Page 14 of Hardline Torque
Hated that some reckless, traitorous part of him hoped he’d never have to find out whether he could actually do it.
Chapter Three
Victor was silent besidehim.
Not the guarded silence of a man watching angles or counting exits—Tane had learned the difference fast—but the heavier kind.The kind that sat behind the eyes and dragged old ghosts up by the throat.
Tane kept his attention on the road, one hand loose on the wheel, the other resting against his thigh, but he didn’t need to look to know what was happening inside the cab.He could feel it.Victor’s thoughts ran hot and sharp, circling the same ground again and again.
Trust.
Or the lack of it.
Tane exhaled slowly.If he left Victor alone with that spiral, it would only tighten.Men like Victor didn’t unravel loudly.They calcified.
“You ever heard the sound of rain on a tin roof at night?”Tane asked casually.
Victor shifted, clearly startled by the non sequitur.“Can’t say I have.”
Tane smiled faintly.“Figures.”
He waited a beat, then continued, voice steady.“The orphanage I grew up in had one.It was a really old place and the roof was rusted through in spots, but when it rained, you could hear every drop like it was trying to beat its way inside your skull.”
Victor didn’t interrupt.
“The first night I noticed it was a few days after my grandmother died,” Tane said.The words still sat heavy, even now.“I was new to the orphanage.Angry.So, fucking angry that the world had taken my nana.I was skinny as hell despite eating like I had some kind of tape worm.”
Victor glanced at him, disbelief flickering across his face.
Tane laughed under his breath.“No, really.When I was just a kid, I was a scrawny little bastard.”
He shifted gears smoothly and let the memory come.
“The others were already there.Kael.Niko.Luka.Keanu.Kai, too—Kael’s blood brother.He doesn’t live with us anymore.He’s married to a Pathfinder, a good guy called Hogan, the live a mainland life.”
The corner of Victor’s mouth twitched.
