Page 45 of Sinful Desires (Sinful #4)

Chapter

Thirty-Four

“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”

― Voltaire

Théo

One year ago

The cell door slammed behind me, metal grinding against metal like it enjoyed the sound of my failure.

Cold air punched my face as I stepped outside, sharp and dry, scraping across skin that still stank of bleach, sweat, and steel.

Anything was better than the piss-slick floor, the cracked walls, the choking stench of men left to rot.

A week inside.

Seven days of peeling paint, screaming silence, and the same loop of memory beating like a war drum in my skull. Scarlett—sedated, restrained, erased.

And I had been too fucking slow.

A black SUV waited at the curb. The engine idled low, smooth and arrogant. The door opened before I reached it.

Lazzio leaned out. “Good to see you, LeRoy.”

I got in without a word. The heat inside made my skin crawl. It smelled of rich leather and recycled air, too clean, too artificial. My jaw locked until my teeth ached. My wrists still burned from the cuffs. I sat there in silence, rage thick beneath my ribs.

“Where is he?” I asked, my voice flat and hollow. “Harper.”

“Out of the country. Berlin. Business trip.”

“Did you thank him before or after he shoved her in a fucking cage?”

“He’s the reason you’re out.”

No. He was the reason I’d spent seven days choking on concrete. Because I’d nearly killed him for taking her from me.

And now I was supposed to be grateful because he’d bailed me out a week later?

I would thank him. With a fucking bullet lodged between his eyes.

“He’s the reason she’s not.”

Lazzio dragged a hand down his face. “She’s a sick girl, LeRoy. Addict. Falling apart at the seams. This will do her good. Strip her down. Clean her image. Make her safe.” He put the car in drive. The engine kicked to life as we pulled away from the prison.

My fists clenched, the skin tight, knuckles bloodless.

The anger wasn’t hot, it was cold. Deep. The kind that made you patient. The kind that built altars out of vengeance.

As much as I wanted to shatter his teeth against the steering wheel, it wasn’t his face I wanted to ruin.

It was mine.

“I’d say your job’s officially done,” Lazzio muttered. “Must feel like a real kick in the balls having your client dragged out from under your nose and dumped in exile like a rabid dog. Don’t take it personally. Her own father made the call.”

“And he deserves a bullet for it.”

A low laugh scraped from his throat. “My uncle’s a bastard, no doubt.

But let’s not kid ourselves. She was one body short of a murder charge.

This wasn’t some PR tantrum. This was blood on the floor and cameras in her face.

You want to kill him? Join the fucking line.

But whatever he is, she still loves him.

You put a bullet in that old man, she’ll never forgive you. Not now. Not fucking ever.”

I hate him so fucking much. But I love him too.

He’s not a big talker. His hands do the talking.

What if mine is to die, Théo?

“Anyway,” he said, reaching for the dash, “I’ll wire you the money. Call it payment for the bullet in your pride.”

“I don’t want your fucking money.”

“Then congratulations. Scarlett Harper is no longer your problem. You’re free.”

Free? There was no version of me that existed without her. I’d carry the weight of her name like a sentence carved into my bones.

If loving her was a prison, let me rot inside it. Because even the chains she’d put on me felt holier than the freedom anyone else could offer.

“I owe her my life, Lazzio. That debt doesn’t disappear because your coward uncle decided she was inconvenient.”

His eyes flicked toward me. “When?”

“Not your business.”

With another sigh, he pulled a white envelope from the dashboard and dropped it into my lap. “Figured you wouldn’t back down easily.”

Inside were papers, clearance forms, surveillance logs, and one photo.

Scarlett. Patient number 16482.

Her hair was shorter. Skin paler. Eyes wide and empty, frozen just beyond the camera flash. She looked like a ghost they hadn’t buried properly.

Mon étoile est éteinte.

I stared until something inside me gave out. A low, quiet crack somewhere behind my ribs.

“We saw her yesterday. Jade and I. She’s fine. Pissed though, and just a bit tired.”

I looked up. “Bring me to her.”

Three hours later, after a silent flight on his private jet and a five-minute drive through snow-laced forest, we arrived.

Jasper Rehabilitation Hospital, Minnesota.

The building rose out of the trees like a polished grave. Pale limestone walls. Tall black windows that reflected nothing. A driveway too smooth, lined with dormant fountains and manicured hedges.

Luxury on the surface. A cage underneath.

I stepped out of the car, boots hitting the stone as Lazzio followed, his coat unbuttoned, wind tugging at his sleeves.

“She asked for no visitors, LeRoy. Might be best if you waited until?—”

“No.”

He sighed, flicking imaginary dust from his cuff. “You’re even more stubborn than she is.”

We moved through the front entrance. The air smelled of eucalyptus and money. Floor-to-ceiling glass stretched around a white lobby. Three nurses sat at the desk.

Lazzio handed me a white badge with my name already printed on it.

The sun had started to fall outside, bleeding gold across the marble. We stopped at a black door with thin gold lettering etched into the glass: The path to healing is straight ahead.

I looked at it like it had just spit in my face. Healing. They had drugged her, locked her away, and called it fucking recovery.

Lazzio checked his phone, the screen lighting up his face with dull urgency. “I need to take a call. Her room’s on the third floor. Number thirty-six. I’ll wait outside.” He walked off without looking back.

I stood there with the badge heavy in my hand.

Room thirty-six.

I took one step forward. Then another. Each step felt like dragging guilt from a chain hooked through my spine.

I took the elevator to the third floor. The air got heavier with every second. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting long shadows that twitched against the mirrored walls.

My pulse climbed up my throat and stayed there, thick and hot like it was trying to choke me. The doors opened.

Room thirty-six.

I stopped in front of it. The door was glass, clean and clear. A view into her new life.

Controlled. Contained. Decorated like a hotel for the dead.

I stared through it. A vanity sat in the corner, lined in gold, untouched.

The walls were covered in framed art, each piece spaced with precision.

Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows stretched a private tennis court, a pool cut into pale stone, horses penned near the edge of the grounds, and a garden trimmed down to bare symmetry.

But none of it fucking mattered, because there she was—asleep.

L’amour de ma vie.

In the center of the room, she lay in the bed, arms tucked under the blanket, an IV jabbed into her wrist, fluid dripping slowly into the clear bag hanging beside her. Probably some shit to keep her sedated. Easier to manage that way.

She looked small. Fragile. Skin so pale it felt wrong to look at. For a second, I thought they’d already fucking buried her.

Her red hair was spread across the blanket. She always hated that. Always braided it tightly before bed. Said she didn’t like it in her face, said it made her feel like a mess.

I let go of the doorknob. My fingers ached. I didn’t fucking deserve to stand here. Didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her.

Someone cleared their throat behind me. I turned, shoulders tense. A short woman stood there, maybe in her sixties, a soft grey bob framing her narrow face, glasses sliding down her nose.

She blinked up at me, cheeks turning pink. “Hmm, hi. May I help you?”

That same second, my mind decided to do something about it all.

I pulled the badge from my jacket, the one Lazzio had slipped me before he disappeared. His own little parting gift. “Flash it, don’t explain,” he’d said.

“I’m the new night security agent.”

And just like that, I’d found a way to stay. Five minutes later, I had clearance.

A windowless studio apartment three floors beneath hers. A shitty mattress and a lock on the inside. That was all I needed.

That evening, I started working. And for a year, I never stopped.

Every night I walked those halls like a fucking ghost. Passed doors, passed cameras, passed rules. None of it mattered. At midnight, I was in her room.

Always quiet. Always careful.

She never saw me.

She slept with her fists curled, lips parted, brows tight like she was still fighting things in her dreams. I’d sit in the corner at first. Watch her breathe. Count every rise and fall.

Then closer.

Some nights, I braided her hair. Loose at first, then tighter.

Read her the poems I wrote during the day.

Whispered them like confessions. Told her everything I’d buried inside me.

All the filth. All the fear. All the pieces of me I’d never shared before.

I brought her lavender bouquets when the last ones had wilted.

I was always gone before she woke. During the day, I kept my distance.

I followed her schedule. I memorized her therapist’s hours. Her meal breaks. Her meds. Her progress reports.

I watched as she rode horses with her spine locked straight, every muscle pulled tight.

Swam until her arms failed, dragging herself out of the water without a sound.

Sat in the chapel for hours, hands folded, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Buried her hands in the dirt, planting roses and peonies, pressing her fingers deep into the soil as if something in her needed to stay buried too.

She never saw the man who couldn’t stop crawling back to her. Who fed on the sound of her breathing like it was a prayer meant only for him.

For a year, I belonged to her without permission.

And every night I stood by her bed like a sinner at the altar, waiting for a god that would never forgive me. Even asleep, she burned brighter than anything I’d ever touched. And I’d keep burning for her. Until there was nothing left.

I barely slept. I spent every spare hour tearing through my body in that gym, training until I couldn’t think, until the ache in my muscles was louder than the one she left behind. I wrote when I couldn’t move anymore. Pages full of her. Words I’d never say. Phrases I couldn’t burn.

I paced. I waited.

And while she healed from her poisons, mine kept feeding in silence, raw and starving.

I kept overdosing on her. Every fucking night.