“He claims to hate her, but his obsession says otherwise. A deadly game of spite and desire unfolds as enemies collide, and lines between hate, love, and possession blur in the most dangerous ways.”
Yandere! Divorce Attorney : Skin of the Saint Series – Part 1
Word Count: 1,076 words
It was an odd place for a man like him—a place of sanctity and light—but there he was, framed by the dim glow of stained glass and the quiet, golden shimmer of candlelight. The old church sighed with the weight of incense, its faint, smoky tendrils curling like dying prayers through the still air. He hated it here. Everything about it—from the stooped pews worn smooth by piety to the murmurs of hope drifting from unseen mouths—repulsed him. Hope, forgiveness, love. Lies, all of them.
But he wasn’t here to confess. He was here on business. Another husband seeking escape from the charade of matrimony, another case that would add to his unblemished record. Marriage had become his personal playground, and the courtroom was where he played king. He tore apart vows as if they were paper, stripped promises down to the fraud he knew them to be. Ribbons around wrists disguised as chains—and he was their undoer.
He sat near the back, slouched, his broad shoulders spilling over the curve of the pew. His long legs stretched deliberately into the aisle, forcing passersby to step around him, though no one dared look his way. He liked it that way—their unease, their silence.
Then he saw you.
You were at the front, seated where the shadows couldn’t touch. Your back was straight, unmoving, a perfect line of poise and defiance. Draped over your hair, a white veil cascaded like the soft edges of a phantom. In your hands, a rosary dangled loosely, the beads sliding between your fingers with an elegance he found irritatingly methodical. You looked like a statue—a piece of ancient marble carved by hands too reverent to leave flaws. Untouchable.
You didn’t turn to look at him. Not once. And that alone ignited something ugly in him—a spark of curiosity edged with irritation. Most people noticed him, whether out of awe or dread. You seemed immune, locked in your private ritual. Your thumb traced the beads one by one, every motion measured like a clock counting down.
When the priest’s voice finally rose above the hush of whispers, he watched you. Watched as your eyes—calm, yet alight with something unsettling—lifted toward the altar. Devotion. True, unwavering devotion. He could see it in the way your lips pressed together, in the fire hidden behind your stillness. And it made him sick. No—worse. It made him envious.
The words of the service washed over him, unheeded and unimportant. He was too focused on you. You, who radiated a cold kind of purity—a power that felt older than the stones of the church itself. Beautiful, yes, but it was a beauty he found mocking. As if you knew something he never could.
When the priest dismissed the congregation, he moved before he could think better of it. His footsteps carried him forward like a blade slipping from its sheath. People parted without a word, their voices quieting as his presence cut through them. You were still there, rosary in hand, unmoving until his shadow swallowed the space around you.
“Do you really believe in all this?” His voice was low, edged with the kind of arrogance he wielded like a knife.
Your head tilted slightly, the fabric of your veil catching the soft light. When your gaze met his, it was frost-sharp—cold and unblinking. “Do you?”
The question threw him, though he refused to let it show. He was used to submission or anger—something easier to read and dismiss. Not this quiet, unshakable composure. Not eyes that looked through him as if he were a thing to be studied, then forgotten.
“Not in the slightest,” he said, a smirk curling at his lips. “But I’m not the one sitting here, pretending God cares.”
Your fingers stilled over the rosary beads. The pause was brief, almost imperceptible, before you answered. “Then why are you here?”
“I’m working.” He let the word drawl, savoring its weight as he flicked a glance toward the altar. “A man wants out of his marriage. I’m here to assess the battlefield—figure out what’s holding her back. Probably a priest telling her to stick it out, that it’s all ‘sacred.’”
Your expression didn’t change, though something in your gaze sharpened. “Marriage is sacred,” you said, your voice steady and deliberate, “a choice to love even when circumstances demand otherwise. It is not mere feeling.”
He huffed a low, humorless laugh, leaning closer, his presence suffocating the space between you. “Sacred? Sure, until it isn’t. People fall out of love every day. Or worse, they let love fester until it poisons them. Your ‘choice’ is nothing more than a leash.”
For a moment, you didn’t answer, and he thought he’d won. That silence meant concession. Then you did something he hadn’t expected.
You smiled.
It wasn’t soft, and it wasn’t kind. It was a sharp, glacial thing that cut through his bravado. “You don’t understand love,” you said quietly, each word precise, “because you refuse to.”
Something in him bristled—a string pulled too tight. His hand twitched with the desire to close the distance, to grab your wrist and demand you look at him properly—to see him. But he held back. Barely.
“Careful,” he said, voice dropping lower, darker. “You don’t know who you’re talking to.”
You tilted your head again, utterly unshaken, your gaze locking with his as though you were looking at something less than a man. “I don’t need to,” you murmured. “You’re not my God.”
The words landed harder than they should have, knocking the smirk clean from his face. Not because of what you said, but because of how you said it—with such cool dismissal, as if he were beneath you. Insignificant.
His smile returned, but it was empty now. “You’ll care soon enough,” he muttered, the edge of a threat slipping into his voice. “They always do.”
You rose then, your movements fluid and unhurried, stepping neatly around him as though he were just another obstruction in your path. He watched you disappear into the slow-moving crowd, that sharp veil of white drifting like mist behind you.
For a moment, he didn’t move. His pulse still hummed with something restless, something unspoken. But as the candles flickered and the incense thinned to smoke, his mind was already at work—unraveling you, dissecting you. You were the kind of challenge he couldn’t resist. The kind of puzzle he had to solve.
If words wouldn’t break you, he’d find another way.
𝐆𝐨𝐝'𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭 