Page 128 of Sins of the Hidden

Because she was.

My jaw clenched so hard pain sparked behind my eyes, his words tearing open wounds I'd long buried. I ground my molars together until pressure shot through my skull.

"Maybe that's why we're drawn to obsession." His voice softened further. "We crave something to own because we've never had control over ourselves."

Twisted logic—but my mind latched onto it. Ownership felt safer than being owned.

The urge to crush his skull for seeing too much surged through me. For cutting too deep. For knowing. But beneath the rage lay something worse—the certainty he might be right.

"Trust me, V—" His voice dropped even lower, almost intimate. "I know what it's like when the monsters aren't just in your head." A haunted understanding passed between us. "Sometimes becoming one is the only way out."

His words pulled at something inside me. Unraveling threads I couldn't afford to loosen. "I'm not trying to escape the monster," I said, voice rough. "I am the fucking monster."

"If you want to make this shit right," he continued, eyes flicking to my damaged hand, "you're gonna have to stop breaking bones long enough to realize you're breaking her."

I didn't need advice from a man just as damaged as I was—even if his words burrowed under my skin like parasites.

"Tell me where Prez is." The demand burst from me without warning, changing course, desperate to regain control of this conversation.

Chet's expression shifted, something like pity in his eyes. "No can do. Even if I wanted to tell you, I couldn't. I don't know where he is."

"Bullshit." I slammed my fist against the wall, inches from his head. He didn't even flinch.

"Listen—" He stepped closer, voice dropping to a near whisper. "You don't have to trust me but you should trust that Darrell taught me loyalty." A pause. "He also taught me about when loyalty becomes chains. Think about which side you're on."

"Tell that bastard he's dead when you see him." I turned back to my toy, needing to get this new rage out of my system.

"You're not as fucked up as you think, you know." He shrugged, entirely unimpressed by my threat. "Well... maybe you are. But you're not alone in it."

"That supposed to make me feel better?" I resisted the urge to crush his throat, my knuckles cracking with restraint.

His gaze held mine, unflinching. "Prez built us as weapons. But weapons wear out—or turn." The words hung in the air between us, unanswered. "When you're finally ready to dig yourself out of your own grave, give me a call."

"I don't need your help," I called after him as he turned to leave, footsteps echoing on concrete. "I don't need anyone's fucking help!"

He turned away from me, but not without a parting shot. "Your tombstone's gonna look great, V Anson. Big block letters. Unread by everyone who ever tried to understand you."

And with that, he left.

I stared at the empty doorway, his words ringing—then the phone erupted. Oakley's ringtone shattered my focus—my ownvoice echoing from the phone, reciting wedding vows about love and protection while I stood dripping in proof that I didn't know how.

Her voice cracked through the speaker—terror so thick I could taste it. Someone had broken in. My wife was trapped somewhere in our apartment while I stood in a basement full of corpses, too far away to reach her.

My bike roared beneath me as I tore through the streets. Her breathing came through the phone in ragged gasps that made something twist in my gut—something that shouldn't exist in a body that couldn't feel pain. Every sound she made felt like someone was carving pieces out of my chest with a rusty blade.

The connection crackled. Shuffling. Sharp cracks echoed through the speaker. What was that? What were they doing to her? The sounds drove spikes through my skull, each one worse than the last because I couldn't see, couldn't know, couldn't do anything but listen.

My bike lurched as my hands convulsed around the grips. The engine screamed, but the streets stretched endless while sounds I couldn't identify painted nightmares in my head. Was she hurt? Was she fighting? Was she?—

Her scream tore through the phone. My name. She was calling for me, and I wasn't there. I wasn't fucking there.

Something crashed. The phone hit something hard, and then came sounds that made my vision go white. Impacts. Struggles. The wet, choking gasps of someone who couldn't breathe. The bike swerved as my hands shook against the grips.

Then silence. Dead fucking silence, leaving me alone with the roar of my engine and the echo of her terror.

The streets blurred past, but I might as well have been crawling. Every second that ticked by was another second she could be bleeding out, another moment she might be taking her last breath while hating me for not being there to save her.

I'd failed her in every way that mattered. Failed to protect her from the monster I'd made her marry. Failed to be there when she needed me most. Failed to keep the promise I'd carved into my own back.

---