Page 209 of Sins of the Hidden

"We'll have Summer another way." His thumb traced the veins in my wrist. “IVF. Adoption."

He said it like a fact, like death and taxes. But then his hand rose—hesitated, just once—before resting on my stomach like it meant something. Fresh tears spilled down my cheeks, but something else bloomed beneath them—relief, fragile and hesitant. A crack in the wall of shame and inadequacy I'd been building around myself for years.

What if he's only saying this because I cried? Because I shattered first?

The doubt slithered in, poisoning the moment. Was this pity disguised as acceptance? Would he have stayed if I'd told him with composure, standing tall instead of breaking apart? Or did he need to see me weak to feel needed?

"Y-You'd consider other options?"

His hand dropped to the sign between us, finger tracing the empty space where he’d pictured Summer’s handprint going.

He stepped closer, erasing the space between us, his presence consuming everything else. The scent of paint and sawdust mingled with something uniquely him—a scent I'd once feared and now found oddly comforting.

I pressed my forehead against his chest, feeling his steady heartbeat beneath my face—unchanging, unwavering. Fresh tears soaked into his shirt as something inside me unraveled. Relief and gratitude and a strange sort of wonder that this man—this killer, this protector—could accept what I'd been taught made me less.

"Y-You're not disappointed?" I asked, voice muffled against him, needing to hear it again.

His hand moved to the back of my neck, fingers threading through my hair. "Your body doesn't define your worth to me."

In his arms, I felt the weight of his promise—not emotional, but binding all the same. The man who had once dragged me to Hellbound's basement now held me with a possessiveness that felt like safety. I remembered the cold brick against my spine, the crematorium's heat on my face, the terror of being trapped with him in that room of death. How strange that those same hands now held me like something precious. V didn't offer comfort through warmth or sentiment, but through the cold certainty of his will.

"You're what I want, Oakley," he repeated, voice deep and final. "Everything else can be arranged."

He'd raze the world to build a child out of ash and blueprint if I asked him to. That was the kind of love he offered.

The ruthless practicality of it made me laugh softly through my tears—this was so utterly him. No flowery speeches about how it didn't matter, no emotional reassurances. Just the absolute certainty that what couldn't be taken one way would be taken another. The world existed to be bent to his will.

My legs shook beneath me, years of hiding and grieving finally leaving my body. I'd rehearsed every version of this ending: the silence, the distance, the way he'd look at me like I'd betrayed him. But I'd never prepared for this—acceptance that burned worse than rejection ever could.

The weight of my secret lifted, leaving me hollow and exhausted. An emptiness spread through me, as if the grief had been holding me together all this time. Like a lifetime of hurt was suddenly released, leaving nothing behind but hollow space where something vital had lived. Without it, I felt paper-thin, translucent, barely present.

If I wasn't going to be a mother, I wasn't sure who I was. I was built for this. That was what they all said—hips made for children, arms made to hold. So what was I now? A blueprint for something that never existed? Maybe I wasn’tt grieving a child. Maybe I was grieving the woman I thought I'd be.

Not a daughter. Not a wife. Just a memory of someone who thought she'd be more.

"What if I'm not enough for you?" The question emerged from a place I'd never allowed myself to voice before.

What if he was wrong? What if Summer never came?

The doubt clung to me even as his arms held me steady. My grief wasn't cured. It just had company now. And I knew with cold certainty that even if Summer did arrive one day—through IVF or adoption or whatever ruthless solution V engineered—this ghost would always haunt us. This moment would stand between us, a shadow across every family photo.

Even if he built me a child from blueprints and devotion, I didn't know if I'd ever stop hating the part of me that couldn't give them to him.

"If I proposed to you," he said, his voice lower than usual, "what would you say?"

I laughed softly before reminding him. "We're already married."

"No." His eyes fixed on mine, unwavering. "Propose to you like your dreams." His hand slid to cradle my face, thumb tracing the curve of my ample cheek. "And have your dream wedding."

The words crashed through me, stealing my breath. Giving me back what he'd taken. Asking instead of forcing. The enormity of it made my chest ache, the contrast between then and now so stark I could barely inhale through it.

V's eyes never left mine. His gaze held the weight of everything he couldn't express, everything he didn't know how to say.

In all the time I'd known him, I'd never seen him so utterly motionless. Not even when he killed. This was a different kind of restraint—calculated not for violence but for patience. For me.

I reached up, tracing the edge of his mask where it met his skin. Behind that mask was the face of the man who had drugged me and forced me to marry him.

And now he was asking. Waiting.

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