Page 12 of Cruel When He Smiles (Sinners of Blackthorne U #3)

Liam

The water scalds as it beats down on my skin, but I don’t move. I let it sear me, standing there with my forehead pressed against the slick tile and my palms flat to the wall because, right now, they’re the only things keeping me upright.

The hiss of the water is loud in the stall, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of my father’s voice in my head.

You’re weak, Liam.

My jaw clenches until it hurts. The muscles in my face strain so hard they feel like they’ll crack right off the bone.

My chest is tight, stomach twisted in knots that don’t let up.

And then there’s the sting low on my side, a reminder of what I did to myself the second I got home.

The pain had cut through the noise for a second, but it wasn’t enough.

The water runs pink where it swirls at my feet.

I look down and track the thin trails of diluted blood as they slip into the drain, the wound on my abdomen pulsing with every breath.

It’s deeper than I meant to make it. Deeper than it should be.

I should’ve stopped before the blade kissed muscle, but I couldn’t.

My hand had moved too fast. I needed it gone—the ache, the heat, the taste of Nate still on my tongue, the look in his eyes when I pushed him against my car.

His entire body language was screaming ruin me . I did want to ruin him, but I wanted to keep him, too. That’s the part that makes me sick. That’s the part that made the incision necessary.

I drag my hand up just under the cut and press gently, testing the burn.

I hiss under my breath, but I welcome the sting.

At least this is pain I can control. This doesn’t sneak in through my chest and sit behind my lungs like rot.

This doesn’t steal into my dreams and haunt me with the sound of Nate’s voice when he whispered then burn me.

Then I kissed him so hard I tasted the moan on his tongue. I touched him like I owned him. I let my hands curl around his throat and his hips, and I didn’t stop myself. I gave in again. It didn’t feel wrong in that moment; it felt as necessary as breathing.

I let out a slow breath through my teeth and tilt my head back, closing my eyes and listening to the pipes groan somewhere deep in the walls. The steam curls around my face, thick and suffocating. But it’s not the steam choking me—it’s the memory.

His smile. His breathless, bratty laugh. The way he looked at me, like I was something worth falling apart for.

Pathetic.

The word cuts deeper than the blade did.

That voice again. His . The man whose fists painted my skin in bruises for years, whose words taught me to cage myself behind a mirror I polished daily until I could fake normal.

The man who raised me—the Honorable Judge Elias Callahan—who said emotions were for the weak, that love was a leash, and if I ever let anyone close enough to see me bleed, I deserved to die from the wound.

I glance down at the gash again. I’ll need to bandage it. Maybe glue it shut. Stitches would be smarter, but that means questions. It’s not the first time I’ve done this; not the worst, either. But it’s the first time it’s felt like failure instead of routine.

Callahan men are not weak.

I exhale slowly through my nose, water streaming down my face symbolizing the tears I refuse to cry.

Weak. That word lives in my skin, carved there by every backhand, every locked room, every hour I spent under the microscope of a mother who saw me as nothing more than an experiment and a father who only measured strength in silence and bruises.

I learned to be still.

I learned not to scream.

I learned to turn my pain into structure.

But now there’s a crack in the foundation, and his name is Nate Carter.

I grit my teeth and shut off the water. The rush of silence that follows is almost worse.

I stand there for a second, dripping and shivering under the weight of my own skin, and then I step out.

The mirror is fogged, but I don’t wipe it.

I don’t want to see myself. I don’t want to look into my own eyes and see how fucking hollow they’ve become.

I grab a towel and press it to the cut. It blooms red instantly, but I keep pressing, watching the fibers soak through as I move to the sink.

I pull open the drawer under it and fish out the emergency kit I keep hidden under razors and bottles of cologne I never wear.

I set it down and flip it open, my hands steady even though my heart’s rattling like it wants out of my ribs.

The burn starts when I disinfect it. The alcohol bites, and I hiss low, but I don’t stop. I clean it like I’m erasing the sin. As if scrubbing hard enough will erase the memory of how close I came to letting someone see the boy underneath the monster.

Because that’s the truth, isn’t it? For a second, Nate saw him. The scared, broken thing I buried under layers of control, charm, and cold logic. He saw it and didn’t flinch. He leaned in, and he kissed it back to life; he made it breathe.

… And I panicked.

I didn’t cut to punish myself. I didn’t do it to control a spiral. I did it because I didn’t know what else to do. Because when I shoved Nate against that car, when I put my hand around his throat and watched his mouth part, I saw something I wasn’t ready for.

Want. Need. Willingness. Submission.

Shaking the memory away, I apply surgical glue, bandage the wound with gauze and surgical tape, wrap it tightly, and pull a clean shirt from the back of the drawer where I keep the plain ones.

No designer label. No tailored fit. Just a basic black tee that doesn’t ask questions.

Nothing tight that might draw attention to how I’m favoring my side.

Nothing that’ll let my brother see that I fucked up again.

He isn’t at home right now, but he knows me better than anyone. If I don’t pull myself together, he’ll see the unraveling. He’ll corner me again with his lazy grin and his murder-glazed eyes and remind me that we were never built to be touched without breaking.

He knows my tells and the difference between a strategic break and a real one. And this is real. Too real.

I slip on the tee and pull the hem down carefully, wincing as the fabric tugs across the gauze.

The pain grounds me. Good. I need to stay here.

In control. In this moment. Not in the fucking parking lot with that wrecked little smile that makes me want to rip it off his face and replace it with something only I can give him.

I walk back into my bathroom, toss the bloodied towel into the hamper, then clean up the counter. No evidence. No mess. My reflection in the mirror looks wrong. Pale, drawn, eyes shadowed. I swipe the fog from the glass and stare anyway.

You ruined him, and now, you’ll ruin yourself, too.

I run my tongue across my teeth, jaw ticking. “Not this time,” I whisper to no one.

I won’t let it happen. I can’t. I’ve built too much—crafted my image with surgical precision. Every smile, every controlled response, every step I take on campus, every word I say in therapy. It’s all designed to keep me above suspicion. To make sure no one sees the rot beneath.

It’s all working.

Except it’s not.

By the time I step back into my room again, I look like I’ve just taken a shower. Nothing more. I cross to my desk, sink into the leather chair, and open my laptop. I scroll through class notes, then through news feeds, my brain latching onto anything to keep me focused.

But even through the distraction, I feel that hunger I couldn’t cut out. That need that’s starting to take shape behind my ribs.

Nate got under my skin. No matter how many times I tell myself he’s just another experiment—just another weakness to study, dissect, and destroy—part of me knows it’s a lie because experiments don’t make me bleed.

And he did it all without trying. He just walked in with his pretty little smirk and those fucking eyes that see too much, and he touched something I’d locked away since I was a boy cowering behind a door while my mother explained how pain builds resilience.

I grip the edge of the desk hard enough to make it creak. The pain in my side is pulsing like a metronome. A reminder.

Never again.

I let my mind go still. I start to rebuild brick by brick, voice by voice, until I’m untouchable again.

Walls up. Smile on. Cold as ice.

Tomorrow, I’ll be the version of me I’m good at being. The one who doesn’t blink. The one who doesn’t kiss boys against cars or press their throats like he wants to feel their heartbeat through his fingertips. The one who walks away before anything can hurt.

Because if I let myself want Nate again, I won’t stop at obsession.