I’m walking toward a baptismal font made of cameras, ready to push a woman under and tell you she was saved.
Chapter Sixteen
Shae
The convent house is quiet—too quiet. No Blake. No cameras. No charity applause. Just the wind working the old property like a set of lungs, and the old bell tower answering sometimes, faint and wrong. The sunlight presses through the kitchen window like it’s trying to catch me in the act.
I’m not doing anything wrong.
That’s the funny part.
I see his truck before I hear it, parked crooked in the gravel like he didn’t bother correcting himself. Like he expects the world to adjust around him.
I don’t open the door right away.
I let him knock twice.
When I finally do, he’s holding an envelope.
His casual nonchalance pisses me off.
“Hi, Shae,” he says, like this is normal. Like he’s a friend stopping by with a casserole and concern.
I don’t invite him in. “What do you want?”
Declan’s eyes slide past me into the house. Checking. Always checking.
“Well, what a warm welcome. It’s been over a month and I haven’t heard a word from you—not even a thank you for the man that helped engineer your release.”
“Ha, dramatic much?” I spit.
He grunts.
“A letter came for you at the facility,” he says. “The day you got out.”
I lift a brow. “And you drove all the way here to hand-deliver it?”
“They gave it to me to read,” he says.
I smile without warmth. “That’s not how mail works.”
“It is when you’re an inmate,” he replies. “All correspondence is screened.”
I lean into the doorframe. “Screened isn’t the same thing as read.”
His mouth tightens—irritation, the reflex of a man who hates being corrected.
“I read it. It’s my job,” he says.
The word lands heavier than he intends.
“You read it,” I repeat.
“I was authorized?—”
“You read my mail,” I say again, quieter now.
He lifts the envelope like evidence. Off-white. No return address. My name printed carefully—not rushed. Someone took their time.
