Page 33 of Sins of the Hidden

I turned toward the entrance and froze. V stood in the doorway, his shadow stretching across the floor between us like a bridge I wasn't ready to cross. My throat clamped shut as he watched me with eyes that swallowed light, stripping away every defense I'd built. A sound caught in my windpipe, half-gasp and half-something else, as every nerve ending in my body ignited at once.

The cut slid from my grasp, hitting the floor with a finality that made my stomach drop. Panic surged as I lunged for it, nearly falling in my desperation to retrieve what wasn't mineto hold. My pulse hammered between my ears as I righted his colors, my hands shaking as I smoothed non-existent wrinkles from leather that had seen worse than my carelessness.

"I-I'm sorry. I-I didn't—" Words spilled out, voice thin as thread, as I wobbled on numb feet. My tongue swelled against my teeth, apologies sour in my mouth. "I-I didn't mean to drop it."

"Why were you looking at it like that?" The door clicked shut behind him with finality, the sound making my veins surge with ice water. Each step he took condensed the air, molecules pressing against my skin as my sternum refused to expand.

I hesitated. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you put your cut on me?"

"You said weight helped you sleep." His shoulders lifted in a shrug that didn't match the intensity in his eyes. "My cut is heavy."

I stared at him, throat working around words that wouldn't form. He'd actually remembered what I'd mentioned that night, filed it away like evidence. "Doesn't your cut mean anything to you?"

He stepped closer, and electricity crawled up my arms, raising hair along its path. "Means nothing unless you're the one wearing it."

Heat bloomed under my collarbone at his blunt response, spreading upward in a flush I couldn't control. V wasn't like the others—he followed his own code, his own savage version of right. No one could predict him. No one could control him. Everyone knew why: he existed outside morality, outside reason, outside everything but his own brutal clarity.

And yet here he stood, lending me his cut because I'd mentioned weighted blankets helped with anxiety—a passing comment I barely remembered making.

"T-Thank you," I whispered, the words barely audible over my thundering heart. "I slept better with it." Heat crawled up my neck at the admission. "I um..." His dark stare made my hands falter, nearly dropping it again as I thrust it toward him. "Here."

Sound disappeared behind the rush in my ears as blood pooled hot beneath my skin. My mouth betrayed me before I could stop it: "My room smells like you now."

"What do I smell like?" His tone spoke of faint curiosity that caught me off guard.

"Smoke." I swallowed hard, remembering all the whispers about why he always carried the scent of gunpowder and violence. "It's... comforting. Bittersweet like when I bake." The thought of my kitchen—my sanctuary—brought an involuntary smile to my lips.

"You like the way I smell?"

My skin tingled hot, eyes finding sudden interest in the floor as I gave a shaky nod. V loomed over me, each movement rippling tension through my spine. I held my breath as he drew closer, hands awkward and gaze uncertain.

He came to a stop inches from me. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his hand toward my face. I fought the urge to step back as his palm drew near my forehead, close enough that my skin tingled with anticipation. The pause stretched, making me peek through one eye. His hand hovered—hesitant, wrong, waiting—inches from my face, tension etched in the rigid set of his shoulders.

"You stopped?" The words tumbled out before I could swallow them back.

V's hand remained suspended in the air, "I don't want you to hurt yourself again."

My ribs twitched like they wanted out, the sudden gentleness cracking open something I'd kept buried deep. V, who everyone feared, who kept the world at a distance—he'd actually listenedto me.Reallylistened. My fingers twisted in my oversized shirt as my chest hammered against itself. This wasn't the V who stalked the streets like death incarnate. This was... something else. This wasn't the V everyone whispered about in fear. This was different, and it made my stomach twist in knots I couldn't name.

V held something out between us, the gesture awkward but careful. My fingers jumped, reaching for it—a soft blur of purple that slowly came into focus. "You got me oven mitts?"

I'd spent so long ducking my head and averting my gaze around him, muscles ready to flee at his approach. But something about this moment felt different. The corner of my mouth pulled up before I could stop it. In all the time I'd known V, all the times I'd cowered from his presence, I'd never once given him anything genuine. Until now.

V's fingers grabbed a handful of his shirt, white-knuckled and shaking. V never shook.

When I looked up, his eyes turned wild, frantic behind his mask as they fixed on my face with an intensity that made my lungs lock. Like he was trying to memorize this moment. Like my expression was something irreplaceable he needed to own.

My smile registered only when his stare transformed it into something sacred. Not from fear or obligation—but because of oven mitts. The raw confession in his voice made my rib cage constrict. As if he'd been starving for something I'd carelessly withheld.

The silence hung between us, broken only by the thunder in my chest. Something shifted in the air, in the way he stood there watching me, his scrutiny dense and suffocating, smothering like black smoke filling my lungs. And for the first time, the flutter in my torso carried an unfamiliar weight.

I must have lost my mind for a second. Something about the way he stood there, staring at me like I'd given him somethingprecious, made it feel right. If this was a mistake, I'd pay for it later. But right now, it felt necessary. I let the mitts fall and crossed the space between us. I pressed into him, arms wrapping tight around his solid frame. "Thank you."

His warmth radiated into my bones, the seared bittersweet breath of him, wrapping around me like a memory I couldn't take off.

---