"Go home," I say quietly. "Please. Before I do something we can't take back."
"Like what?" Challenge in her voice.
"Like fuck you on the altar."
The words hang between us. She shivers, her thighs pressing together.
"Go home," I repeat. A plea. She hears the desperation.
She stands. Looks at me for a long moment—the priest on the floor, destroyed, cock still half-out, begging her to leave not as punishment but as mercy. Then she goes. I watch her walk through the dark church. Listen to her car start. Listen to the silence after.
I drag myself to the nearest pew. Look up at the crucifix. For the first time in forever, I don't say "God forgive me." Because I'm not sorry. Because I'd do it again. Because the taste of her is still in the air and I want more.
Tomorrow is Thursday. The food pantry. The kitchen where she made me coffee. The hallway where she called me Father like a weapon.
How do I look at her now? How do I pretend this didn't happen when I can still feel her mouth on me, when I know what she looks like with my cock in her throat, when the absence of her is a physical ache?
I don't have answers. Just silence and darkness and the terrible freedom of a man who's stopped asking permission. And the certainty that this is just the beginning. That I'm going to have her. All of her. Every way I've imagined and ways I haven't thought of yet.
God help us both.
8 - Seraphina
Salt and musk coat my tongue. Him, still there despite the hours since. My jaw aches from taking him so deep, throat raw where he hit when I swallowed. The bruises on my knees sing when I press them together under the sheet. Twin marks where stone pressed through thin carpet. Not wounds. Receipts.
My body holds the evidence while memory floods back. Two nights ago. The confessional. His hand tangled in my hair, gripping like I was the only solid thing in his world coming apart. The sound he made when he came. Destroyed, honest. "Go home. Please." Not a command. A plea. The crack in his voice that said if I stayed, we'd both burn down that church.
The cottage bedroom is still dark, dawn maybe an hour away. I lie still, trying to tame my wild thoughts running. What hurts: knees, jaw, throat. What's compromised: nothing. What's changed: everything.
The ring presses between my breasts, warm from sleep. Julian's ring on its chain, carrying his code and his ghost. I was wearing it Wednesday night. Wearing a dead man's secrets while I made a living man confess with his body instead of words.
I don't know what to feel about that. I table it. Add it to the growing file of things I'll process when I'm not tracking threats on multiple fronts.
Coffee first. I pad to the kitchen, bare feet on cold tile. The gas stove clicks twice before catching. The wooden spoonleans against the wall where I placed it that first night, my one inheritance from Abuela Rosa.
My mind runs two parallel operations while I dress:
Track one: Gabriel. I went to that confessional knowing exactly who sat behind that screen. Every word was ammunition. Julian's commands, how wet they made me, the shame and arousal tangled together. I pulled that trigger deliberately, knowing it would shatter his control. And when he opened that door, when I saw him filling the frame with his cock straining against his pants and his eyes black with need, I made my choice. Dropped to my knees because I wanted to, not because someone told me to. The distinction matters. With Julian, submission made me smaller. With Gabriel, I held all the power.
Track two: The wealth manager. Arturo Reyes. His name was in Julian's recovered files, linked to accounts that exist in no legitimate system. His card from the gala sits on my counter. "Friday morning, his office" written on the back in his own hand. Three hours until the meeting.
My cover needs to be perfect. A vulnerable widow with complicated money. Eastern European connections she doesn't fully understand. I need him to see prey, not predator.
I dress strategically. Silk blouse that suggests money but not too much. Good trousers that allow movement if I need to run. The earrings from my old life. Julian insisted on them, said they made me look expensive.
The ring swings against my chest as I move. VA-11.03.18-7K4X9. I've run every algorithm, tried every substitution. The pattern is there, hovering just beyond recognition like a word in a foreign language I almost speak. But Reyes is the door. I just need to walk through without him noticing the knife in my hand.
My phone buzzes. Mrs.Herrera, confirming tomorrow's pantry shift at the church. My body responds immediately. Nipples hardening under silk, wetness gathering between my thighs. This is what he's done to me. One text mentioning the church and I'm clenching around nothing, remembering the weight of him on my tongue.
I check the mirrors three times pulling out. Check them every thirty seconds on the road. Julian's voice in my head: "Anyone following for more than three turns is surveillance. More than five, they're going to move." No one today. But that black sedan at the intersection looks familiar.
Miami wraps around me like a designer noose. All surface beauty and hidden violence.
The black sedan appears twice on the drive up. Different positions in traffic but the same plates. I take an unnecessary exit, loop back, and manage to lose them. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe they're getting sloppy. Maybe they want me to know they're watching.
Reyes's office occupies the fortieth floor of a Brickell tower, the kind of address that sounds expensive just to pronounce. The elevator has cameras in all four corners. I keep my face angled down, widowed and shy.
The receptionist has cheekbones that could cut glass and eyes that track everything. She watches me like she's memorizing my face for a report.
