Page 44 of Bennett (HC Heroes #15)

He didn’t smile. He just leaned in and kissed her slow and steady, because it was the only thing in the world that made sense. Her hands slid into his hair, and he deepened the kiss without hesitation, pouring everything he couldn’t say into the press of his mouth against hers.

He’d fallen for her. Hard.

But after everything she’d been through today, Bennett decided to keep that to himself for now. There’d be time to say it, to lay everything out in the open. Because, yeah, he knew he wasn’t alone in this.

Right now, he was more than content to hold her, to kiss her, to show her exactly what she meant to him.

She didn’t shy away. She met him there completely.

And just like that, the storm in his chest finally quieted.

When he broke the kiss, he let the moment hold for as long as it could, his hands still wrapped around her, his forehead resting against hers, her breath steady and warm against his skin.

A knock at the door broke the silence.

Laurel stilled, the faintest hitch in her breath betraying she’d been waiting for it. She looked at him, and before he could ask, she answered with a whisper. “Don’t hate me. I asked Rylee.”

He leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing. “Asked her for what?”

“To bring him up.” Her voice was even, but there was something raw in it.

The air instantly thickened, heavy with everything Bennett didn’t want to feel right now.

Shit.

Theo.

He knew it was his cousin without her confirmation.

Bennett flexed his jaw, tension riding up the back of his neck. The man had saved Laurel, yeah, but that didn’t undo everything.

He inhaled slowly and deliberately and nodded once. If she wanted this—if she needed it—he’d see it through. He’d do it for her.

Laurel slid off the couch and padded to the door, the blanket still wrapped loosely around her shoulders like armor. She opened it quietly.

Theo stood in the hallway. No jacket. No swagger. Just the same haunted gaze Bennett had noticed downstairs.

He looked…tired. Like whatever fight he’d been running on was running out.

“Hey,” Laurel said gently.

Theo shifted his weight, glanced between her and the room behind her. “You sure?”

She didn’t hesitate, just stepped back and opened the door wider. “Come in.”

Theo crossed the threshold with quiet steps.

Bennett didn’t rise, didn’t speak. But his gaze followed every move. Calculating. Controlled. The soldier in him wide awake.

You saved her. Fine , he said in his mind. But that doesn’t mean you’ve earned a damn thing from me.

Not yet. If ever.

Theo took two steps inside and stopped, his hands loose at his sides, his posture wary but not defensive.

Bennett didn’t move from the couch.

Didn’t need to.

The air in the apartment was thick enough to cut with a blade, and every second stretched like barbed wire between them.

Laurel closed the door gently, then lingered for a breath. “Thank you for helping me today,” she said, before releasing the blanket to hug the man.

After a beat, his cousin slid his arms around her and patted her back. “Glad I was near.”

“Me, too.” She laughed, sincerity and a bit of hysterical tension bleeding through the sound.

She hadn’t quite come down from the adrenaline yet. Bennett clenched his jaw, hating that she had been put through such an ordeal. Hating that he hadn’t been able to protect her from it.

Hating that he’d failed her.

Theo drew back from the embrace, bent to pick up the blanket, and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said, wrapping it around her shoulders again before walking back toward the center of the room. She didn’t look nervous. She didn’t even look uncertain.

She just looked steady.

And that, somehow, cut deeper than anything else.

She stopped between them, her gaze moving from one man to the other before settling on Bennett.

“You don’t have to talk,” she said softly, her voice clear but calm. “Not if you’re not ready. But I need you to know…I didn’t ask him here for answers. I asked him here because I didn’t want this moment to pass without a choice.”

Bennett’s brows drew together.

Laurel turned to Theo, then back to him. “You both carry something heavy, and maybe this isn’t the time to unpack it, but I wanted you to see that you’re not the only one still standing in the wreckage.”

Bennett looked at her then, not just at her, but through her words, and what he saw wasn’t pressure. Wasn’t expectation.

It was grace.

She wasn’t asking him to forgive Theo.

She was reminding him he could…if he wanted to.

He glanced at Theo. Bennett’s parents had taken him in after his parents had died in a fire when he was nine. They were raised more like brothers than cousins. That’s why his betrayal cut so damn deeply.

The man hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken. Just stood there taking it like he knew he had no right to ask for a damn thing.

The silence pressed harder.

Finally, Bennett leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees.

His voice was low, rough. “Say what you came to say.”

The room stayed quiet a beat too long.

Theo looked like he might speak, then didn’t. His jaw tightened. His shoulders rose just slightly, like he was gearing up for a blow that hadn’t landed yet.

Bennett didn’t let him off the hook.

“Say it,” he repeated, his voice harder now. “You came all this way, so say what you came to say.”

Theo nodded once, slowly, and dropped his gaze to the floor like he needed to gather whatever was left of himself.

Then, finally, he spoke.

“I didn’t come here for redemption,” he said, his voice raw, honest. “I came to own what I ran from.”

His eyes met Bennett’s gaze. There was no fight in them, just regret. Deep and bone-level.

Despite his anger, a little pang of pity flickered through Bennett.

“I should’ve told you everything a long time ago. About the money. About your dad. About my kid.”

Kid?

That word punched something sharp through Bennett’s chest.

Theo didn’t stop. “I didn’t plan it that way.

I was nineteen. Scared. Stupid. And when the whole damn thing started crumbling, your dad told me to let him fix it.

I didn’t want him to, but I didn’t stop him either.

” He shifted, restless, his voice quieter now.

“By the time I realized what I’d let happen, it was too late. ”

Bennett didn’t speak.

Didn’t move.

Just kept his gaze on Theo, heart thudding like it had a countdown wired to it.

“You deserved better,” Theo said finally. “So did he.” His voice cracked. “I can’t undo any of it. But I couldn’t live one more year without looking you in the eye and saying it.”

Another beat of silence.

“I’m sorry, Bennett. For everything.”

The apology hung in the air like smoke…visible, suffocating, and impossible to ignore.

Bennett stared at the man across the room. The same blood ran through their veins, but in this moment, Theo felt like a stranger wearing a familiar name.

You deserved better.

So did he.

The words echoed, sharp and late. Too many damn years too late.

He leaned back slowly, dragging in a breath. His hands were curled tightly between his knees, the pressure grounding him, but barely.

“I spent a long time trying to make sense of it,” he said. “My dad. The charges. The way he just accepted it.”

Theo didn’t interrupt.

Bennett’s gaze didn’t leave him. “I flew home in uniform, thinking maybe someone had made a mistake. That I’d find some clue, some missing piece that explained why the man I looked up to was suddenly behind bars for taking money from the local agriculture society account. Money that didn’t belong to him.”

His throat burned. He let it.

Laurel sat on a stool by the kitchen island, blanket still wrapped around her, but her gaze never left his. It was full of warmth, sadness, and pain, but also strength. She had his six, no matter what.

This gave him the courage to continue. “But he wouldn’t talk. Wouldn’t give me anything. Just told me it was his decision and that it was for the best.” He laughed with a sharp, bitter breath. “I thought Dad was trying to protect me from something. I never realized he was protecting you.”

Theo flinched.

Good.

“You disappeared. No word. No trace. Not a damn thing.” He rose from the couch then, quiet, measured, but full of a storm that had been building for years.

“I grieved my father while he was still breathing, Theo. He died before I ever got answers. And now you’re standing here, what—looking for peace?

” His voice didn’t rise, but it didn’t need to.

Every word cut clean. “I don’t know what you’re looking for.

But you don’t get to walk in and unload it like it’s a debt paid. ”

Theo’s mouth parted slightly, as if he might argue, but Bennett shook his head.

“I’m not saying this for you,” he said. “I’m saying it because I need to. Because this—” he waved his hand between them “—this has lived inside me a long time. And I’m done letting it take up space.”

He turned away from Theo, not in surrender, just to step toward the woman anchoring him in the now.

But then he frowned and turned back as he remembered his cousin’s earlier words. “You mentioned a kid.”

Theo’s chin lifted and shoulders straightened. “My daughter. She was born five months after everything blew up.”

Bennett’s breath locked. Betrayal, anger, sorrow, they all combined to form a hell of a sucker punch to his gut. His father went to prison for Theo. Theo disappeared. Theo had a kid.

It explained a few things. Hell, it explained a lot.

Bennett stared at his cousin, his pulse pounding like a war drum in his ears.

“You had a kid on the way,” he said, his voice flat but razor-edged. “That’s why he did it. That’s why my father took the fall.”

Theo’s throat worked around the words. “I didn’t know he went to prison,” he said, his voice tight. “Not at first. Not until after she was born.”

Bennett frowned. “What are you talking about?”