Page 36 of Sinners Atone
It takes a moment for the realization to dent his brow. “You know the code to my safe?”
Angelo smirks into his knuckles, earning himself a glare from me too.
“I don’t know why you’re laughing. Because if you kill another cop, I’ll have to dig the backyard up too.”
Ignoring the mutterings behind me, I turn back to the window with a locked jaw.
Secrets are my most powerful weapon but also my darkest obsession.
I bury them. I dig them up. I listen to them. Feast on them.
I make it my job to know every secret up and down this coastline, and beyond.
My attention goes back to the girl in pink.
I know every secret.
Every secret, except Hers.
I’ve always thought it ironic that the thing that makes the world go round is the thing that hurts most.
It hurts when you have it but also when you don’t. Whether you’re searching for it or running from it.
When it ends, it’s devastating.
But when it’s unrequited, it’s flat-out dangerous.
My chest aches as though my heart is missing. A tightly packed ball of emotion clogs my throat, swollen with joy and heavy with the worst part of me: hot, bitter jealousy.
One day, it’ll break me.
“Babe.” An elbow connects with my rib. “Stop crying.”
I glance sideways at Tayce and pat my cheeks. “It’s okay, I’ve got a new mascara,” I whisper. “Totally waterproof.”
She rolls her eyes. “No, you’re just beingsoloud.”
Oh.
With a sniff, I swallow hard and muffle my next sob with a tissue. How can Inotcry on a day like this? The scene is setfor tears. From the sunlight piercing through the clouds and shimmering on the lake, to the flowers and fairy lights wrapped around the arbor. Underneath it, a moment so pure and true that even time has stopped to witness it.
In one frosted breath, my best friend utters the two words that’ll tie her to The One forever.
Love hurts. And in this moment, I know with every fiber of my being, it’s worth the pain.
Rory’s lashes flutter as Angelo seals his fate too. When he brushes a gentle thumb over her cheekbone, another sob escapes me, twice as loud as the last.
“Sorry,” I mutter to no one in particular.
The tissue in my palm is soaked through. As I rummage in my purse for another, my heart decides to make a reappearance. It beats like a warning, sending a throb of dread through my veins and raising the hairs on my skin.
I must be a sucker for reliving trauma because I lift my chin and look across the aisle to find the threat.
My lungs squeeze out my next breath.
Everything is scarier in the dark. Everything except Gabriel Visconti. Under the pale winter sun, there’s no trick of the light to cast doubt about his expression, nor shadows to conceal the true breadth of his frame.
It’s been impossible not to look at him today, and not for my lack of trying, and it’s not because me being a bridesmaid and he a groomsman means we’re standing across the aisle from each other. Or that, after last night, I’m viciously aware of his every move.
