Page 141 of Sins of the Hidden

If she walked away, I'd become the thing that hunted in the shadows again. She was the only reason I hadn't burned this city down. I counted her heartbeats last night while she sat with me on that floor. Memorized the rhythm so I'd have something to remember when she was gone.

I'd been obsessed with owning her. Now I was obsessed with earning her. The difference was everything. The difference was the space between taking and being given, between caging something beautiful and being worthy of its song.

She moved away from me then, walking to the far end of the counter, putting distance between us while she processed what I'd offered. Her palm smoothed over the surface, testing the height I'd built specifically for her body, measured against her sleeping form while she dreamed of things I'd never be part of.

Her movements were different now. Calculated. She checked exits without realizing it, kept me in her peripheral vision. Survival instincts I'd taught her.

"You built this lower," she pointed out.

"For you."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Why?"

"So you don't hurt yourself."

She turned back to me, and something in her expression had shifted. Not forgiveness. Not trust. But recognition. Like she was seeing something in the ruins that might be worth excavating.

After a long moment, she moved toward the doorway, her path taking her past where I stood. I stepped aside, giving her space, and she paused near the exit.

The chemicals had stripped me down to bone and truth last night. Made me that terrified boy again, the one who beggedhernot to let them come tonight, who remembered what five meant, who still heard footsteps on stairs that led nowheregood. She'd witnessed me fight drugs that couldn't make me feel pain but could make me relive everything else—every shameful memory of being made pretty, every lesson about staying quiet, every reason I learned love meant taking what you wanted from someone smaller.

The sedatives had made me honest in ways violence never could. Turned me inside out, let her see the machinery that built the monster. Every shameful memory of what they did when the woman made me pretty. Every broken piece of the boy who learned that five was always enough. Every reason I learned to equate love with control—because control meant no one could make you prettier, make you smaller, make you count pills like promises that tomorrow might be different.

"You hurt me, V." The words came out soft, broken. Like she'd been carrying them since our wedding night and finally had to let them bleed.

My eyes dropped to the concrete stained with sawdust and sweat. She was right. I'd hurt her. But this was different. This was worse. This was using love as a weapon against someone who'd never learned to defend herself.

"I know." Two words. Not an apology—not yet. Acknowledgment. The first time I'd ever admitted causing her pain instead of spinning fairy tales about protection.

She was quiet for a long time, studying my face like she was reading a map to somewhere she'd never been. Looking for signs of the boy I'd shown her last night, the one who begged phantoms not to take him.

"I don't know if I can forgive you," she said.

"You shouldn't."

"But I want to try to understand."

Understanding. The most dangerous gift she could offer. Because understanding meant seeing all of it—not just the monster, but the assembly line that made him. The systematicdestruction of everything human until only the weapon remained.

She was trying to find something worth saving in the wreckage I'd made of myself. I wasn't going to help. Wasn't going to guide her toward whatever light might be left in the basement of my soul.

But I wouldn't stop her either.

"You could leave," I said. "Right now. Take the ring off. Walk out that door. I'd let you."

The words tasted like swallowing glass. Like bleeding internally while pretending to breathe. But they were true.

The drugs had taught me the difference between keeping someone and earning them. Between building cages so perfect the prisoner forgot they were captive and being worthy of someone's choice to stay.

"Would you really?" she asked.

"Yes."

The word came out broken. Honest. Because I finally understood what love actually meant. Not keeping someone. Not forcing them to stay. But letting them choose you every day. And if they chose wrong—if they chose someone else, something else, anywhere else—you let them go.

Even if it killed you. Especially if it did.

She studied my face, looking for the lie. The catch. The moment I'd reveal this was just another trap, another manipulation designed to tighten the chains I'd wrapped around her wrists.

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