Forbidden Sins by Kailee Reese Samuels

From my vantage point, I stare at the shadowed angles of his slumbering face––pronounced jawline, wine-stained lips, and the strong hand tucked beneath his week-old scruff. His atramentous ink sheaths like armor protecting the man I love.
The lotus scarred…etched…burned into his flesh like a shield of battle, an emblem, a flag…a declaration of war. In the empty bassinet beside the bed, the baby will sleep when she returns to me.
No matter how many times I repeat it…say it…cry it…scream it…I cannot connect. I cannot bond—professing the emotion, to get past the boundary, to flee the cell others put me in.
This should be easy.
I carried that soul within my body for months…and now, we’re strangers, misaligned with resentment and need.
I am stuck.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
I want the time back.
My eyes skirt over to the man in the chair, sleeping peacefully and cradling his baby. He quickly repairs things, so why can he not fix me?
Someone must hold the key.
Somewhere…
He’ll steal one for me.
Because he is the Lotus King.
And the man in the chair is his dirty thief, swiping anything his pretty boy desires.
With one tiny push of my finger, I could cause the dominoes to tumble and crash their perfect reunion. I am the Queen of my mafia, the wife of Salvatore Raniero, and the playmate of a Saint. They love me, but I cannot fathom why. I don’t even know myself anymore.
Who am I now?
A shell of the woman I once was.
A paltry peasant scavenging for scraps and finding none on the bathroom floor.
My trembling fingers brush over the freezing, hard tile resembling my heart.
God, help me.
Please…