Page 38 of The Lies Of Omission (Without Limits #3)

THEO

I told myself I wasn’t going to follow him. But I knew I was lying. There was no version of reality, no timeline, where this—us–was over. Sin walked away like he meant it. Every single word. Like we never meant anything. Like I hadn’t carved every inch of him into my soul.

And I let him. I stood there like a fucking statue while he shattered the only thing in this world that ever felt real. But the second he disappeared around the corner, my body betrayed me. My feet moved on their own, tracking him like instinct. Like need.

Sinclair always walked fast when he was angry—head down, jaw tight, fists clenched like he was seconds away from throwing them. I knew every tick, every micro-expression, the entire goddamn emotional spectrum of that man—and still, I almost lost him in the crowd.

I watched him slip into his building. The glass doors closed behind him. And I just… stood there. Like some creep. Like the coward I was. I should’ve gone home. Should’ve respected the boundary he threw down like a gauntlet.

But love doesn’t care about boundaries. Obsession doesn’t either. So I waited. And when he came out again, laughter pouring from his lips like it cost him nothing, like we didn’t just tear each other apart with our teeth, I followed.

He didn’t know I was there when he climbed into Claire’s SUV. Didn’t see me as I slipped into mine, and tailed them through the city like a shadow.

He wanted to forget me? Fine. Let him try. But I wouldn’t be erased. I wouldn’t let him pretend I never happened.

The drive to Marlow Heights gave me time to think about what I was doing.

I wouldn’t make myself known, I just wanted to make sure he was okay.

At least that’s what I told myself. Nocturne was packed, pulsing with heat, neon-stained smoke and bodies grinding to bass that felt like a second heartbeat.

In a club full of hundreds, I only saw him. Sin—center of the storm. Neck arched back, mouth open, liquor dripping off his lips like sin incarnate. He laughed like his chest wasn’t still bruised by me. Danced like we hadn’t just left each other bleeding in the wreckage of what we used to be.

But I saw it. The cracks. The way his smile faltered just a second too long. The frantic way his eyes scanned the room, as if he could feel me watching him.The way he checked his phone continuously. Waiting for something. For me?

The whiskey burned slowly in my veins, a soft fire I could almost survive—until he turned and kissed her.

Just like that, my blood froze mid-flame.

My heart forgot how to beat. And then he took her by the wrist, led her into the dark like he didn’t still have my name on his lips, like I hadn’t carved myself into the marrow of his mouth.

I stumbled. Actually fucking stumbled like the ground dropped out beneath me. How many times could I be stabbed by the same goddamn person before I stopped bleeding?

I searched everywhere for them. Each minute without him was a year carved into my ribs. When I finally found him, his eyes were glassy, ringed in red, hollowed out like something had been scraped clean from his chest.

He was dancing with Claire and Thalia like the pieces of him hadn’t been mine first. I was across the room before I even realized I’d moved. I grabbed his wrist and yanked him away from the girls, ignoring their screech of protest.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I snapped.

Sin yanked his arm back like my touch burned him. “What the fuck does it look like, Theo? Living.”

“By fucking some stranger in a club?”

“Better than fucking someone who’s ashamed of me,” he snapped.

That hit like a fist to the throat. “That’s not what this is.”

“No?” he laughed. But it wasn’t a laugh. It was a scream buried in glass.

“Then what is it? Because I’ve spent months waiting for you to choose me. And all I ever got were crumbs. Stolen nights. Locked doors. My name buried behind your goddamn teeth.”

“I was trying to protect you?—”

“No. You were trying to protect yourself. ” His voice cracked, jagged and raw, tears in the edges of his eyes even as his glare turned to fire. “And I get it, Theo. I do. But I’m done bleeding for someone who can’t even admit they want me.”

“I never said I didn’t want you,” my voice was barely above a whisper.

“But you never said you did.”

The silence between us was a bomb. Seconds ticked by. Heat was rising.

I stepped forward, desperate. “You think this—watching you laugh like I don’t exist, watching you disappear into the dark with her—you think this is me not wanting you ?”

“ Yes! ” he screamed. His hands shook. “Because it’s easier to believe that than to keep living in this fucked-up purgatory where you look at me like I’m everything but call me nothing.”

“I don’t know how to do this!” I shouted. “I don’t know how to want someone out loud when I was raised to keep everything that matters hidden .”

“I’m not a secret, Theo.” His voice dropped. Quiet. Shattering. “I’m not your shame.”

“I know that.” I stepped into his space, trembling, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “But I’m terrified. Of what I feel. Of how much of me you hold in your hands.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. “I’m already broken, Theo. You don’t get to be scared when you’re the one holding the hammer.”

I reached for him then, hand shaking as I cupped his face. He flinched—but didn’t pull away. “I’m not good with words,” I said, broken and breathless. “But if it matters—if you still believe in anything I say—I would burn the whole fucking world down before I let you belong to anyone else.”

His breath hitched. Tears glittered on his lashes. “Then say it,” he whispered. “Say something real. ”

“I’m yours,” I said. “I’ve always been yours. I was just too much of a coward to admit it.”

A beat. Then another passed. The silence stretched like a tightrope between us. Sin’s lips parted. A thousand things flickered in his eyes—pain, disbelief, longing—before he turned his face into my palm, just for a second.

“I don’t need perfect,” he breathed. “I just need real. ”

I pulled him in like gravity, clung to him like the last breath in my lungs. And maybe it was too late. Maybe we were already ruined. But I wasn’t going to lose him without a fight.

Not again. Not ever. But sometimes we didn’t get what we wanted, no matter how right it felt.

“Then come home with me,” I begged, my voice cracking open like a wound. “Come back with me and let me take care of you.”

For a fleeting second, I saw it—the falter.

The hesitation in Sin’s gaze, like the weight of my words, had sunk in just enough to shake him.

His dark eyes shimmered beneath the low club lights, wild curls damp with sweat.

I thought maybe— maybe —I’d done enough.

That my pleading, my reaching, had been enough to tip the scale.

But just as my fingers hovered over his skin, just as I was about to anchor myself to him—he stepped back. A breath caught in my throat.

He shook his head, slow and final. “Pretty words don’t mean anything, Theo.”

His voice wasn’t cruel—but it was devastating. “I respect myself enough to know that only your actions show that you mean it.”

“What does that mean?” My body moved of its own accord, chasing him, mirroring his retreat. “What do you want from me? Just tell me what to do— please .”

Sin’s arms crossed tight over his chest, tattooed forearms rippling as he folded himself shut. I could feel him closing the door between us. Locking it.

“Tell me what’s really going on,” he pleaded, each word sharpened with pain. “Have you told your father about us?”

My heart dropped like stone. Shame coiled around my throat like a noose. I dropped my gaze, hands falling limp at my sides. “It’s not that simple?—”

“It is,” he snapped, the rawness in his voice cracking like lightning. “It is that simple, Theo.”

He beat a fist against his chest, pain and pride radiating in equal measure.

“My family cut me off. Kicked me out. Because I didn’t fit into their picture-perfect life.

I didn’t check their boxes. I wasn’t enough .

And I have to live with that rejection every goddamn day.

” He was shaking now, blinking furiously, trying to stop the tears that clung to his lashes.

“But you know what?” His voice dropped, thick with heartbreak.

“What?” I rasped, feeling every one of his words like glass dragging through me.

He looked at me—truly looked at me. Eyes brimming, voice trembling but strong.

“Nothing they did… not the abandonment, not the silence, not the emotional rejection—none of it hurt me as much as you lying to me.”

I staggered back a step. “I haven’t lied to you, sweetheart?—”

“Don’t.” He pushed my hand away when I reached for him again. “Lying by omission is still lying. You’ve danced around the truth with half-confessions and misdirections, Theo. Every time I asked for clarity, you gave me fog.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” The words spilled out like blood. “I was trying to protect you. To keep you safe.”

He laughed bitterly, eyes dark and glinting. “Safe? You weren’t protecting me, you were protecting yourself—from the truth, from your father, from us. ”

Sin stepped in close, so close I could feel his breath on my skin. My heart slammed against my ribs like it wanted to escape.

“That—right there,” he said, his voice shaking. “That silence? That was your last chance to be honest with me. To tell me what the hell you’ve been hiding. And you locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”

His hands rose—gentler now. He cupped my face like he was holding something already broken. Electricity snapped beneath my skin. I leaned into his touch despite everything.

“You need to be honest with yourself first, Theo.” His lips brushed my cheek—a goodbye more than a kiss. “Figure out what you really want. Me… or the life your father planned for you. Love—or a cage lined with gold.”

“But…” My throat burned.