I know about the baby. And I know three priests sharing one woman makes quite a story. “Clergy Impregnate Young Volunteer” would make national headlines. Twenty thousand keeps me quiet. You have one week.
“Mierda.” The word escapes before I can stop it, my accent thickening with rage that makes my hands shake.
Adrian takes the letter from my hands, his gray eyes scanning the words with an expression that matches how I’m feeling.
I watch his jaw clench, see the muscle jump beneath his skin, and know he’s fighting the same battle I am.
“I’m calling her.” His voice is ice wrapped in barely contained fury.
He pulls out his phone, dialing the number Diane left at the bottom of her extortion note. The call connects on the second ring, and Adrian puts it on speaker so we can all hear.
“I was wondering when you’d call.” Diane’s smoker’s rasp fills the office, smug and confident. “Did Charlie give you my letter?”
“Yes.” Adrian’s voice drops to something dangerous, something that reminds me of the boxer he used to be. “And here’s my response. No.”
The silence that follows is heavy with shock.
“You’re refusing?” Diane’s voice rises. “Do you understand what I can do to you? To Charlie? I’ll go to every news station, every tabloid. I’ll make sure the whole world knows what you’ve been doing.”
“Go ahead.” Adrian leans forward, his hands gripping the edge of his desk. “We have recordings of your previous extortion attempts. Witnesses to your manipulation. Documentation of every threat you’ve made.” His gray eyes find mine, and I see the violence barely restrained there. “You try to destroy us, and we’ll make sure everyone knows exactly what kind of mother you are. The kind who abandoned her daughter at two years old. The kind who came back twenty-three years later only to blackmail her.”
I hear Diane’s sharp intake of breath through the speaker. Adrian’s not bluffing. We’ve been documenting everything since she first appeared, building our own case against her manipulation.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she says, but her voice lacks conviction.
“Try me.” Adrian’s voice is pure steel. “Stay away from Charlie. Stay away from St. Michael’s. And if you ever contact any of us again, I’ll make sure the authorities know about your extortion attempts.” He pauses, letting the threat sink in. “Do we understand each other?”
The line goes dead. Adrian sets his phone down with deliberate precision, and I watch his hands shake slightly as he releases the desk.
Charlie sags against the doorway, her face pale. “She tried again.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “My mother tried one more time to destroy me.”
I cross to her before I can think, pulling her against my chest.
She fits perfectly in my arms, her body warm and soft in all the right places.
I bury my face in her hair, breathing in the vanilla scent that’s become as necessary as air.
“Nunca más,” I murmur against her temple. Never again. “Te prometo, querida.She’ll never hurt you again.”
The choir loft is dark when Elijah finds me hours later, the only light coming from the moon streaming through the stained glass windows. I’m sitting at the piano bench but not playing, just staring at the keys were Elijah finds peace and comfort.
The letter from Father Castellano burns in my pocket like a brand.
“Adrian told me,” Elijah says quietly, settling beside me on the bench. “About the offer.”
My jaw clenches. “He shouldn’t have.”
“He’s worried about you. We all are.” Elijah’s fingers trace the piano keys without pressing them, a nervous gesture I recognize. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“What’s there to talk about?” My accent thickens with frustration. “I have six months to decide between the vocation I abandoned, that I used to want, and the woman who’s become my entire world.”
Elijah is quiet for a moment, his crystalline blue eyes studying my profile. “I never took final vows,” he says finally. “I serve as a brother, not a priest. Do you know why?”
I shake my head.
“Because I realized that serving God doesn’t require a collar.” His voice is soft but certain. “Love and faith aren’t mutually exclusive, Marcus. The Church’s rules about celibacy are man-made, not a divine mandate. Jesus never said we couldn’t love. He commanded we did.”
The words hit like stones. I think about Charlie’s face when she told us about the baby, the fear and hope warring in her expression. About Adrian’s fierce protectiveness. About Elijah’s gentle strength. About the family we’ve built in shadows.
