Page 25 of Hardline Torque
Because it mattered.
Because he could lose it.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Victor admitted.
Drew smiled faintly.“Neither did I.I just knew I didn’t want to keep choosing distance.”
Victor stood abruptly.“Thank you.”
Drew clapped his shoulder.“For what it’s worth?If you leave now, you’ll always wonder.If you stay—at least you’ll know.”
Victor didn’t hesitate again.
He turned and headed for the garage, boots crunching softly over gravel.Each step felt deliberate, chosen.Not an escape this time, but an approach.
Tane wasn’t there.
Victor stood in the middle of the garage, surrounded by machines and tools that smelled of oil and metal and human effort.He tried to think like Tane.Where would he go when the anger had nowhere else to land?Training.Movement.Something physical enough to bleed the edge off.
Then he heard it.
The unmistakable thud of fists slamming into a heavy bag.
Victor followed the sound to a door at the back of the garage and pushed it open.
He stopped dead, the sound and sight hitting him together.
Tane stood inside, shirtless, still in tactical pants, hands taped, driving strike after strike into the bag.Sweat slicked his skin, muscles standing out in sharp relief as he moved—powerful, precise, relentless.Tattoos shifted over his shoulders and ribs, stories etched into muscle and motion.
He looked like violence given purpose.
Tane sensed him.
He spun, eyes blazing—then froze.
They stared at each other across the room, sweat and breath and unfinished words hanging thick in the air.The heavy bag swayed slowly, the dull thud of its motion echoing like a heartbeat neither of them could slow yet.
“I’m sorry,” they said at the same time.
The words collided in the space between them, fragile and dangerous and real.
