TWENTY-EIGHT #3
‘I kind of… asked Vinnie to hire a private investigator. To dig up some info on you.’
I narrowed my eyes, the instinctive flare of suspicion climbing my spine. My mind scrambled for explanations that didn’t make my chest feel tight.
‘It was a few days ago,’ he added quickly. ‘He didn’t get back to me on it.’
I set the stack of papers down onto the glass coffee table. Then sank onto the armrest of the couch opposite him, arms loosely crossed.
I wasn’t angry. Not exactly. And I understood why an employer would do this – but… was it done in the spirit of employment? There had been enough shit in my life that could be misread, twisted and weaponised.
‘What do you want to know?’ I asked tightly.
He shrugged, half-cautious. ‘Well, you told me about—’
I cut him off with a brisk nod, the motion slicing the words clean from his lips as I glanced at my bare feet. I didn’t want to drag it all back up. Not today.
It had been a long time since I’d talked about my family in any kind of casual way. The very thought felt like trying on clothes that no longer fit.
Still, a whisper of guilt wound through me. I’d been so consumed with my own damage, my own predictions of doom, I hadn’t even thought to check on my brothers. To see what was going on in their lives.
‘My brother Matteo is the oldest,’ I started. ‘He took over Dad’s workshop straight after high school. Still has it – expanded it. He was in the Marines for a while, too. Leo helped manage the place.’
Cain gave a slow nod.
‘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.
‘Knight in shining armour and such… figured we could cut down another dragon.’