Emmerdale’s Cain Dingle makes his presence felt on cheating Caleb Miligan but in an unexpected way

Kyle Winchester (Huey Quinn) told Caleb Milligan (William Ash) that he should let Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley) ‘batter’ him in Emmerdale, because that’s what he does before he feels forgiveness.

Oh, how we were all surprised.

Kyle was expecting Cain and Caleb to have a fight following the reveal of Caleb and Tracy’s (Amy Walsh) affair. It was exposed in spectacular fashion yesterday courtesy of Ruby (Beth Cordingly), who decided revealing the secret at Belle (Eden Taylor-Draper) and Tom’s (James Chase) wedding would be a brilliant idea.

Tonight’s (February 16) episode of the ITV soap focused largely on the aftermath of this. Tracy spent most of the day in tears, devastated her actions have now completely destroyed her little family with Nate (Jurell Carter).

Over at the garage, Caleb bravely approached Cain, fully expecting a punch in the face or worse – but it never happened.

Instead, Cain reacted with words. He was obviously incredibly angry at Caleb and couldn’t believe he had committed such a massive betrayal after entering his life and claiming he needed nothing more than to be a part of a loving family.

We know there is some truth in Caleb always wanting to be part of the Dingle clan after growing up in care, but he’s also very good at making mistakes which jeopardise that.

Prepared to walk away from Caleb forever, this new version of Cain left him absolutely destroyed by saying ‘you’re no brother of mine’.

Judging by the fact Ruby spent the end of tonight’s episode comforting Caleb, her plan has worked – but what about the Dingles?

Will they ever welcome Caleb back?

The surprising reaction from Cain came after he admitted a huge secret to Moira (Natalie J Robb) a few weeks ago.

Following a fight with nephew Aaron (Danny Miller), Cain said that the man Moira used to know would have sorted out Aaron Dingle without a problem – presumably rather than ending up the worse for wear after Aaron battered him. Cain said that he wasn’t the man he used to be, and in fact he wasn’t a man at all. He was a joke.

‘The real Cain Dingle is dead,’ he told his wife.

Later, Cain went out for some fresh air and saw Chas and they talked about their current lives and how they didn’t have the best start in life after being brought up by abusive Shadrach Dingle (Andy Devine) and the unreliable Faith (Sally Dexter).

Back at home, Cain opened up to Moira about when things had changed for him. It was the shooting of Al Chapman (Michael Wildman) and the aftermath, when he tried to protect his son Kyle (Huey Quinn) from going to prison after the boy was the one who pulled the trigger.

Cain said this was like a ‘handbrake’ to him and what was left was a ‘weak pathetic man’ he didn’t recognise or like.

What Cain sees as weakness, Moira sees as strength and she pointed out that he’d been willing to go to prison for life to protect Kyle and had made so many sacrifices for his family.

After the way he reacted to Caleb tonight, will Cain come to realise protecting your loved ones doesn’t have to involve physical violence?