Chapter 7~ Dirty, Dirty Nun

Chapter 7

⟿❂⟾

Sylvia

⟿❂⟾

Two hours.

That was how long I sat there, curled up on the broken, hard wooden pew, shivering, waiting for a man who was never going to show up.

Somewhere between the cold seeping into my bones and the gnawing ache in my chest, I’d started crying without even realizing it. Silent, stupid tears that I wiped away angrily, but they just kept falling, carving hot trails down my cheeks.

I didn’t even know why.

Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was the helplessness clawing at my insides.

Or maybe it was the terrifying realization that I might have just raised everyone’s hopes for nothing.

Because what if it wasn’t Nikolai?

What if the anonymous donor who had promised to help the shelter wasn’t him at all?

What if I had made them believe, led them on, promised them, that someone powerful was going to step in and save us, only for it to all be a big fat lie?

What if Mother Beatrice had looked at me with those hopeful eyes, had prayed over us, believing that help had come, and now—

Now, there was nothing?

The thought made my stomach turn violently.

I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms just enough to bruise the delicate skin, but I forced my feet to keep moving. I was so cold my legs were shaking, I’d started to shiver.

Okay. Okay. Think.

If it wasn’t Nikolai… then who?

Who did I know that could possibly be willing to help?

I went through the list in my head.

It was short.

Very, very short.

Because before the shelter, before I was brought into this place, my life was—

Nothing.

Just a big, black hole. A swirling void I’d never really understood.

I knew pieces of it. Knew the weight of hunger. Knew the chill of a damp alley at night. Knew what it felt like to be invisible, like a shadow in someone else’s story. Knew what it felt like to be scared of footsteps in the dark. Knew that a man would never smile at you unless he wanted something. Knew that certain physical touches could make me feel like centipedes were literally crawling on my skin.

But the real girl before life at the shelter?

I didn’t know her.

I didn’t even know if she existed.

And the few people I had met after that…the ones who weren’t just passing figures in the background…none of them were powerful enough to save us. Or want to, even if they could. None of them would even want to play such a prank as promising to help.

None of them were good enough.

Because I had never known good men.

Only the kind that took. The kind that smiled with knives hidden behind their backs.

So, if it wasn’t Nikolai, who wasn’t even an angel, then who?

I felt sick.

Partly because I didn’t even know this man, and yet, somehow, our fate was suddenly in his hands. He was the ghost of a man who had offered salvation like a deal with the devil. And just like the devil, he had vanished, leaving me chasing shadows.

I had been stupid to think the devil offers salvation.

Swallowing the bitterness on my tongue, I forced myself to my feet and slipped out of the chapel, ignoring the freezing night air accompanied by small amounts of rain hitting my now damp cheeks.

By the time I reached the building, my nerves were shot. But I couldn’t let them get the best of me. If I got caught now, there’d be questions.

Questions I wasn’t ready to answer.

I took the long way around, ducking behind the tool shed before pressing myself against the wall of the shelter. The window to my room was too high, and I wasn’t about to break my neck trying to climb in.

So, I did what I did not do well—I crept through the back door, tiptoeing through the hallway, my heartbeat slamming against my ribs. The whole place was dead silent—thankfully.

On the way to my room, I stopped. Just for a second.

Maeve’s door was slightly open.

She was curled up in her tiny bed, her dark curls sprawled across the pillow, one small hand clutching the frayed edge of a blanket.

A deep ache coiled in my chest.

I knelt beside her and brushed a stray curl from her face. She stirred slightly, but didn’t wake.

“She deserves better.” The thought was almost yelling inside my head.

I swallowed hard and stood up, slipping out of her room as quietly as I had entered.

By the time I reached my own door, my legs were literally vibrating. The second I was inside, I shut it and pressed my back against the wood, my whole body trembling.

And then—

Then I broke.

A choked sound left me, and suddenly I was sobbing, my shoulders shaking.I buried my face in my hands and let it all out, quietly of course.

It poured out of me. The fear, the exhaustion, the sheer helplessness that had been festering inside my chest like an open wound. I covered my mouth with both hands, trying to stifle the sound.

Minutes passed. Maybe more.

Finally, when my lungs ached from holding back sobs, I exhaled shakily and reached for the light switch.

The moment the room flooded with light, my breath caught in my throat.

Someone was sitting on my bed.

I nearly screamed, my body jerking forward, but instinct slammed my hand over my mouth just in time.

Because if I screamed, I was dead.

I was not supposed to be awake at this hour.

And yet, neither was he.

The hoodie-covered figure didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even look up.

One leg was stretched out, the other bent at the knee, his elbow resting lazily on it. One hand tucked in his pocket.

The other holding a book.

My book.

He sat there, holding it like he’d been waiting for me to get in and turn on the light for him to finish reading the book. And now that I did, his brows were furrowed in concentration. He didn’t even bother to look up, just kept reading silently.

I stared, my lungs locking up in shock.

He was reading.

Reading my favorite novel.

A book I shouldn’t even own, let alone be caught reading.

A deep, suffocating embarrassment burned through me.

How long had he been here?

Had he been here when I was sobbing against the door like a pathetic, broken mess?

The thought made me sick.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My brain short-circuited, I was trying to think of every worse case scenario that this man being here could mean for me.

Because there was no way.

No way he was here.

No way he was real.

And yet, there he was.

A man who was supposed to be nowhere—nowhere at all—sitting right there in my room, flipping through the pages of my book as if he had all the time in the world.

My breath hitched, my voice came out through chattering teeth that had almost frozen by the cold, a very tinku, shaky whisper. “Who… who are you?”

Slowly, ever so slowly, he lifted his face.

My heart nearly stopped.

Because it was him.

It was him.

The ghost. The devil. The man I had waited for in that godforsaken chapel.

In the flesh.

His dark eyes flickered over me, taking in my wide-eyed shock, the tear stains on my cheeks, the way I pressed my back against the door like a trapped animal.

Then lazily, like he was bored just staring at me, his attention returned to the hook in his hand. His fingers lazily flipped through the pages, I watched as his head tilted slightly like he had found something interesting.

Oh, God! Embarrassment! It was going to kill me

Before I could react, before I could ask him to put it down, he lifted the book slightly, his voice a slow drawl.

“Hmm. Let’s see…” His finger traced down the page before he began reading.

“Her breath hitched as his fingers trailed lower, teasing her delicate body—”

I lunged forward, heat exploding in my face. “Stop reading that!”

He ignored me.

“…the very sloppy skin between her thighs, his touch was feather-light, promising and withholding all at once. She ached for him, gasping his name—”

“Oh my God, STOP!”

He finally did, but only because he was enjoying this.

The smug bastard looked up at me, smirked, and tossed the book onto the bed.

And then, because he was an infuriating, impossible and completely mannerless man with no respect whatsoever for privacy or personal space—he smirked.

Then, he stood.

My body locked up instantly.

The height difference between us was suffocating, but that wasn’t what made my throat go dry.

It was the look in his eyes.

Dark. Amused. Knowing.

He took a step forward, and my instincts screamed at me to back away, but I was already trapped.

His gaze flicked to the book for a fraction of a second before returning to me, and then, with a slow, satisfied smirk—

“I always knew you were one dirty, dirty, nun.”

Heat flooded my face.

“I—I—”

I had no words.

Not one single, coherent thought in my brain.

He leaned slightly, lowering his voice just enough to make my skin prickle.

“I knew there was a reason I was attracted to you.”

I stopped breathing.

And then—

Then he reached out, placed his palm flat against the wall beside my head, and dropped his weight on it.

My stomach plummeted.

The sound of it made my heart slam against my ribs.

Loud enough that for a split second, my only thought was—

Mother Beatrice.

Agnes.

If they hear him, if they know a man is in my room—

Panic crashed through me.

I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything, his voice cut through the silence like a blade.

“Don’t worry about them.”

My breath hitched.

A slow, creeping dread curled in my gut.

He must have seen it in my eyes because his smirk deepened, like he liked watching me squirm.

“What did you do?” I whispered. “Did you—did you hurt them?”

He let the question hang between us.

Long enough to make my lungs burn.

Then he said the last thing I expected. “Is this how you sneak out every night? Or were you just meeting a man?”

“How about you tell me how you got here instead?” I retorted, annoyed that he’d even think of me in such a degrading way. “What did you do to…?”

I stopped.

Because he moved.

“Them?”

He finished for me. “I told you not to worry about them. Now, I’m going to tell you something you haven’t realized yet, Sister.” His finger went below my chin and tipped it so that I was staring into his cold eyes. “A Sister should not read an erotica. A Sister should not have a man in her room in the middle of the night.”

“I didn't invite you!”

“You’re right. But you haven’t screamed yet, have you?” He looked away thoughtfully, then lifted a brow. “Or did I miss it?”

I swallowed the realization down with a frown of my own. “I just don’t want you to hurt anyone here. That’s why.”

“Is it? Or you’re just not interested in not having me here at all.”

His emphasis on the ‘not was not lost one me. “You’re delusional.”

“I am. But I have my own ways, Sister. One day you’ll find out.” His voice dropped lower than before, then his face turned serious. “Where were you, Sylvia?”

He knows my name.

I couldn’t speak.

I couldn’t move.

Because he wasn’t asking.

He was demanding.