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A tremor shudders through him. His eyes widen with something that might be fear. Or guilt. Maybe both.

“Do you think Levi will talk?” I whisper. “Do you think he’ll tell me what you all were really doing while we prayed in pews and smiled for potluck photos?”

His hand lifts, a trembling thing, and points to the photograph. His lips crack open, and then, a word. Cracked, brittle, dying:

“Stop.”

The breath catches in my throat. I haven’t heard his voice in years. But I don’t flinch.

I smile.

“Stop?” I echo. “You want me to stop? After everything you did. After the others you trained to do it for you?”

His eyes shut tight. His body pulls in on itself. His knuckles pale against the armrests.

I rise.

“You don’t get to make demands anymore,” I say. “Not after what I found in the cellar. Not after what I saw in those photos. You really thought I’d keep playing the obedient daughter while your sins bloomed like fungus in the dark?”

I cross to him again, hold up the journal.

“Levi isn’t the only one,” I say. “There are others. Men you used to call brothers. Men who followed your sermons like commandments.”

His eyes snap open. Sharp. Wet. Pleading.

I drop the journal into his lap. The same pages he once clutched like scripture. It falls open to the page where his jagged handwriting circles one name like a noose.

Levi Harris.

“Was this your legacy?” I whisper. “A trail of rot and ruin? Did you keep these notes for nostalgia, or just in case you needed to find your way back?”

His hand fumbles at the book, trying to shove it away. But it slips. Lands on the floor with a dull slap. A sound too loud in this small, suffocating room.

“Pathetic,” I say. “You built a kingdom of fear, and now you’re what’s left of it. Rotting on your throne.”

I step back, my breath slow and even. He watches me, barely breathing now, as if each inhale costs more than he can afford.

“I’ll find Levi, just like I found the others. Like I’ll continue to find,” I murmur. My voice almost gentle. “And when I do, he’ll tell me everything. About Kerr. About Henry. Wolfe. The others and you.”

He jerks in the chair, head shaking violently. Another strangled cry, full of desperation.

“Stop?” I repeat. “No. Not this time.”

CHAPTER

FORTY-TWO

The house is silent behind me as I pull out of the driveway. The journal lies on the passenger seat, its weight pressing against me even from a distance. Every turn of the page has brought me closer to Levi, and now, with his address scribbled on the back of a receipt, the distance between us feels paper-thin.

The road stretches ahead, a dark ribbon carved through the dense trees. The air in the truck feels thick, suffocating, as if my father’s voice still lingers, whispering, warning me to stop. To turn back.

But I won’t.

The knife rests beneath the seat, blade polished, gleaming like a promise. My hand itches to hold it. To feel the weight. I glance at the journal beside me, the scent of old paper and leather rising like a ghost. Levi’s name is circled in red, his face still burned into my mind from the photograph.

The radio crackles to life. A sermon spills through the static.

“Sacrifice,” the preacher intones, voice smooth, oiled with conviction. “Deliverance comes through sacrifice. Only through pain can we find salvation.”