“Has he threatened you?”
Jude almost laughed. “He doesn’t need to. Him being here… in this town… that’s threat enough. And a risk I can’t have.”
“I want to help you, Jude. I do. But you have to give me something. What’s happened? What’s he done?”
Jude slipped his glasses off, rubbed the lenses on his sleeve until the cloth squeaked. The kitchen was warm, but the damp, bone-deep cold of old nights came creeping in. The smell of cheap cologne. The metallic tang of blood he’d swallowed back down.
“I told you I left home young?”
Warren gave a small nod.
“Seventeen, I fell into something I thought was love. It was…intense. Callum was my only way out of hostels. Back then I was selling myself for a night indoors. He knew. He saw it. And he swooped in and played the hero. He gave me food. Shelter. Kindness I’d never had. Bought me clothes. Gifts. At first, he asked for nothing. I thought I’d struck gold. He was strong. Fearless. Everything I’d craved and never had. Somone big, bold and safe. Someone to look after me. I’d never had that. Not since Mum died.”
Jude tapped his nails on the table, restless, buying himself time before he pushed on. Hating having to relive it. To remind himself the mess he’d got into whether he was at fault or not. It was still his mess of a history.
“The safety didn’t last. Nor did the thrill of being his…possession. Soon enough, the sex wasn’t coaxed, it was demanded. I told myself he liked me, that it meant something. But afterwards, he’d turn on himself. On me. The anger grew.The violence. Then he started bringing others. Friends of his. Almost like if they touched me, it didn’t count as him being…what he was. I never made sense of it. I was too deep in it. Too stuck.”
He forced the tears back. Not for himself, but for the boy he’d been. The one trapped there. The one he never managed to pull from the flames.
“Sometimes he even took money off them. Off the men he handed me to. And he took photos. Filmed it. Turned them into threat. Bribery. To keep me with him.” His voice stayed flat, but it carried the weight. “I didn’t have a name for it then. Just told myself I was giving the man who saved me what he wanted. That made it easier to ignore the rest. The things he was into. What he did to earn money. Who was coming and going from our flat. And every hand he laid on me to keep me quiet.”
The silence after was jagged. Jude kept his eyes fixed low, as though looking up might shatter him. Warren stayed still. Not crowding. But his voice, when it came, was quiet, barely louder than the hum of the fridge.
“How did you get away from him?”
Jude worried on his bottom lip. Saying it meant admitting everything. But he’d come this far.
“I ran,” he said. “The flat was raided by police. They arrested him. Didn’t even know I was there. I used the chaos to jump out the window, stole the car, drove. I’d been researching refuges at the library, the only place he ever let me go alone, in the stupid, futile hope I might one day find the courage to leave. So I went to one.”
He gave a short, humourless laugh. “First one rejected me. Said they couldn’t take men. I understood, but… it still hurt. One of the workers gave me shoes, because I’d fled barefoot, and told me about another place. I walked two hours to Haven House,leaving the car behind in case any comeback on it. There, they gave me a room. A second chance.”
Jude’s voice thinned and he shook. “I spent a year getting myself together while Callum’s case went through court. He got eight years. Irene, the warden there, said if I’d come forward, he might’ve got more. For… domestic abuse. Kidnapping. Entrapment. But I couldn’t. I just wanted him gone.”
He swallowed hard. “With him gone, I could finally get back to me. And I did. Got a job at a café. Became a decent barista. Irene pushed me to go back to college. Then to train as a teacher. She helped me all the way to the job in Worthbridge. The cottage. Everything.” Jude pressed his palms to his eyes, voice breaking. “And now it’s all going to be taken from me.”
Warren stepped closer. “You didn’t deserve any of that.”
Jude’s throat closed. He still couldn’t believe that. Because in his head, he had. For being passive. Compliant.Afraid. But Warren took another step and Jude could’ve stopped him. Should’ve. But he didn’t. Because his body was tired of holding the door closed. Because a part of him wanted to let Warren in. To trust him. To believe he might still be worth saving.
“The things he knows about me…The photos he has…” Jude dropped his gaze to the floor. “…it’ll wreck everything I’ve built.Everything.”
Warren crouched, bringing himself level, rubbing his thumb along Jude’s jaw. “We’ll sort it. I swear to you.”
Jude shook his head, bitterness pulling at his mouth. “No. We can’t.”
“Trust me.” Warren cupped his chin. Big, rough, yet unbearably gentle. And the contradiction stole a whimper from Jude’s throat. “I know what I’m asking. I know every time you trusted someone, they broke you. But I’m not him. You can trust me.”
“Trust is risky.”
Warren’s gaze didn’t waver, though something simmered in it. “Maybe some risks are worth it. MaybeI’mworth it.”
Jude searched his face, desperate for certainty, but what he saw made his stomach twist. Warren meant it, he could tell. But there was something else there too. Something he wasn’t saying. Locked tight behind his eyes.
“Who are you?” The question broke free before he could stop it.
Warren looked away, just for a heartbeat, and that was answer enough. He wouldn’t tell him. Couldn’t.
When his eyes came back, he offered only his hand. “Let me show you.”
