Page 36 of The Lies Of Omission (Without Limits #3)

SIN

“ W hy does no one want me?” I cried into Thalia’s shoulder with a whimpering exhale.

There was no dignity in it. Just tears and snot and my whole body shaking like something inside had been irreparably broken. Hours had passed since I left Theo. Since I told him it was over—whatever it was. Since I walked away from the only person I had let close in years.

Thalia hadn’t asked questions when she found me. She didn’t try to fix it. She just sat beside me on the floor of my bedroom and pulled me in like she had always known this moment would come. And maybe she had.

“Why won’t anyone love me?” I choked out, my voice raw, my face buried against the curve of her neck.

My chest felt too small to hold all of it—the grief, the anger, the echoing ache that never really went away. I wasn’t just crying about Theo.

I was crying about every night I’d lay awake, waiting for a message that didn’t come.

I was crying about the part of me that still thought maybe—just maybe—if I’d been better, if I’d been enough, my parents wouldn’t have given up on me so easily.

That someone would have stayed. Would have wanted to keep me.

Thalia held me tighter, her fingers in my hair. “He’s a fucking idiot for letting you walk away, Sin.”

A sound tore out of me. Rough and guttural. Something between a laugh and a scream. It didn’t feel human.

Thalia let out a small, sad chuckle. “Well. That was unexpected.”

I peeled myself off her slowly, dragging the back of my hand across my tear-streaked face. My nose was blocked, my lips trembling, and I couldn’t seem to stop shaking. I climbed up the bed and sat back against the headboard, knees pulled tight to my chest, arms locked around them like a shield.

“I didn’t even cry when my parents kicked me out,” I said hoarsely, staring at the dark window like it might give me an answer. “Didn’t cry when the money stopped. When they cut me off without a second thought. Or the nights I had to sleep in my car because I had nowhere else to go.”

Thalia climbed on the bed beside me, and quietly sat cross-legged. She didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to. Knowing she was there for me was enough.

“But now I’m crying over him ?” I whispered. “Over Theo- fucking -Astor?” I laughed again. Sharp. Bitter. Empty. “I knew better. I knew . And I still let myself believe he’d choose me.”

Because I’d believed in what we had. In the soft, quiet mornings in the Caymans.

The way his hand would find mine when we crossed the street.

The way he listened, like every word I said, mattered.

The way he kissed me like I was something holy, something he’d never been allowed to want, but did anyway.

I had pictured it. What we could be. If only we allowed ourselves.

We would get out. Leave the blood-money families behind.

I’d start designing again, and he’d... I don’t know.

He’d write. Or teach. Or just be free. He’d have the time to find himself.

We’d find a shitty little apartment with bad plumbing and late rent, and we’d fight about takeout and bedcovers and whose turn it was to buy toilet paper.

He’d fall asleep with his head in my lap. I’d wake up to the sound of his laugh.

It would’ve been enough. That life. With him.

But instead... here I was. Holding myself together like shattered glass in a box too small to contain it.

“You don’t cry because of him, babe,” Thalia said softly. “You cry because you loved . And you wanted to be loved back.” She brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. “That’s not weakness. That’s hope. That’s brave.”

“Hope is for idiots,” I muttered, wiping my dripping nose on my sleeve.

Thalia tilted her head. “Then you’re the bravest idiot I’ve ever met.”

It broke something in me. A wet, choking laugh slipped out before I could stop it. Then silence. Heavy, but not unbearable. The kind you can share with someone who knows the shape of your pain.

I looked over at her. Her eyeliner had smudged, but she still looked beautiful, fierce. She was the only person who had never once made me feel small. The only one who knew the whole messy, bitter, furious truth of me and stayed anyway.

Thalia bumped her shoulder into mine. “Get up.”

I blinked. “What?”

“You need to wear something slutty, dance with someone pretty. And not spend another night spiraling over someone who can’t even tell you the truth.”

I stared at her. “I can’t?—”

“You can ,” she said, already sliding off the bed.

“Because I’ll be there, so will Claire. And because the best way to get over an asshole like Theo is to get under—or on top of—someone else.

” She gave me a look that was half-wicked, half-worried.

“Preferably someone who doesn’t come with a dynasty and a denial complex. ”

I exhaled. It sounded like surrender. “Okay,” I said quietly. “But you’re not leaving me alone, right?”

“Never,” she said. “You’re mine until further notice. Now put on something that screams ‘I don’t need anyone’ but also ‘I’m a fucking god’.”

Despite everything, a shaky smile crept across my lips. And as Thalia rummaged through my closet, throwing dramatic commentary about sequins and sheer tops, I stood.

Still broken. Still bleeding. But not alone. And maybe—for tonight—that would be enough.

Claire was our designated driver for the night as she had to be at her second job early in the morning.

Thalia and I pre-gamed before we left the apartment, anything to make our evening cheaper.

None of us were flush with cash, even though two of our families were one percenters.

The irony of our current situation wasn’t lost on me.

But as the cheap tequila slogged through my veins, mingling with the vodka that saturated me, I felt like I’d been stuffed with cotton wool. The world was loud and muffled at the same time.

Stuck in some kind of fever dream where reality didn’t feel real, we belted out whatever song came over the radio. The darkness of the freeway gave way to the orange glow of city lights.

“Where are we going again?” I slung my arms around the head rest of the front seats and looked at Thalia while I poked her shoulder with my other hand. Confusing the hell out of her for a second until her brain caught up.

“Nocturne,” she chuckled, batting my hand away.

“We’re just entering Marlow Heights,” Claire added.

It turned out this club was the kind of place where time warped. Red lights cut through the dark like veins. The bass pulsed like a second heartbeat. Bodies moved together in sweat-slick rhythm, strangers becoming stories in the space of a song.

Thalia led us straight through the crowd, magnetic and unapologetic as always. I followed her like a shadow, letting the music numb me. Letting the noise drown out the storm still screaming inside my head.

I was just drunk enough, just tired enough, to let my head fall back and my body sway, allowing the beat to swallow me whole.

I danced with a girl with thick lashes and a smile sharp enough to cut.

She moved like she didn’t care who was watching.

Maybe that’s what drew me in. I didn’t have to pretend with her. I didn’t have to be anyone.

Just this. Just here. Just for tonight.

We kissed under flickering lights. Hands on skin, mouths urgent with the ache of forgetting. I didn’t want her. I didn’t even know her name. But I let myself get lost in her anyway. Because for a moment—I wasn’t Theo’s secret. I wasn’t a disappointment. I wasn’t the kid no one stayed for.

I was just Sinclair. Breathing. Dancing. Choosing myself. I was free.

Still, somewhere in the blur of bodies, I felt it—that sensation of being watched. The unseen weight of eyes tracking my every move. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It had nothing to do with the hands slowly moving up my abs to my chest or the hips wrapped around my thigh.

I turned, scanning the crowd for… something. But there was nothing. No one stood out. There was no arrow above a head pointing them out. Just shadows and strangers moving in the darkness. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was him .

But I wasn’t here to chase ghosts tonight. I let her pull me deeper into the beat. Sweat slicked our skin as I gasped against her mouth. Hands cupping her firm ass as I moved us through the crowd into a shadowed corner.

“You’re so hot,” she moaned against my mouth, fingers clawing at the buttons of my shirt like they were the only things standing between her and salvation. “Jesus—h—Christ.”

She spun me around, dropping to her knees like a prayer, using my body as cover while her back hit the club wall. Her fingers were already at my fly, working with frantic precision. I barely registered my zipper coming down before I felt her mouth wrap around me, hot and slick and eager.

One arm braced against the concrete while my other hand found its way into her dyed-black-and-blue hair, gripping tight. “That’s it,” I breathed. The words came out like muscle memory—automatic, empty.

Her tongue flicked the tip, teasing me, licking at the slit like she knew what she was doing. And maybe she did. Maybe on another night, with another version of me, this would’ve worked.

But not tonight.

Not when the only thing keeping me upright was a ghost in my bones.

Normally I’d be hard—aching, desperate, ready to bury myself so deep, nothing could drag me back to the surface. But now my body felt like a stranger’s. Detached. Like it belonged to someone else entirely.

I was a goddamn expert in this—a connoisseur of vice, fluent in the language of lust and power and pleasure. I knew how to take, how to give, how to lose myself in the moment until nothing existed but skin and sweat.

But tonight, every moan, every lick, every wet sound echoing off the surrounding bricks fell flat.

Because it wasn’t him.

I let my head fall back on my shoulders, eyes unfocused, searching the dark room for something—anything—that would make this feel like more than a hollow performance.