Page 116 of Sins of the Hidden

I yanked open the passenger door of Law's fancy car, the hinges protesting with a metallic groan. My bat went in first, then I folded my frame into the cramped space, knees nearly touching the glove compartment. The leather seat creaked under my weight as I settled in, pulling the door shut with more force than necessary.

He backed out of the driveway and onto the road. I tapped my bat on the dash, filling the quiet as I stared out the window, mind never straying far from Oakley.

"Would you stop that?"

I tapped faster. "No."

"Should've just let you use your bike and get shot. Annoying shit."

He didn't know how annoying I could be, but we had other matters to discuss. "You're avoiding her."

"My daughter got married without me. Since she was a little girl, she always said'Daddy, I can't wait for you to walk me down the aisle'and I got fucking blindsided." His grip on the wheel turned iron-hard, veins mapping across his skin. "Was busy with a case for a few days, then came back to my fucking world being married to you."

He paused before "Oakley wasn't supposed to know about the MC. Keeping her safe was my only job, and now she's married to the exact thing she fears most." Law blamed me as if I hadn't done everything to keep her safe—as if I wasn't still protecting her, even from herself. "And you expect me to be okay with it?"

"Yes."

"You're a fucking psycho." The words escaped through clenched teeth, venom in each syllable. "She doesn't look happy with you."

My tapping stopped, itching to tap it right into his fucking face. "She is."

Law's eyes cut sharply toward me, his mouth flattening into a hard line. "I've defended killers who looked at their victims' photos the way you look at Oakley."

He would never understand what Oakley and I had. "That fucking ring. Where'd you get it?"

Looking out the window, watching as street lights blurred past, creating streaks of gold against the dimming sky. "Mother."

Law snorted, disbelief evident in every line of his face. "Your Mother gave you that ring?"

It was a day she was delusional with her heart eyes, floating on whatever high she'd chased that week. Whoever she had been seeing at the time had just upgraded the rose gold band with a sparkling diamond to a gold band with a three-set diamond, each stone catching light like trapped stars.

All it cost her was a black eye and a busted lip, purple bruises blooming across her skin like deadly flowers. She put it on the table, and the temptation to take it was irresistible.

I'd always liked pretty things.

Law stared ahead, jaw working like he was chewing on words he didn't want to say. The quiet stretched until he finally broke.

"You know why it's hard to look at her right now?" Law asked, voice suddenly rough. "She reminds me too much of how she looked when Anne died."

Anne.

Summer Anne. The name of our bakery–the name of our future child.

Law wasn't looking at me. His eyes stayed fixed on the road, seeing something else entirely—ghosts of the past dancing just out of reach. "Anne was her best friend since they were born. They did everything together." His voice caught, strugglingwith each word. "Used to bake those little cupcakes with the sprinkles. Anne called them happy bombs."

I didn't say anything. I just watched his face crumble as the words tumbled out, each one heavier than the last.

"Oakley wasn't always shy," he began, voice distant in memory. "She was a prankster, believe it or not. Putting her stuffed animals everywhere, food coloring in milk, cute shit like that. Then one day four years ago…" His knuckles tightened on the steering wheel. "She came home with this... look."

I looked at him from the corner of my eye, willing him to continue but making a mental promise that his words might not make me kill us both.

"Then two weeks later Anne was just... gone." Law's voice dropped low "Oakley was the one who found her. It was the first time I couldn't fix something," Law admitted. "She used to call me for everything. Skinned knee, broken toy. And suddenly she didn't need me anymore. Wouldn't let me in. Wouldn't letanyonein."

I remembered how Oakley had folded into herself after our fight. How the light had left her eyes, replaced by a dullness. I'd seen it before—the way she vanished while standing right in front of me, present but not there.

"She stopped baking," Law continued, almost to himself, lost in memories I couldn't share. "Almost a year. Kitchen just... empty." He swallowed hard. "Then one day, the house smelled like vanilla. She didn't say why. Just made these cupcakes—Anne's recipe. Wouldn't eat a single one. Just left them on Anne's parents' porch."

My mind flickered to the way Oakley measured ingredients, so precise it bordered on obsession. How she lost herself in her craft, finding peace.

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