Page 41 of Hidden

My dad hadn’t always been the kindest—especially if I compared it to the comfort and warmth I had seen Crash display towards his club. But I had to believe he always had my best interests at heart… so long as it didn’t affect the club.

Yes, on that fateful night, the night where everything had been destroyed, he had been mercilessly cruel. But other than that, I was his princess. Everyone knew it.

Now I was nothing more than a sex slave.

And, unfortunately, everyone knew that, too.

Every part of my body hurt, but I could ignore that. I could retreat to the furthest corner of my mind and block out the physical pain, but I couldn’t block out the marks on my soul. The way my very essence screamed in protest.

I was tired. So very, very tired.

I wanted to look. I wanted to punish myself.

Hidden underneath my bed, buried beneath a loose floorboard, was him. Us. A memento of our relationship. A bracelet, a letter, and a picture that tore my heart to pieces.

But if I looked, I would remember. And if I remembered what had once been mine, and all I had lost… I wouldn’t survive it.

Not tonight, not when every piece of me, body and mind, was so fragile.

And so I continued laying on my stomach, my pillow cuddled to my chest beneath me, pitiful tears falling from my eyes.

How long I lay there, I have no idea. The night crept darker, the clubhouse quietened, and life stilled… Until it was just me, and memories assaulting me.

And then I heard it—the noise that had my heart jumping in my chest, and then sinking to my toes.

He was here again.

My eyes shot to the window, and just as I predicted, there he was.

My saviour.

My hero.

My biggest regret.

My forbidden, forgotten love.

I frowned, eyeing him as though he would disappear at any minute if I dared believe he was here for me.

But it was undeniable. After all these years, he was no longer content to hide in the trees, waiting for my signal, our routine, the thing that reassured him I was safe. Now he wanted to see for himself. Now he wanted more.

And now he was closer than he ever had been before. Even through the blur of tears still clinging to my lashes, I saw how tightly he was pressed against the glass of my window.

No trees to conceal him, no half-hidden shadows to protect him.

He was close. Far too close. And goddamn if that didn’t thrill me, when everything inside me screamed that I should be horrified.

My breath caught in my throat as my eyes adjusted to the dark, taking him in properly, and my stomach tightened at what I saw.

He was unravelling before my eyes. His body was pressed so tight against the glass, his hand braced beside him, his head dipped slightly forward as though the weight of it was too much to carry.

For a moment, I thought I was imagining it, that my mind was twisting what I wanted to see into something more than it was.

But then I saw it.

The slow, uneven rise and fall of his shoulders.

The way his breath hit the glass and bloomed faintly against it, fogging the space between us in soft, fleeting patches that disappeared almost as quickly as they formed.