Page 159 of Sins of the Hidden

"He doesn't deserve her forgiveness." I hugged my knees tighter against my chest. On screen, the male lead knelt, begging the heroine to take him back after dating her on a bet. His face crumpled with practiced remorse that never touched his eyes.

Mom's weight shifted beside me, the couch cushions dipping. Blue light from the television washed across her face, catching in the silver strands threading through her chestnut hair. She reached for the remote, freezing the man mid-plea. "Forgiveness isn't always about whether someone deserves it. Sometimes it's about what keeping that poison does to you."

I curled tighter into the corner of the couch, Mom's lavender perfume sinking into my throat, heavy and suffocating—an overdose of childhood comfort. My tongue felt thick, weighed by everything I couldn't say about V. The drugging. The wedding. The basement with its crematorium gaping open like hell's mouth.

"How can you forgive someone like that?" The question burned up my throat, carrying fragments of memory I couldn't shake—waking with that ring seared onto my flesh.

Something fractured in Mom's expression—a splinter of glass beneath her skin, revealing an abyss of old wounds I'd never been allowed to see. Her eyes hardened with a coldness that felt foreign on her face, transforming her into someone I barely recognized.

"The hardest lesson I ever learned was that holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." Her fingers found mine. The television light caught in her eyes, turning them to wet glass as she tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "You can't always stop the pain. But you choose what it turns you into."

I leaned into her touch, craving a comfort I'd outgrown but needed desperately. For a moment, I was six again—small and hurting, believing Mom's hands could heal anything. But childhood remedies couldn't touch the bruises V had left beneath my skin.

"How do you always know the right thing to say?"

Mom's throat bobbed with a swallow that looked painful. Her smile thinned. "Because I'm living with a sin I should've confessed long ago."

"Wha—"

Tires crunched on the gravel outside, the sound slicing through the moment. Headlights swept across the living room in harsh white bands. Mom jumped up, moving toward the window. Unease trickled through my nerves. "They weren't supposed to be back until morning."

A car door slammed. Voices filtered through—my father's tense commands and another that drawled with casual disregard. Then silence, heavy as a held breath. Boots scrapedagainst concrete. Mom yanked open the door before they could knock, her body going rigid. "What happened?"

My lungs seized, air turning solid in my chest.

V hung suspended between Dad and someone else, yet even injured, his massive frame seemed to resist their support—muscles taut and straining against unwanted help. Bandages wrapped his torso beneath his ripped shirt, the copper stench of dried blood still clinging to him, hitting my nostrils and curling on my tongue. His head lifted, black hair falling haphazardly across his face. "Oh my God..."

"Jesus Christ, I ain't your damn crutch," a familiar voice muttered, shouldering more of V's weight as they struggled through the doorway. "Next time get yourself stabbed somewhere with an elevator."

V wrenched away from their support, a snarl tearing through clenched teeth as he tried to stand alone. His legs buckled, but even as he faltered, one hand shot out to steady himself against the wall rather than accept their help again.

The second man stepped into the entryway light, and recognition cut through my shock. "C-Chet?"

"Heya, sweetheart." His smile was tight, nothing like his usual easy grin. Dried blood stained his shirt in dark patches, evidence of what they'd been through. Chet's eyes darted to V, then back to me, something unreadable flickering in their depths before he turned away to wash his hands in the sink.

I stepped forward, drawn by something I couldn't name. V's eyes locked onto me instantly, eyes foggy like the night he drugged himself. Even wounded, his attention felt like hands on my skin. I reached out without thinking, fingers pressing against his bandaged chest.

He didn't flinch. Didn't react to pain at all. But his breathing changed—a sharp inhale that had nothing to do with his injuries and everything to do with my touch.

"What were you thinking?" My voice cracked, anger and fear and something darker tangling in my chest. "You could have—" The words died as my fingertips pressed against the thick bandages. He was patched up but still damaged beneath. The thought sent my mind spinning. He could be hurt. He could die.

"Can't feel it." His words slurred at the edges, consonants blunted. "'M fine."

"You're not fine." I wanted to scream it, but the words came out broken.

"He'll live." Dad wiped his hands on a kitchen towel, leaving crimson ghosts on the fabric. His eyes never left V, something unnerving in their intensity. "Hex and Nyla patched him up."

"And pumped him full of antibiotics and sleep meds," Chet added, tapping orange prescription bottles before setting them on the counter with a hard click. "He fought the meds. Took twice the normal dose to slow him down." Of course he did.

"Never thought I'd be hauling around the boogeyman with a hole in his side," Chet muttered, rolling his shoulders with a wince. He glanced at V, something like grudging respect crossing his features. "Most men would've been crying for their mothers with those injuries."

"W-What happened?" The question slipped out, though I knew I'd get lies in return.

"We can't tell ya, sweetheart." Dad's shoulders bunched tight beneath his cut. He kept looking at V, then away, jaw working beneath his skin like he was grinding his teeth to powder. Dad cleared his throat, gaze settling on me. "I'll check on him in the morning."

The lack of venom struck me hard—where was the usual disgust? The snide comments about V being unfit to breathe the same air as me? Instead, his voice carried an edge of... respect?

"You should stay here," Mom interjected, stepping forward with a washcloth in hand, already moving to clean blood from V's face. "We can make up the guest?—"

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