But Marcus and Elijah are watching, and the kitchen suddenly feels too small for all of us and our shared desperation.
“He’s bluffing,” Marcus says, but his voice lacks conviction. “He doesn’t actually know anything.”
“Doesn’t he?” I meet his dark eyes. “Someone has been watching us. Someone has been documenting. The PI, the surveillance photos, now this. Whitmore is too confident for this to be a bluff.”
Elijah leans against the counter, his angel face troubled. “What do we do?”
“We don’t give him what he wants.” Charlie’s voice is steadier than mine. “We don’t let him win.”
I look at her, this woman who stole from my church and somehow became the center of my entire world.
Her hazel eyes are fierce with determination, and I’m struck again by how strong she is, how brave.
She’s not running, not hiding, not letting fear make her decisions.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, making us all jump. I pull it out and see an email notification from an unknown address.
The subject line reads:Regarding Your Property.
My stomach drops as I open it.
The attachment loads slowly, revealing an architectural rendering that makes my blood run cold. It’s St. Michael’s, but not as it is now.The exterior facade remains, but everything else has been gutted and modernized.
Sleek glass, contemporary lighting, Victory Life’s logo prominently displayed where our cross should be.
Below the image, a single line.
This is happening. The only question is whether you profit from it or lose everything. You have 48 hours to reconsider. –DW
24
CHARLIE
I find them in Adrian’s quarters near midnight, drawn by the light spilling beneath his door and the weight of everything threatening to crush us.
The architectural rendering of St. Michael’s gutted and modernized still burns in my mind. Whitmore’s forty-eight-hour ultimatum ticks down like a bomb, and I can’t bear to be alone with my fear anymore.
Adrian opens the door before I can knock, his gray eyes dark and stormy in the dim light.
He’s still wearing his cassock, but his rosary beads are wrapped so tightly around his knuckles they’ve left red marks on his skin.
Behind him, I see Marcus leaning against the desk, his tattooed arms crossed over his bare chest, wearing only pajama pants that hang low on his hips.
Elijah sits on the edge of Adrian’s bed, his golden hair mussed, his crystalline blue eyes tracking my entrance with an intensity that makes my breath catch.
“Charlie.” My name sounds rough in Adrian’s voice, like it costs him something to say it. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know.” I step inside anyway, and he closes the door behind me with a soft click that sounds like surrender. “But I can’t stay away. Not tonight. Not when everything feels like it’s ending.”
The air in the small room crackles with desperate energy.
I watch Adrian’s jaw clench, see the way his eyes drop to trace the curve of my body beneath the simple dress I’m wearing. His gaze lingers on the swell of my breasts, the dip of my waist, the bare legs visible below the hem.
When his eyes meet mine again, they’re burning with barely restrained hunger.
Marcus pushes off the desk, moving closer. “We’ve been trying to figure out what to do about Whitmore’s threat.” His accent thickens as his dark eyes trace the same path Adrian’s did, cataloging every detail. “But all I can think about is you.”
“All any of us can think about is you,” Elijah adds softly, standing from the bed. His lean body moves with that fluid grace that makes everything look like choreography, and I watch the muscles shift beneath his thin t-shirt. “We’re supposed to be planning, strategizing, protecting what’s ours. Instead, we’re just…wanting.”
