The Sinner's Saint

103.8

Lev had never felt the urge to kill someone the way he felt it for Ghost. The bastard had asked for a poison that couldn't be cured or reversed, and worse, whoever made it did a damn good job.

His family had access to the best minds alive, people who could crack codes and solve what the world called impossible, people who could bend science in ways deemed unthinkable, and even they couldn't find an antidote.

The poison was slowly doing its job, still doing it, and he was afraid to admit it was torture. And yet, for all the pain coursing through his body, none of it compared to the hurt he'd gone through over the last week. That had been the real torture, the kind that made him want to carve his chest hollow with a fork just to be rid of it.

Let's go back to the start of it all.

Lev doesn't, and would never, consider himself the jealous type. Never has been.

It was day two of decorating, there was sweat sticking his shirt to his back from unrolling fifty yards of black-and-gold fabric in a room with no AC yet. He'd got one of the easier jobs, considering his medical state. His stubborn ass did still try to do the things he was not allowed to do tho.

He was on a ladder pinning drapery when he noticed Alex over by the walls, putting flowers in those little holder things, laughing with one of the setup guys, head tilted back, hand landing briefly on the guy's arm to steady herself off a step stool. He watched long enough to catch himself, then made himself look away and keep working.

She could laugh with whoever she wanted. She could flirt, and it'd be entirely her business, her choice, and he'd survive it. He fucked up first, he knows that better than anyone. Standing her up, allowing another woman to touch on him knowing he'd expect Alex not to do be with another man, letting her walk in on it, handling the aftermath stupidly instead of like a man who actually wanted to keep her.

He knew he didn't get to be the one who was hurt, it didn't work that way. He lost that right the second he went on that stupid mission.

So he kept pinning fabric, and telling himself, again, that it was fine. She deserved someone like the guy, someone who laughed back without whatever's wrong with them getting in the way.

Later, he caught her by the drinks table. The guy had his hand resting on the small of her back and she wasnt moving away from it, in fact, she leaned in close, whether to hear something over the music or whatever.

She was laughing that soft, slow laugh again, and at one point the guy tucked a stray piece of her hair back, casually, like he'd done it before. Lev's grip tightened on the tablecloth he was holding. He didn't stop them or even move. He told himself again she's her own person But watching someone else get to touch her like that, casual and unbothered, felt different than he expected it to.

Three days later, he's in his room getting ready to head back over for round five of decorating or well inspecting tdy, actually looking forward to it if he was honest. Things had been better. Not fixed, but better, the kind of better where she'd laugh at something he would say without checking herself first, where she didn't flinch or give him a dirty when he got close.

He'd been careful with it. Careful not to crowd her, careful to let her have her own space, her own people, her own life outside of whatever this was between them, because the last thing he wanted was to be the reason she felt boxed in. Even if some small, selfish part of him wanted to just be around her constantly, he was not about to be that guy. He could want her and still let her breathe.

He was tying his shoes when his phone buzzed. An unknown number with no contact name sent an audio file, sixteen seconds.

He almost ignored, if it were any other day he would've but something about it had him pressing play before he had even fully thought about it.