No flinching. Not anymore.
This was his fucking house.
“When did you get out?” Jude asked, flatter than he’d intended.
“Few days back.” Callum stretched lazily along the cushions, as if this were a social call. “Early release.” He smiled, and those green eyes glittered with something Jude didn’t like. Didn’t trust. “For good behaviour.”
Jude didn’t buy that for a second.
But he also didn’t believe Callum could’ve staged a prison break, not without help. And if hewaswanted, surely he wouldn’t be here, in the open, in the house Jude had never told him about. Unless he thought no one would look. Unless heknewno one would stop him.
“I heard about the fire.” Callum slipped off the sofa and rose to his full height.
Jude’s breath caught.
He hated how Callum always seemed bigger than he remembered. As if time apart had made him shrink in comparison. Six feet of ink and muscle stepped forward, cutting the space between them as if it belonged to him.
“I saw your name in the coverage.” Callum lowered his head to meet Jude’s eyes. “Had to check on you, Curls.”
Jude tensed as Callum cupped Jude’s face in both hands. Calloused palms. Inked knuckles. New tattoos coiling over his skin. Words Jude didn’t recognise. Symbols he didn’t want to.
His body locked.
He didn’t mean to close his eyes, but they fluttered shut the moment Callum traced the ridges of his cheekbones with his thumbs, pretending it was affection.
But it wasn’t.
It hadn’t ever been.
It was a test. A quiet claim. Callum reminding him he could still touch him. Still tug on the invisible leash he’d worn for years, tightening it notch by notch, and disguise it as tenderness.
“You had me worried.” Callum’s voice was all heat and honey.
Jude said nothing.
His throat had closed, locked down tight around the panic rising in his chest. The part of him that wanted to run—bolt, vanish, disappear—was still at war with the part that had learned, slowly and painfully, that sometimes survival meantstaying very, very still.
But beneath the stillness, the questions surged.
How did he find me?
The moment he saw his name in the fire coverage, Jude had known it might come back to haunt him. He hadn’t expected it to arrive like this, though. On his doorstep, in his living room, under his skin.
He should’ve seen it coming. Should’ve done more.
But without being listed as a victim of Callum’s crimes, there’d been no alert. No warning. No one had told him the man who’d broken him was back on the streets.
And that?
That was onhim.
He’d protected Callum. Lied for him. Covered the worst of it because shame had curled around his ribs and made him complicit in his own undoing.
So maybe this was what he deserved.
The debt due.
Why hadn’t he said no when Callum crossed the threshold? Why hadn’t he turned, slammed the door,shouted? Called someone.Anyone. Because he had no one. Who could he turn to? Who wouldn’t ask questions?
