Page 123 of Sins of the Hidden

He didn't follow. Didn't call. Didn't move.

For the first time since I'd known him, V let me leave without his shadow stretched across my path.

Daphne was at the dining room table pouring our tea as usual, amber liquid steaming as it arced from pot to cup. She looked over at me and smiled, teeth perfectly straight and white against her burgundy lipstick. Looking immaculate as she always did, not a hair out of place, clothes pressed crisp enough to cut. "There's my favorite girl." She must've seen how dejected I was as she put the teapot down, the porcelain making a delicate clink against the saucer. "What's wrong?"

Shoulders slumped, gravity suddenly stronger than it had been moments before. I moved to the table, placing the platter of cookies down, the scent of vanilla and butter rising from beneath the plastic wrap, sickeningly sweet. She moved tea across to my usual seat, and I dropped down. My body felt heavy, full of pain. Daphne's tea sat untouched, a mocking reminder that trust was another casualty of my marriage. The steam curled like ghostly fingers, beckoning me toward a poison I couldn't prove.

"That's a gorgeous ring," Daphne said, her eyes catching the diamond as it sent prisms dancing across the tablecloth, beautiful and cold as the man who gave it to me. "When did you get engaged?"

The truth was on the tip of my tongue, bitter as unripe fruit, but the consequences that came with the truth overruled it, swallowing the words back down where they burned in my chest. “Married.”

"You’re married!"

"We eloped."

"Is this your…friendyou told me about?" Her eyes seemed to haze over, like in the cartoons when a love potion is sprayed, and they get big love eyes, pupils dilating with romantic fantasy. She placed her elbows on the table, her chin rested on her hands as she swooned at me. "What's the lucky guy's name?"

"V."

Daphne's face scrunched, fine lines appearing between her perfectly groomed brows. "Odd name."

I knew it was a moniker for the club, but I had no idea what his legal name actually was. "Yeah I know, but it suits him." She swayed again as she took a long breath in through her nose, shaking her head, the shake rolled down her entire body like a wave.

"Tell me about him."

"He's..." my mouth started before my brain had decided the answer, tongue moving independently of thought. "Different."

A smile twinged her lips, glossy and perfect. "What made you fall for him?" She took a sip of her tea, waiting, the porcelain cup clinking softly against her teeth.

Fall for him? I didn't fall. I slipped and was dragged, my heels carving desperate trenches in the earth. "He was..." I paused, searching for the lie, tongue heavy in my mouth. "Persistent."

"He sounds so loyal," Daphne sighed, a dreamy quality to her voice that grated against my nerves like nails on a chalkboard.

My stomach twisted. Loyal was just another pretty word for possessive. V's loyalty was a steel snare around my throat, tightening with every breath I dared take without him.

She looked high on drugs as the words left me, cheeks flushed and eyes bright with borrowed romance. "He's a man after my own heart." She swooned just like I did at the time; now it was a painful memory, a mockery of the girl I used to be. "I want to meet him."

"I'll talk to him about it." That was the smoothest lie I ever told, rolling off my tongue without a hitch. I looked at the clock, seeing it was past six o’clock. "Where's Chet?"

Daphne shrugged, fabric rustling softly with the movement. "I think he had a date."

I froze. "D-Date?"

She laughed sheepishly, "Did I forget to mention we had an open relationship?"

Yes, she had. "You're okay with him being with other women?"

She shrugged. "It works for us. I sleep around too." She took a sip of her drink, giving me a wink. "We've got rules, of course. Nobody at home. No close friends. Don't ask, don't tell. Just get tested regularly."

It wasn't jealousy or judgment I felt, just bitter envy for a freedom I'd never be allowed. She spoke of it so casually, unaware of the cage around my finger and the walls closing in tighter every day. “You don’t get… jealous?”

"Chet and I aren't dating to marry, we're dating to fill the lonely gaps." She shook her head. "Sometimes that's all a person needs."

I remembered the time before the Souls came into our lives. It was just Nyla and I in our apartment, Joslyn coming over occasionally for girls’ night. Weekly dinners at my parent’s house. I loved my best friends, but they had their own lives away from home. My life revolved around baking at home and online classes, except for once a week.

I was alone, the feeling suffocating me more when they met Mitchell and Sarge.

"You and your hubby ever thought about opening up the marriage?"

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