, shame, and her name – over and over.

Until I snapped again.

The second time I’d lost control, I didn’t leave him breathing.

The weight of his limp body draped over my shoulder still lingered to this day. I’d dragged him into the hospital. I’d fabricated a story – a distraught son’s words about an attack – and they believed me, thanks to Ezio’s history, and my own bruises and cuts.