Page 44 of Sinful Desires
Thirteen
“Drugs don’t really fix anything, except for everything.”
? Ashly Lorenzana
Scarlett
Where the fuck was it?
I needed it. Needed itnow.
With a groan, I threw the empty Chanel purse back to the floor and stumbled to the nightstand, yanking the drawers open so fast they slipped right off the rails. I tore through them, frantic hands shaking, heart slamming so loudly it drowned out everything else.
Empty. Fucking empty. I slammed my fist on the floor, the sting barely registering.
I crawled under the bed, dragging out the red box that was supposed to be for souvenirs, but had always hidden my stash. My head smacked the bed frame, but I didn’t stop. I clawed through it, nails bending, nearly breaking, until my fingers scraped velvet. That little Cartier pouch. Salvation.
I scrambled out from under the bed, arms trembling, back against the mattress, legs sprawled on the floor. I ripped the pouch open with shaking hands.
Empty.
Nothing but dregs of white dust. I still tried to inhale it, dragging my finger along the seams and pressing it to my nose—desperate, pathetic, sucking at nothing. When it was gone, I threw it across the room, chest caving in, breath burning.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I hadn’t touched anything in weeks. Maybe months. But I needed it tonight.
Needed it, or I wasn’t sure I’d survive the fucking night.
I had known that my father would summon me because I’d refused to perform at tomorrow night’s Lazzio Christmas party. I had told him I was too tired. That someone else could do it. Any singer would do, especially if the price was high enough.
But Lucius Harper hadn’t liked that answer. Not my tone, my boundaries, or the idea that I might exist without performing for his pride.
His hand moved so fast I barely registered the slap. Only the taste of blood, the ringing, the way my face felt split in two.
For a moment, I truly thought he’d broken my nose.
What I hadn’t expected was LeRoy barging in. Seeing me likethat. Seeinghimlike that.
I didn’t let it last though. I’d pulled LeRoy with me and left.
I didn’t have the energy to be witty or spiteful. I didn’t have the strength to stand there and take more of my father’s poisoned love wrapped in fists, kicks, and fury. I was just tired. The kind of tired that settled in your bones, that made you quieter. Slower.
Less alive.
I’d climbed to the rooftop of my building, twenty stories above the city, and stood by the pool. The wind cut through me,and I had thought about how easy it would be to fall in and let the cold water pull me under.
I didn’t want to swim. I needed silence. I needed the world to unhook its claws from my chest and give me one fucking second to breathe.
LeRoy had followed, quiet and steady, like he already knew what I was planning. Maybe he saw it in the way I walked. Maybe he’d seen enough broken people to know the signs. That when the pain doesn’t fit inside your body anymore, you start looking for ways to leave it behind.
Even if that meant leaving yourself, too.
So, he stayed. Not out of duty. Not out of pity. But because something in him had refused to let me fall alone.
And Ihatedhim for it.
When he’d said his biggest desire was to live, a part of me shattered. How different we were.
