Page 105 of Sins of the Hidden

Fingers found the doorknob slowly before he glanced back, just once, a story in his eyes that would break my already shattered heart.

"You're my daughter and I love you," he looked back, eyes glassy. "But I don't know who you are anymore."

My knees didn't buckle. My heart did. The Oakley he raised had died right there on that floor, between the blood and the lies. He closed the door and took my name with him.

I stood there, completely abandoned, as the only man who might've saved me gave up on me.

My hands curled, fingers brushing the stupid ring digging into my skin. It itched like a parasite, and I pulled at it until the skin broke, a thin line of blood appearing around the metal.

I ran to my room, threw the door shut, twisting the useless lock on the doorknob. V would come in here soon, I just needed half a second to collect myself as I lost the battle with my tears.

I listened to the still apartment for V. Half of me was scared about what was conjuring in that demonic brain of his, the other was thankful—if you could call it that—that I had a second by myself to breathe since discovering V's wedding ring on my finger this morning.

Standing before my mirror, my skin prickled with heat, resentment washing through me at the sticky notes glaring back at me. Something I looked to for strength was now something that sparked humiliation in me. I grabbed the first note he left for me, longing for it to mean something again.

But it didn't.

The note ripped in half, then in fourths, then again until the yellow paper was nothing but confetti on the ground. The other notes got the same treatment, I didn't want them mocking me daily. Just like V had ripped up my heart, I ripped up what I made him feel. The paper now resembled my life. Ripped to shreds…because of V. Braving looking in the mirror at the mess I had become overnight.

The red was still smeared across my lips, a grotesque parody of lipstick. My hand shook violently as I smeared the blood across the mirror, obscuring the shattered girl staring back. Thebloody streaks distorted my image, turning me into something unrecognizable. A red smear where a girl used to be.

I don't know who you are anymore.

My long chestnut hair was tangled in ratty knots against my baggy clothes that hung from my plus-sized frame. A sob rattled up my chest. My lips clamped shut—but the sob still escaped. The sound left me as the reality of everything crashed into me. My reflection stared back, a stranger with hollow jade eyes—like my father's.

I twisted the ring on my finger until skin split beneath it—until gold bit through flesh and blood slicked the band. My breath stuttered, sharp and useless, loud in the hollow space where everything else had gone quiet.

Teaching him to feel was a mistake.

I offered him my heart.

He handed it back broken.

Each morning Oakley woke up in my arms, it got harder not to lock her there permanently.

The curve of her shoulder peaked above the sheets, freckles scattering like constellations on pale skin.

Pressing kisses against her delicate shoulder. Her body froze under my touch as she hunched forward, trying to get away from me.

How cute she thought she could.

I tightened my arm around her waist, feeling her ribs expand in distress beneath my fingertips, keeping her firmly against me. Fear fluttered rapidly beneath my hand, like wings beating in panic. She needed something to hold onto. Something constant. I could be that. I would be that. I thought back to the movies we watched and the books of hers I read, thinking of the way the male leads woke their love interests up in the morning. I knew what to do. "I'll go make your breakfast."

She said nothing.

I slid from the bed and pulled on my jeans, padding silently into the slightly renovated kitchen. I glanced back at my wifewho curled up in a ball and quaked under the covers. Her trembling reminded me of a leaf caught in a gentle breeze—delicate, easily crushed, safe within my grasp. The way her body shuddered was beautiful in its vulnerability. Perfect.

She clenched the sheets tighter beneath my gaze. The bedsheets pulled up to her chin, knuckles straining with tension, eyes squeezed shut as if she could disappear through sheer will. Mine.

I fixed her coffee exactly as she liked it—vanilla bean creamer, three sugars—and considered breakfast. Three stirs clockwise, three counter. The perfect shade of caramel—no trace of powder. Just how she liked it. I even added that extra splash of creamer she always requested. Taking care of her needs was my responsibility now.

So I went back into the room to ask her. I set the steaming mug on the coaster before her small voice asked. "Do you really think I'm going to drink anything you make me now?"

That was new. "You always do."

"That's before you drugged me!" She gripped her blanket tighter, fingers twisting anxiously in the blanket's fabric, the band of her wedding ring catching the morning light.

She didn't realize it yet, but soon she'd understand how safe she was here, with me. "I don't want you to be upset."

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