Page 92 of Sins of the Hidden

Tyrant grinned, teeth gleaming white in the dim light. "He gave me a marker." His eyes darkened with sadistic anticipation. "Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to have leverage over our resident psychopath? This is like fucking Christmas."

"What are you planning?" Knight asked, suddenly interested.

“You’ll see.” Tyrant's smile spread wider. "I'll wait until after the honeymoon to cash in. Consider it my wedding gift."

I narrowed my eyes at the motherfucker, making Tyrant throw his palms up in defense.

Knight glanced at Oakley, then back at me. "You planning a reception or just going straight to the embalming?"

"This is gonna be a fucked up wedding." Tyrant pulled out a pair of reading glasses and a small notebook, paper worn at the edges like something often touched.

"Since when do you wear glasses?" Grim asked, brows raising toward his hairline.

"I always have role-play props on me." He grinned, thumbing through the small book.

"Can't we just sign the damn paper and go?" Our VP paced, boots wearing paths into the carpet. Occasionally glancing at her chest rising and falling, whispering fuck to himself like a prayer. His gaze wavered between revulsion and resignation—trapped in loyalty. And yet he didn't leave.

"No." Tyrant chastised. "It's less fun that way."

He snapped his fingers, his gold rings catching the dim light. "Wait. Don't we need that wedding checklist thing? You know—something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue?"

Knight huffed and leaned against the wall, leather jacket creaking with the movement. "You really wanna run this like a legit wedding?"

"I'm ordained, bro. I take this shit seriously." Tyrant flipped to a fresh page, tongue between his teeth like a child concentrating. "Alright. Old, new, borrowed, blue. Let's see…"

He spun dramatically, gesturing toward Grim with the pen like a conductor's baton. "Well—Grim's thirty-two. That's old."

Grim's dead hazel eyes fixed on Tyrant, the dirty blonde of his hair catching the light as he shifted his weight, grinding teeth audible in the quiet room. "You know what else is thirty-two? The body count in my basement. Want to make it thirty-three?"

"Why is everyone in this damn club so fucking violent?" Tyrant grumbled, rubbing the knee I hit with my bat earlier.

"Next up—something new." Knight drummed his fingers against his thigh, the rhythm uneven, anxious. Skin against denim creating patterns of sound.

I savored the weight of the fabric between my fingers as I lifted the folded white shirt from beside Oakley. The shirt ghosted over her frame like fog, glowing almost ethereal. My thumbs smoothed over the material with slow, deliberate strokes, feeling every thread.

"This," I whispered, the word itself a caress. My pulse quickened, looking at how it draped over her curves, how the white would make her skin appear even softer, more vulnerable. More mine.

Knight's eyes narrowed, his lip curling up at one corner. Something in my expression must have disturbed him. "Nice. We love a virginal hostage vibe."

"Borrowed," Tyrant tapped his pen against his chin in a staccato rhythm. His gaze lingered on the flowers I'd arranged in Oakley's hair, white against chestnut.

The scent of those stolen blooms filled the air, sweet and somehow sinister—like perfume on a corpse. Tyrant's teeth flashed white in the dim light, his grin spreading slowly across his face like an oil spill. "Those flowers from her neighbor's yard?"

I nodded. He gestured with his pen, a conductor orchestrating chaos. "We're already halfway to Martha Stewart, if she ran a death cult."

"And blue?" Knight's voice had dropped to a near-whisper as his gaze swept around the room, searching.

The marks I left on Oakley from us fucking were blue, but these bastards would never see those. Instead, I beckoned Knight closer with a slow curl of my index finger. He stepped forward, brow furrowed in confusion. I would've gone to him, but I refused to let go of my bride.

"What?" he asked, the word barely formed before my fist connected with his left eye—a quick, savage blow that sent him stumbling backward. "What the fuck, man!"

"Something blue," I said flatly as Knight cursed, hand flying to his face. Already, the skin around his eye was darkening, capillaries bursting beneath the surface like tiny stars dying.

Tyrant's laughter exploded through the room, doubling him over. "Holy shit!" he wheezed, slapping his thigh. "That's one way to solve the problem."

Grim's laugh erupted, "Perfect for this fucked up wedding."

His words carried the weight of moral judgment, but his presence here made him complicit. We all knew it. The hypocrisy hung in the air between us, thick enough to choke on.

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