Prologue – Silas
“There.” I spin the screen toward the others gathered in the meeting trailer. “Our dear daddy's humble palace.”
Elias leans forward from his perch on the velvet couch, pale gray eyes drinking in every pixel. The ruby tip of his cane catches the lamplight as he traces patterns on the Persian rug beneath his boots.
“Gated community,” he observes. “How perfectly predictable.”
“Rich bastard's paradise,” Logan spits from the corner where he's flicking his lighter open and closed. The flame dances across his scarred knuckles. “Bet he sleeps real sound knowing there's a nice tall fence between him and the world he fucked over.”
I click through the tax records, property assessments, utility bills. Every boring detail of Malachi's comfortable little existence laid bare.
“Pool house. Tennis court. Four-car garage.” Each amenity feels like a personal insult. “Built with cult money, no doubt. Wonder how many kids went hungry so daddy dearest could have his infinity pool.”
Cole's knife appears in his hand—when doesn't it?—and he starts that familiar rhythm of flipping it between his long fingers.
“Aw, look at you getting all sentimental about the good old days,” he drawls.
“Funny.” I pull up the security company's records. “Golden Gate Protection Services. Basic package. Motion sensors, cameras at the front gate. Nothing we can't handle.”
Jonah shifts in his chair, and even that small movement makes the whole trailer creak. His green eyes—those fucking Prophet eyes he got from his own piece-of-shit father—study the screen with quiet intensity.
“How many people in the house?” His voice carries that gentle rumble that somehow makes everything sound reasonable, even when we're planning to terrorize a seventy-year-old man.
“Just him and the new wife. Trophy number three, goes by Bethany.” I click to her social media. Blonde. Botoxed. Young enough to be his granddaughter. “Married her last spring. Probably thinks she hit the jackpot with a distinguished older gentleman.”
“Oh, she's about to learn differently,” Logan says with a grin that would make devils nervous.
“We stick to the plan,” Elias says, and there's steel in his voice. Command. “Three nights of shows first. Let the whole town know the Seven Sins Carnival is here. Build the anticipation.”
“Psychological warfare,” Marek adds from the shadows near the bookshelf. His light gray eyes reflect the lamplight like a cat's. “Fear works better when it has time to ferment.”
I love the way this man's mind works.
“Plus,” Cole adds, still playing with that knife, “gives us time to scout the neighborhood. Learn the rhythms. Figure out when Bethany goes to her Pilates class and when your daddy takes his evening constitutional.”
“Speaking of reconnaissance...” I pull up another window, fingers dancing across the keys. “Our dear father has quite the digital footprint for a former cult leader. LinkedIn profile, country club membership, charitable foundation board positions.”
“Charitable foundation,” Logan snorts. “What's it called, the Make Malachi Richer Foundation?”
“Close. The Bellmour Youth Initiative.” The irony burns like acid in my throat. “Helping at-risk children find their path.”
The silence that follows has teeth.
Jonah breaks it first. “He's still collecting kids.”
“Different method, same sickness,” Rowe says quietly. It's more words than he's spoken all evening, and they land with the weight of personal experience.
Elias stands, begins that familiar pacing around the small space. His rings catch the light with each gesture of his hands.
“We end it,” he says simply. “All of it. The foundation, the comfortable retirement, the peaceful sleep. We show Bellmour exactly what their upstanding citizen really is.”
“And if he runs?” Cole asks. “Soon as he sees us, he'll know what's coming.”
“Where's he going to run to?” I pull up his financial records—bank accounts, credit cards, investment portfolios. “Man's got roots here. Assets. A reputation to maintain. Besides...”
I click over to the medical records I shouldn't have been able to access but did anyway.
“Prostate cancer. Stage two. Treatment at Bellmour General twice a week. He's not exactly in marathon-running shape.”
“Karma's a beautiful thing,” Logan says, and his smile is all teeth.
“We'll paint the town red before we paint his house,” Cole suggests. “Really let the anticipation build. Nothing like a good old-fashioned circus to get people talking.”
“The Sanctum of Ash rises from its grave,” Marek intones, shuffling his tarot cards with practiced ease. “The dead children speak through us.”
Sometimes the way he talks gives me chills. Tonight, it gives me satisfaction.
“I've been thinking about that,” I say, minimizing the laptop screen and focusing on my brothers. “About what we say to him. How we make him understand.”
“We don't say anything,” Elias replies, stopping his pacing to look directly at me. “We show him. The way he showed us what power looked like when we were kids.”
“Oh, I like this energy,” Cole purrs. “Very Old Testament. Very eye-for-an-eye.”
“He took our mothers,” I continue, the words coming faster now as the plan crystallizes. “Mine and Marek's. Yours and Elias's childhoods. All of our innocence. What does a man like that fear most?”
“Exposure,” Jonah says immediately. “His reputation getting destroyed.”
“Close.” I lean back in my chair. “He fears irrelevance. Being forgotten. That's why he needs the foundation, the social standing, the young wife. He needs to matter.”
“So we make him disappear,” Logan says, understanding lighting his eyes. “Not killing—something worse. We make him nobody.”
“We erase Malachi Voss,” Elias agrees, and there's something in his voice I haven't heard before. Something hungry and patient and absolutely ruthless. “By the time we're done, he'll beg us to put him out of his misery.”
Cole's knife stills in his hand for the first time all evening.
“Boys,” he says with genuine admiration, “I think this might be our masterpiece.”
The trailer falls quiet except for the distant sounds of the carnival being erected outside—rides assembled, trailers positioned, the eternal rhythm of our nomadic life. But tomorrow night, we perform for an audience. And three nights after that...
“Confession is mercy,” I murmur, already imagining the blue spray paint on white colonial siding.
“Resistance is punishment,” the others respond in unison.
My father is about to learn both.