Page 193 of Safe Word

That impossible, unmistakable tension of being watched.

I lifted my chin.

Across the narrow courtyard, beyond the ironwork fencing, a figure stood in the dark.

Unmoving. It bled into the night – only the faintest outline of broad shoulders and a stillness that seemingly didn’t belong to anyone human.

There wasn’t a single motion on him until the cigarette lifted to his mouth. A drag. A pause.

And then—

The orange glow flared to life, casting a brief but damning halo across his features.

That mouth. That scar above his brow.

The eyes…

Travis.

THIRTY-FOUR

I stumbled back from the railing, heart slamming hard and fast as if it wanted out. My heels beat the stone as my hand caught the doorframe in a rush.

He was here.

The image of him, standing there and watching, crawled under my skin like a parasite.

I shoved the terrace door open and slipped inside in a whisper of panic, plastering a smile over the tremble in my jaw. My pulse was a drumbeat in my throat. Each step back to the table felt wrong – too slow, too loud, as if I were moving through water.

And horribly familiar.

Cain looked up before I even reached him; eyes narrowing the moment they caught mine.

Sliding into the chair beside him, I tried to move as if I hadn’t just sprinted from the devil himself. My fingers curled around the napkin in my lap, clenching the soft fabric as though it might tether me to something solid. Something real.

Vinnie glanced over, catching the movements, but his mind was still lost somewhere else – eyes shadowed, jaw clenched, the unrest behind his demeanour still bleeding.

Then Cain’s fingers brushed my knee under the table, squeezing a question.

I flinched sharply.

His hand paused.

When I looked at him, his gaze was fixed on mine – brows drawn, eyes narrowing with that dark knowing. As if he’d recognised something on my face.

He would. There was no hiding it from him. He knew trauma the way I did – by habit and scar.

The panic was in full throttle, still pulsing wild and hot beneath my skin.

He leaned in, lips grazing the shell of my ear. ‘You look pale.’

‘Travis is outside.’ It cracked out of me. I could barely breathe.

The room was closing in on me.

His whole body went rigid, tension knotting along his frame, coiled like a drawn wire.

I caught it then – the tremor in his shoulders, the twitch in his thigh, that second before he almost pushed back his chair. I clamped my hand to his knee, pressing hard.