The priest exhales, slow, controlled. “Absolution’s not mine to give for this. Only silence is. Swear it.”
He nods, frantic. “I swear. On my son—on—”
“Don’t swear on anything you love.” The priest’s eyes glitter. “They collect those.”
He slides the screen shut. Darkness swallows the man’s face, but his breathing is loud, ragged, alive.
Behind the door, the girl pulls away. Her palm is sweaty against the oak. Inside her chest, something new takes root—not fear, not exactly. A seed shaped like a question.
She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s already written in the book.
They all are.
They just haven’t turned the page.
The priest tried to recover his spine. “And Le Boucher?”
Silence.
Then, barely audible—“That one isn’t theirs.”
The priest’s fingers tightened on the rosary.
“Everyone belongs to the House,” the priest said, like belief could work as armor.
“Not him,” the man replied. “He doesn’t do jobs. He does corrections.”
A scrape of fabric.
The man shifted, leaning so close to the screen the priest smelled expensive cologne and cold sweat. Rich men always wore their fear like perfume. They thought it made them untouchable.
It just made them easier to find.
“They call him Le Boucher like it’s a joke,” the man said. “Like it makes sense. Like he’s some tradesman doing a job.”
The priest opened his mouth. No sound came out.
“Boucher's cut meat,” the man continued. “They follow lines. They leave something recognizable behind.”
“He doesn’t cut,” the man said. “He takes you apart until no one can tell what you were.”
The priest's own voice was a rasp. “Why tell me this?”
The man’s laugh returned, thin and ugly. “Because confession is the only place left where men admit what they fear.”
“And what do you fear?”
The man thought for a moment. “Peace. Because peace is when he’s done,” the man said. “Peace is when there’s no one left to scream.”
Chapter 1
Asher
Idrop my knife onto my plate as Atlas pushes his chair back, his eyes trailing my father. None of us says a word as he drains another glass. I could point out he's already had too much. I could mention the distant look in Mom's eyes, the one that screams how sick she is of this life. The gilded cage she married into.
But I don't. Because every time I do, it ends with yelling and someone sporting a split lip.
I couldn't be fucked dealing with either outcome tonight.
