Page 23 of Sins of the Hidden

"The night he found out about Nyla..." Victoria's laugh came out hollow, a sound like bones splintering. "He showed up at my door in the rain. Said he needed..." She faltered, trapped somewhere between confession and condemnation. Through the bathroom door, we could hear Joslyn's gentle murmurs mixing with Nyla's quieting sobs. "I knew better. God, I knew better. But with Darrell..." Her fingers pressed against her lips like she could hold back the truth, but it spilled out anyway. "I never could resist him."

Lightning lit the windows, casting harsh light across Victoria's face. Each flash showed a different facet of her pain—the woman behind the club, the lover behind the lies, the heart that had been unraveling, and none of us noticed.

"Jesus, Vic." Faith moved across the room with unusual grace, settling beside Victoria. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Victoria's laugh cracked open. "Tell you what? That I let him in every time he showed up at my door? That I knew better—"She stopped, hands unsteady. "I knew better, but I did it anyway. He never loved me—I was just easy."

"Some men have that effect," Libby said quietly, turning her wedding ring restlessly. "They make you believe this time will be different."

She twisted the silver band. I didn't know much about Libby, only what everyone knew: she'd been married once, until her husband ended his life.

Her gaze settled on Victoria's trembling hands with a quiet understanding. "At least you get to hate him," Libby murmured. Victoria's head snapped up sharply. "At least he's still breathing."

"They never really leave," Victoria said softly. "Not completely."

Everything about Libby—the way she held herself, how she wielded words—revealed a woman who'd turned her tragedy into a weapon sharp enough to survive with.

Victoria reached out, stilling Libby's restless movement. Libby's other hand gently gripped Victoria's arm in silent solidarity, promising she wouldn't carry the burden alone.

"Love doesn't chain them—only us," Libby said quietly.

For a moment, neither of them breathed—two women who'd loved men who chose different paths, different ways of turning love into wreckage. The tempest raged outside like something wounded, while inside, we witnessed something rare: Libby allowing someone to touch the defenses she never let down.

I still felt like the new girl—watching how close Victoria and Libby were. I wondered if there would ever be a moment I didn't feel like an observer. Like I'd belonged here too. My dad was the club's lawyer for over a decade, but I’ve only been around for eight months.

Victoria's hands shivered as she pressed them flat against her thighs, like she could iron out the weakness in her bones. "Ithought..." She swallowed hard, throat working against the truth that tasted like copper. "I thought if I loved him enough, if I just..." Another crack of thunder swallowed her words, but we heard them anyway: if I just loved him better than anyone else had.

"It's okay," Faith whispered, all her usual bravado stripped away to reveal something softer underneath. "We've all loved men who left scars we still lie about."

Through the bathroom door, Nyla's crying had quieted to hiccups with Joslyn’s smoothing hushes. The sound seemed to reach into Victoria, dragging out what she'd kept buried.

"I hate him," she whispered, "I hate him so much I can't breathe with it. But if he walked through that door right now..." Her hands fisted in her lap.

"You'd let him in," I finished softly, understanding too well how someone could become both poison and antidote. My fingers found the hem of my shirt, twisting fabric as I thought of different kinds of possession, of dark eyes behind surgical masks that claimed without asking.

Victoria's head snapped up, violet eyes swimming with tears she hadn't let fall in front of anyone until now. "What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing's wrong with you." Faith was gentle with her words. "Love's just another kind of violence."

The air hung thick after Victoria's confession. Faith bounced her leg against the carpet, that familiar restless energy that made her practically vibrate with the need to move, to escape, to turn pain into something that burned less. Joslyn walked out of the hallway, emerald eyes dim and red as she used the heel of her hand to wipe the corner.

The room was drowning, and Faith—ever the chaos-bringer—did what she always did when she saw us sinking: she lit a match.

"Jesus, if we keep this up, we'll need group therapy." Her new toffee-brown hair swung wild as she dug through her oversized purse – the one that had started more bar fights than we could count. "Lucky for you sad bitches, I came prepared."

She took out a flat wooden board with the kind of flourish she usually reserved for revealing new hair colors to her Instagram followers. The Ouija board letters carved like unanswered questions.

"Ta-da!" Faith's grin carried that manic edge that made Knight orbit her like a dying star. The board caught lamplight like a blade as she set it on Victoria's coffee table, each letter a door waiting to be opened.

"A Ouija board?" Victoria rolled her eyes. Libby didn't even flinch—just stared the way you only do with someone who'd saved your life and stolen your eyeliner. "What are we, thirteen?"

"Oh, please, like you've got a better idea?" Faith collapsed onto the couch dramatically. She gestured toward the untouched mocktail pitcher she'd brought earlier, condensation beading on the glass like tears. "Unless you want to keep sharing our feelings until we all die of misery?"

"If this thing spells out V's name, I'm setting it on fire," Victoria grumbled.

That made me wonder, what was V's real name? Every one of the brothers had a moniker–Grim was Mitchell and Sarge was Darin.

Faith's grip on the planchette was too tight. The Ouija board's letters seemed to writhe in the dim light. She looked over at Joslyn, who quietly gathered the scattered links of Nyla's broken necklace. "Come play with me, Jos?"

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