Page 14 of Faded Rhythm

Sable

The screen glows faintly in the dim light of the hotel room as we stare at the folder tree on King’s screen. His fingers move with practiced precision, opening one file after another, each one prompting a password request.

It was the file named RC that got my attention.

Redd Clay?

“Everything’s encrypted,” he says flatly.

I lean closer to the screen and squint like that will help me understand what I’m looking at. “How do we get past the encryption?”

He exhales slowly. “I know a guy.”

I lift an eyebrow, turning my head to look at him. “Do you have a guy for everything?”

He doesn’t answer.

My voice is sharper than I mean it to be, and extra bitter. “Of course you do. But you won’t answer, because that was a question, and those are forbidden. Please forgive me, your highness.”

It’s immature, but he doesn’t flinch at my sarcasm. He doesn’t even make a face. He just clicks another folder and watches it deny him access.

“Might take a day or two,” he says. “That’s if he agrees to do me the favor.”

“And in the meantime?” I cross my arms, accidentally elbowing him in the process. “So we just sit here and give Brett a chance to get my daughters? Or pull Ebony into all this?”

King doesn’t answer right away. He leans back slightly, which moves my elbow out of his way. He stares at the cursor, which blinks like a warning.

“Are there any records at the house? Documents, files, anything we can use?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Probably. I’ve never gone through his office. I don’t know what he keeps in there.”

“We need to go through it. There’s gotta be something there.”

“But…I don’t wanna go back to that house,” I murmur.

“We don’t have a choice,” he says, and it sounds like he’s tempering the aggression in his voice. “You’re safe, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He finally turns his head to look at me. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The silence that follows is thick, but not heavy. Just…charged.

Then he asks, “Why’d you leave your daughters’ doors unlocked last night?”

I stiffen immediately, shame washing over me like a wave. I close my eyes. My stomach rumbles.

“Do you think I’m a bad mother?”

He answers without hesitation. “I think you’re a great mother.”

The words hit me hard. I open my eyes to see if he means that, but his eyes are locked on his screen again as if it’s easier for him not to meet my gaze.

“I just wonder,” he continues, “why…why you trusted me. With them.”

I lower my head, staring at my hands clasped together in my lap.

“It’s kind of embarrassing to admit this, honestly.

I don’t really know how to explain it. I guess I just…

I felt like we were safe with you. Something in me knew you wouldn’t hurt them.

Or me.” I shake my head. “It sounds so stupid. I feel stupid.”

He’s quiet again, but I feel his gaze settle on my face, his stare pointed and sharp, like he’s reading through layers of me that I don’t even understand myself.

“I wasn’t thinking straight,” I say quickly. “I’m usually on top of everything related to them. I just…I just knew.”

He studies me for a moment, then he says it. It’s so quiet I almost miss it.

“I never had a mother.”

The words make my breath hitch.

“I grew up in group homes,” he continues, his eyes staring at something on the screen.

“I joined the military the second I turned eighteen so I could get the hell out of there. Be free.” He shrugs.

“I needed to be around people who gave a fuck about me, even if the only reason was because we were all trying not to die together.”

My voice is small when it comes out. “What was it like?”

Minutes tick by. The screensaver takes the place of the file explorer. A beach and beautiful sunset stare back at us.

“Boys’ homes are hell on earth,” he finally says.

His voice sounds different. Distant. “Nobody cares if you get hurt. Nobody stops the bigger boys from terrorizing the small ones. It’s part of the experience, it seems. You either learn to fight, or you suffer.

” He pauses to take a deep breath. “I learned to fight.”

I sit there quietly, letting his words settle. I don’t know what to say to that. I know how I feel, but there’s no point in expressing it. I don’t know this man. He’s a stranger. I shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t hurt me to listen to this.

But it does.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” is what comes out.

He shrugs again, stiff and defensive. “I’m only telling you that so you’ll understand there are way worse mothers out there.

Some mothers leave and don’t come back. Some pretend you were never born.

You made a mistake in a stressful situation.

That’s human. That’s forgivable. Abandoning your fucking child is not. ”

Something swells inside me. It’s raw and it aches and it makes me feel good. He didn’t tell me that for sympathy; he told me to pull me out of my shame. To soften the knife I’d been twisting into myself.

I glance at him. His eyes still haven’t left the screen. His fingers hover over the keyboard, then he presses a button, awakening the screen again.

My eyes drop to where our thighs are touching.

His body heat radiates through the fabric of his sweatpants.

Then I trace his profile with my gaze, flickering over his sharp jaw, his high cheekbones, the little scar just below his bottom lip.

Everything about him is solid and masculine and strong.

He’s beautiful in an untouchable way, like something that will shatter into a million pieces if you aren’t careful.

But I think I understand. He’s just locked up tight, welded shut by years of pain and the need to survive.

It’s a pain I’ve never known, but I have to think I’d be just as reticent to let someone in if I’d gone through what he had.

I don’t say another word. I don’t ask another question, even though there are several swirling in my mind right now. I wanna push, but I don’t.

Instead, I lean over and press my lips gently to his cheek.

The skin is warm and stubbled, but also, alive. It’s a brief kiss, but I feel it tremble through both of us.

Then I stand, because I don’t trust myself to linger.

I move back to the bed and settle on the edge, watching his back. His shoulders are frozen. His fingers hover over the keys, unmoving. It’s like his whole body is locked up while his brain processes what just happened.

My eyes burn as I stare at him. Something about this moment hurts.

It’s not just his voice that’s robotic. Emotionally, he’s stilted.

Right now, he’s on a delay, struggling to figure out how to feel what I did, and I feel like I’m grieving for the child he once was and the man who’s two feet away, the man who had to become this in order to survive another day.

I don’t know how you reach a man like him. If it’s even possible.

I blink hard and a tear spills over. I wipe it quickly and remind myself it’s not my burden to bear.