He moves so fast the air cracks.One hand slams into the headboard beside my face.The noise is violent and intimate.I flinch because my body immediately craves him, not because I fear him.
“I’ve never touched you,” he growls.
“You’ve always wanted to,” I whisper back.“You still do.”
Heat rolls through the narrow space between us.His chest rises and falls with effort.Close enough, I feel the truth vibrating off him.Something inside him reaches for me, but something bigger drags him back.
He steps away.Not because he wants to.Because he must.
“You’re staying,” he says again, voice like he’s reading a eulogy.“Not just because of the deal.Because you’re the only one who might know what the Reverend is hiding.”
A cold bloom spreads in my stomach.
“What is he hiding?”
Royal stares at the door.“Another girl went missing in Hell.”
“Who?”
“Marlena.”
Everything inside me goes still.
He leaves without waiting for my breath to come back.
The lock clicks.
Silence swallows me whole.
I slide down onto the floor, my legs folding beneath me.My hand curls around the chain, gripping tight as if I can squeeze answers out of it.I twist around my knees on the floor.
Girls from Hell have been disappearing for years.Some were from Pearly Gates.My daddy’s church.My daddy’s flock.My daddy’s property.But lately some are from the MC crowd.
My mind races through faces.Josie.Marlena.Cammy.Girls from Pearly Gates.Girls from town.Girls from the club.Girls who should’ve been safe.Girls my daddy preached over.Girls who vanished into fog.
Somewhere down the hall, I hear hushed voices.One man says something about “disappearing overnight.”Another mutters about “the ones from the Reverend’s list.”Someone else curses under his breath.
The Reverend’s list.
My stomach rolls.
I knew some of the girls.Josie with the soft hair.Valerie, who used to steal communion wine with me when we were fourteen.Cammy, who was barely old enough to drink.They were trouble sometimes, but they didn’t deserve to vanish.My daddy always had explanations.God’s punishment.God’s calling.God’s wrath.
The Reverend always said God called them home.
What if God’s not the one calling?
Asking for a miracle, I search in my pockets.My fingers close around cold metal.I thank God it’s still there.The basement key.My daddy’s key.The one I stole.It might be nothing.It might be everything.I stole it because I thought it might help me blackmail Sophie, or force Legend’s hand, or give me something to use in the power struggle.
But what if it is something else entirely?What if the secret beneath the Reverend’s church ain’t about business or land or inheritance?
What if it is about the missing girls?I hide the key in my frayed waistband.Royal can chain my body.He can’t chain my mind.My heart is pounding hard enough to shake my ribs.I force myself to breathe slowly.Evenly.Royal may think he has caged me.He may think I ain’t nothing more than leverage.
But he’s wrong.
I will get out.
I will find answers.
