"You brought me here," I said, stepping closer, fury boiling over. "You dangled Benson's family in front of me like bait. You made me think this was about something clean, something good. And now someone's threatening her?"
"No one from Dominion Hall would?—"
"Then who?" I demanded. "Who the fuck else even knows I'm here?"
Silas opened his mouth to respond.
And then the door clicked open behind me.
I turned, ready to unleash on whoever had the audacity to interrupt.
The words died in my throat.
At first, I thought it was a ghost.
A trick.
Some kind of psychological warfare designed to break me.
Because the man standing in the doorway was dead.
Or gone.
Or whatever the hell had happened to him fifteen years ago when he walked out of our lives and never came back.
Byron Dane.
My father.
I stepped back, my brain short-circuiting, trying to process what my eyes were seeing.
He looked older. Grayer. Harder around the edges in a way that time and guilt both carved into a man.
But it was him.
"Hello, son," he said.
The voice.
Jesus Christ, the voice.
I couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Couldn't do anything but stand there like a fucking idiot while my world tilted sideways and everything I thought I knew shattered.
When I finally found words, they came out sharp and accusatory.
I pointed at Silas. "You're a rat. A fucking liar."
"Micah—" Silas started.
"It's really me," my father said, stepping closer.
I flinched back. "Don't."
He stopped, hands raised slightly, palms out. Non-threatening. Like I was a hostile he was trying to de-escalate.
Maybe I was.
"I know this is a shock," he said quietly.
