Page 54

T he bakery was really coming together.

Paint streaked my hands—buttery yellow that had somehow found its way under my fingernails and into the creases of my palms, staining them with the color of hope. Sweat trickled down my spine, pooling at the small of my back and making my thin cotton shirt cling uncomfortably to my skin. The scent of fresh paint mingled with sawdust and wood shavings, creating that distinct perfume of possibility and renewal that only comes with building something from nothing. Sunlight slanted through the windows we'd scrubbed clean yesterday, catching dust motes that danced and swirled with each movement, casting the space in a golden glow.

I stepped back from the wall I'd been working on, my muscles aching with the satisfying fatigue of honest work. The paint roller had left a trail of sunshine across what would someday welcome customers to my dream—my dream that was finally taking physical form after years of existing only in my heart. The bakery that had once been just wishful thinking was taking shape under our hands, transforming from broken and abandoned to something with a future. Just like us.

V had just finished the floors—hours shirtless on his knees with bare hands, dust from the sanding streaking across his jaw like war paint. He turned to look at me, ignoring his handiwork, the smooth golden oak that had been scarred and splintered when we found this place. Even now, after everything, the intensity of his focus when it landed on me still made my heart stutter.

"It's starting to look like my dream," I grinned at him, wiping my forehead with the back of my wrist, feeling the sticky residue of paint transfer to my skin. My voice caught slightly on the word dream—a concept that once seemed too foolish to say out loud.

V crossed the room to me, the floorboards no longer creaking thanks to his meticulous work. Something in his gaze was different today—more open than usual. The air between us seemed to thicken as he drew closer.

He reached up and gently brushed a drop of paint from my cheek, his hand hovering briefly—checking, always checking—before his calloused thumb made contact with my face, the touch tender and familiar. The roughness of his fingertips sent a shiver down my spine.

A few months ago, I would've flinched at him reaching for my face like that. A few months ago, he wouldn't have even asked. The realization of how far we'd come settled like a weight in my chest. After everything he'd done, everything he'd fought to make right, here we stood—rebuilding more than just a bakery. We were rebuilding trust, one careful touch at a time.

He stepped back, his eyes fixed on me with that unnerving intensity I'd grown to understand. "I have something." His voice remained steady, though something in it shifted almost imperceptibly. He moved to the corner of the bakery where he'd stashed his things and returned with something round and wooden.

My heart skipped at the sight.

"What's this?" I asked, my voice hardly more than a whisper.

A beautiful wooden circle sign. The words Sweet Summer's were carved into the rich oak in flowing script, the edges burnished and smooth, clearly worked over for hours with patient hands.

"Sweet Summer's," I read aloud, my fingers brushing over each letter.

V nodded once. He reached for the can of paint beside us. I watched as he dipped his large hand into the paint, coating his palm and fingers. He pressed his hand firmly onto the left side of the sign. His handprint, strong and solid, marked the wood—all six foot four of him represented in that single handprint. I watched as he held it there for a moment longer than necessary, as if sealing a vow.

He nodded toward the lavender paint. With shaking fingers, I dipped my much smaller hand into the lavender paint and moved toward the sign.

My hand hovered over the wood, visibly shaking. I pressed my hand down on his fresh black handprint. Lavender bloomed fragile and false inside his print—like a promise whispered into darkness, a lie I let him believe. He called it a future. I knew it was a lie.

V's arms came around me from behind. The difference in our sizes was stark and somehow perfect.

For a moment, neither of us spoke, just stared at our hands immortalized together. I felt the rise and fall of his breathing—controlled, unshaken—while my pulse thudded like a warning under my skin. V reached around me, his chest warm against my back, and touched the space where my palm and fingers had left their mark.

"Summer's handprint will go here." His finger hovered above the much smaller lavender splotch on the sign.

The words stabbed through me, sharp and merciless. The tears I'd been holding back spilled over, not from joy but desperation. A secret I'd carried too long crashed through my defenses, demanding to be heard.

My hand didn't belong next to his. It should have dried alone, quietly, without expectation. My handprint would contaminate the future he'd just painted—a permanent stain on his perfect dream.

For a moment, I could almost see it. The smallest handprint, right above mine. Lavender. She'd have loved lavender. Her small voice filled this empty bakery with laughter, flour-dusted fingertips holding tightly to mine as we shaped dough together. She'd never be more than this phantom in my mind—yet she already felt more real than anything I'd ever touched. Her fingers would've been smaller than mine, delicate and innocent. I would've pressed them down for her, guided her tiny hand onto the paint and then onto the sign. Then it vanished like a mirage, leaving lavender and black behind.

I pulled away from his embrace, my hands shaking as I faced him. The air between us suddenly felt thick and hard to breathe, the weight of what I had to say crushing my chest.

I could say nothing. Let him believe. Walk out now, and let the dream live one more day.

The thought flashed through my mind, tempting in its simplicity. One more day of watching him plan for a child that would never exist. One more day before I destroyed everything.

I couldn't look at my reflection in the storefront window, afraid to see the woman who would take this from him. I turned toward the door. Just a few steps. One lie, and I could leave him with the dream intact. Let him build the bakery without knowing it was built on ash.

But then he looked at me. And I hated myself for what I hadn't said. "I need to tell you something."

His eyes fixed on mine, unblinking, waiting.

"I can't..." my voice cracked, the confession stuck in my throat like broken glass. I closed my eyes, unable to watch his reaction. I braced for silence. Or worse—his back turning. The sound of him walking away, leaving only his handprint behind. The dream being abandoned along with me.

I hated my body. Hated this useless, defective vessel for every period that never came, every hormone that betrayed me, every promise it couldn't keep. Each heartbeat felt like a cruel joke. This wasn't just about a malfunctioning organ or hormone imbalance. This was about failing at the most fundamental aspect of being a woman. What was I if I couldn't create life? “I can’t… I can’t have children.”

His expression didn't change, but his focus sharpened to a cutting edge. "Explain."

He said it like a man asking how many bodies were buried, not how many babies I could carry.

My chest tightened with each inhale, the words I dreaded finally breaking free. "PCOS affects everything—my hormones, my cycles." I swallowed hard, forcing myself to continue past the lump in my throat. "The doctors... they said I can't have children."

I waited for the explosion, for the rage, for the loss of everything we'd been re-building. I'd seen what happened when V lost control, when his anger erupted.

I wanted to vanish. I wanted to tear off my own skin just to find the part of me that had failed and rip it out by hand. My throat burned. I couldn't tell if I was choking on the truth or on the silence he was giving.

His face remained impassive behind his mask, eyes revealing nothing as they studied me. I wished he would rage, and would shatter something against the wall. His lack of reaction brought tears to my eyes.

"You're crying," he said instead, his voice unnervingly calm as his thumb collected a tear from my cheek, his touch lingering on my skin.

"Aren't you upset?" I asked, confusion threading through my fear as I searched his eyes for any reaction. My hands clenched and unclenched at my sides, anticipating a storm that hadn't come. "I can't give us Summer."

Our sweet dream he'd carved into wood—the family he'd already named—the future he'd decided on. All of it, impossible because of my body. The weight of my inadequacy crushed against my chest until each inhale burned.

V's head tilted, that familiar assessment that always made my heart race. His fingers curled around my wrist, grip firm, his thumb resting over my racing pulse. The pressure increased slightly, an involuntary reaction revealing what his face would not.

"We'll have Summer one day," he repeated softly, his voice dropping into something deeper, almost threatening in its conviction.

I blinked. "W-What?"

"We'll have Summer another way." His thumb traced the veins in my wrist. “IVF. Adoption."

He said it like a fact, like death and taxes. But then his hand rose—hesitated, just once—before resting on my stomach like it meant something. Fresh tears spilled down my cheeks, but something else bloomed beneath them—relief, fragile and hesitant. A crack in the wall of shame and inadequacy I'd been building around myself for years.

What if he's only saying this because I cried? Because I shattered first?

The doubt slithered in, poisoning the moment. Was this pity disguised as acceptance? Would he have stayed if I'd told him with composure, standing tall instead of breaking apart? Or did he need to see me weak to feel needed?

"Y-You'd consider other options?"

His hand dropped to the sign between us, finger tracing the empty space where he’d pictured Summer’s handprint going.

He stepped closer, erasing the space between us, his presence consuming everything else. The scent of paint and sawdust mingled with something uniquely him—a scent I'd once feared and now found oddly comforting.

I pressed my forehead against his chest, feeling his steady heartbeat beneath my face—unchanging, unwavering. Fresh tears soaked into his shirt as something inside me unraveled. Relief and gratitude and a strange sort of wonder that this man—this killer, this protector—could accept what I'd been taught made me less.

"Y-You're not disappointed?" I asked, voice muffled against him, needing to hear it again.

His hand moved to the back of my neck, fingers threading through my hair. "Your body doesn't define your worth to me."

In his arms, I felt the weight of his promise—not emotional, but binding all the same. The man who had once dragged me to Hellbound's basement now held me with a possessiveness that felt like safety. I remembered the cold brick against my spine, the crematorium's heat on my face, the terror of being trapped with him in that room of death. How strange that those same hands now held me like something precious. V didn't offer comfort through warmth or sentiment, but through the cold certainty of his will.

"You're what I want, Oakley," he repeated, voice deep and final. "Everything else can be arranged."

He'd raze the world to build a child out of ash and blueprint if I asked him to. That was the kind of love he offered.

The ruthless practicality of it made me laugh softly through my tears—this was so utterly him. No flowery speeches about how it didn't matter, no emotional reassurances. Just the absolute certainty that what couldn't be taken one way would be taken another. The world existed to be bent to his will.

My legs shook beneath me, years of hiding and grieving finally leaving my body. I'd rehearsed every version of this ending: the silence, the distance, the way he'd look at me like I'd betrayed him. But I'd never prepared for this—acceptance that burned worse than rejection ever could.

The weight of my secret lifted, leaving me hollow and exhausted. An emptiness spread through me, as if the grief had been holding me together all this time. Like a lifetime of hurt was suddenly released, leaving nothing behind but hollow space where something vital had lived. Without it, I felt paper-thin, translucent, barely present.

If I wasn't going to be a mother, I wasn't sure who I was. I was built for this. That was what they all said—hips made for children, arms made to hold. So what was I now? A blueprint for something that never existed? Maybe I wasn’tt grieving a child. Maybe I was grieving the woman I thought I'd be.

Not a daughter. Not a wife. Just a memory of someone who thought she'd be more.

"What if I'm not enough for you?" The question emerged from a place I'd never allowed myself to voice before.

What if he was wrong? What if Summer never came?

The doubt clung to me even as his arms held me steady. My grief wasn't cured. It just had company now. And I knew with cold certainty that even if Summer did arrive one day—through IVF or adoption or whatever ruthless solution V engineered— this ghost would always haunt us. This moment would stand between us, a shadow across every family photo.

Even if he built me a child from blueprints and devotion, I didn't know if I'd ever stop hating the part of me that couldn't give them to him.

"If I proposed to you," he said, his voice lower than usual, "what would you say?"

I laughed softly before reminding him. "We're already married."

"No." His eyes fixed on mine, unwavering. "Propose to you like your dreams." His hand slid to cradle my face, thumb tracing the curve of my ample cheek. "And have your dream wedding."

The words crashed through me, stealing my breath. Giving me back what he'd taken. Asking instead of forcing. The enormity of it made my chest ache, the contrast between then and now so stark I could barely inhale through it.

V's eyes never left mine. His gaze held the weight of everything he couldn't express, everything he didn't know how to say.

In all the time I'd known him, I'd never seen him so utterly motionless. Not even when he killed. This was a different kind of restraint—calculated not for violence but for patience. For me.

I reached up, tracing the edge of his mask where it met his skin. Behind that mask was the face of the man who had drugged me and forced me to marry him.

And now he was asking. Waiting.

Instead of answering, I lifted onto my tip toes and brushed my lips against the mask where he would be beneath. His arms encircled me, strong and sure.

When I pulled back slightly, he leaned down not wanting to relinquish contact, our foreheads still touching, I could feel how rigidly he held himself, the way his gaze never wavered from my face.

"I'll tell you on Sunday," I told him, my words soft between us, hardly more than a breath.

His eyes narrowed slightly, confusion evident in the subtle shift of his posture. "Why not now?"

The silence between us expanded, filling with all the things neither of us knew how to say. In that quiet, I heard my heartbeat, his controlled breathing, the distant sounds of the world continuing outside this bubble we'd created. The weight of the moment pressed down, making each second stretch painfully as he waited for an explanation I wasn't sure I could give. The silence felt tangible, a living thing between us that carried more meaning than either of us could articulate.

I smiled, tracing the edge of his mask with my fingertips. "Prove to me you can wait," I whispered, pressing another soft kiss where his lips would be, "and I'll prove to you I won't leave."

If he could wait until Sunday, it meant he truly understood what he was asking—what forgiveness would cost us both.

His hands tightened slightly at my waist, fingers pressing into the flesh there—a reminder of the restraint it took for him to accept my terms.

"Sunday," he agreed, his voice roughened with something I couldn't name. "Here. Seven o'clock." His eyes searched mine, endless and unreadable.

He shifted slightly, his body so close to mine I could feel the heat radiating from him. His eyes remained fixed on me, studying my face with that singular focus that still made my heart race—in fear or anticipation, sometimes I couldn't tell the difference.

I breathed in the moment—the scent of paint and wood and him, the warmth of his body against mine, the roughness of his hands as they held me. Between us, the empty space on the sign pressed into my consciousness, a constellation of possibility that somehow contained my entire past and possibly my future. The slight pressure of his fingers against my waist anchored me to this unbelievable moment. The taste of dust and possibility coated my tongue, mingling with the lingering sweetness of the memory he'd returned to me.

"Don't make me wait too long," he murmured, his voice carrying an edge I'd never heard before—not quite vulnerability, but something adjacent to it.

"If you want this, you'll do this for me," I whispered back, surprised by the steadiness in my voice when everything inside me trembled.

His eyes met mine, obsidian and fathomless as ever, yet somehow different. "I've never wanted anything more." The words rumbled from deep in his chest, vibrating against my skin where we touched. "Not once in my entire fucking life."

No poetry, no practiced lines—just raw truth delivered with the same unflinching intensity he brought to everything. His certainty should have frightened me. Perhaps it still did. But it also made something flutter dangerously in my chest, something I wasn't ready to name.

In that moment, with sunlight painting us gold and hope pressed between our palms, I felt something shift between us. The man who had once taken everything without permission was now waiting, patient and still. The enormity of that change washed over me like a tide, leaving me breathless.

I thought of the girl I used to be—the one who dreamed of a white dress and a first dance, of cake tastings and flower arrangements, of a gentle man who would love her softly. That girl had imagined a very different future than the one standing before me now. Her dreams had been innocent, untouched by the horrors we'd survived. She couldn't have imagined falling for a man like V, couldn't have comprehended the twisted path that led me here.

Mom used to say love was a choice you made every day. I never believed her. Until now.

There was heartbreak in recognizing how far I'd strayed from her dreams, a mourning for the normal life that had been stolen from both of us. Yet alongside that grief bloomed something unexpected—acceptance of this new reality, this strange and broken love that somehow fit the person I'd become. Perhaps we were both too damaged for the kind of love others took for granted. Perhaps this was exactly what we deserved—finding beauty in the wreckage we'd made of each other.

And I already knew what my answer would be.