“You’re wrong.” I shift closer, my voice dropping to something fierce. “Isabella isn’t you, and that’s exactly why she’ll never be enough.”
“How can you say that?” Charlie’s laugh is bitter. “Look at me. I’m twenty-five, living in a church apartment, working off a debt because I stole from the collection plate. I’m nobody. She’s…she’s everything.”
“She’s his past.” I finally give in to the need to touch her, my hand finding hers. The contact sends electricity shooting up my arm, and I watch her breath catch. “You’re his present. His future. You’re what all of us want, Charlie. Not because you’re perfect, but because you’re real.”
“Then why does it feel like you’re all pulling away?” Her fingers tighten on mine, desperate. “Why does Adrian look through me like I don’t exist? Why does Marcus maintain that distance like I’m poison? Why do you only touch me when no one’s watching?”
The questions hit like physical blows because she’s right. We’re hurting her in the name of protecting her, and I don’t know how to make her understand that every moment of distance is agony for us too.
“The Bishop,” I start, but she cuts me off.
“I know about the investigation. I know we have to be careful. But this doesn’t feel like careful, Elijah. This feels like you’re all preparing to let me go.”
“Never.” The word comes out fierce, certain. “We’re not letting you go. We’re just…we’re trying to survive until the Bishop leaves. Until the threats pass. Until we can breathe again.”
Charlie wants to believe me. I can see it in her eyes, in the way her body leans toward mine despite the doubt still written across her face.
But Isabella’s presence has planted seeds of insecurity that are taking root, growing into something that could destroy us from the inside.
That, and the surprise arrival of her absentee mother. The person who abandoned her when she was just a toddler.
I pull her close, finally giving in to the need to hold her. She fits perfectly against my chest, her body trembling with exhausted sobs. I press my lips to her hair, breathing in the vanilla and cinnamon scent that’s become as necessary as air.
“Isabella will never be enough,” I whisper against her temple. “Because she’s not you.”
That evening, I find them in the church basement.
Adrian, Marcus, and Charlie, surrounded by inspection reports and legal documents spread across the old table.
The single bare bulb swings overhead, casting dancing shadows across their exhausted faces.
Adrian’s cassock is rumpled, his gray eyes dark with barely contained fury as he reviews the fire marshal’s report.
Marcus leans against the stone wall, his tattooed arms crossed over his chest.
Charlie sits at the table, her dress wrinkled, her hair escaping its bun, looking young and fierce and heartbreakingly beautiful.
“The website will take days to fix,” Adrian says, his voice rough. “The inspection reports will be filed with the city. The online reviews are destroying our reputation. Victory Life is systematically dismantling us, and we’re just…taking it.”
“What choice do we have?” Marcus’s accent thickens with frustration. “We fight back, we become like them. We stay above it, we die slowly.”
Charlie looks up, her hazel eyes moving between the three of us. “Then maybe it’s time to stop playing defense.”
The words hang in the air, heavy with implication. I watch Adrian’s jaw clench, see Marcus’s hands curl into fists.
We’ve been trying so hard to maintain our moral high ground, to be better than Whitmore and his prosperity gospel poison.
But maybe that’s exactly what he’s counting on.
“I may have something,” I say quietly, thinking of my search earlier. I didn’t find hard evidence, but there’s smoke covering something up. “I’ve been looking into Victory Life church. They’re hiding something. Maybe financial fraud or affairs or money laundering or something else. I need more time, but I’ll find it. Everything we need to destroy him.”
“Using it makes us no better than he is,” Adrian argues, but his voice lacks conviction.
“Does it?” Charlie stands, moving to the center of our small circle. “He’s attacking us with lies. We’d be defending ourselves with truth. That’s not the same thing.”
I watch her face in the dim light, see the determination there mixed with exhaustion and hurt. She’s been crying over Marcus and Isabella, spiraling into insecurity, but now she’s fighting. For us. For this place. For what we’ve built together.
Marcus pushes off the wall, his dark eyes finding Charlie’s. “You’re right. We can’t keep taking hits and hoping they’ll stop. Whitmore won’t stop until we’re destroyed.”
